Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century

Ladies and Gentlemen, I give you what has to be the classic of all classic Looney Tunes cartoons. Duck Dodgers (or Daffy Duck) is summoned to head to Planet X to retrieve more of the shaving cream atom for Earth. He finds it (with a little help from his Eager Young First Class Space Cadet Porky Pig), but runs into trouble when he discovers that Marvin the Martian wants to claim the planet for Mars!

I don't care how many times I watch it, I still burst out laughing when Duck Dodgers makes out his plan and realizes that he doesn't understand it! This is one of my personal favorites, and I pity anyone who hasn't seen this classic cartoon. This is truly one of Chuck Jones's masterpieces. And now this comment is claimed for the Earth in the name of DUCK DODGERS IN THE 24 1/2TH CENTURY!!!!!!

When the earth's supplies of the shaving foam atom run low, the scientific community turns to Duck Dodgers, the space travelling adventurer, to seek out a new supply. Dodgers travels to the unexplored planet X, rich in the atom, to claim it for earth; however a Martian is also on the planet to claim it for Mars. A battle ensues.

For many people this is Daffy's best cartoon; it certainly seems to have stuck in many peoples' childhood memories, mine included. The plot spoofs the Buck Rodgers series of the period reasonably well and sees Daffy going to planet X and battling Marvin with a variety of funny weapons. It starts a little slowly but gets better when Marvin appears. The gags may not be brilliant but they have a certain imagination and energy to them that make it all work pretty well.

I much prefer Daffy in his `crazy duck' personae rather than his later work, which is probably why I only enjoyed this film rather than loved it. Here he seems quite restrained and it is only occasionally when his character shines through the character of Dodgers. Porky has little to do but is reasonably amusing in his minor role, but it is Marvin that gives the best support in his rather one-dimensional role.

It will stick in my mind because it is such a good little spoof but it isn't as good as perhaps it has been remembered. On top of that, I didn't see any of the Daffy I really love and that was a problem for me.

I can't believe only two people commented on this so far. This has to be Chuck Jones' best work of all time. This is one cartoon I can watch over and over again. I crack up every time Daffy says his line about the disintegrating pistol.

A lot of comments are saying this is one of the best cartoons ever. I'm not going to go that far but I give credit again to Chuck Jones and Michael Maltese for making some of the most creative cartoons in the history of animation. Loved the back and forth between Daffy and Marvin in trying to one-up each other whether it's claiming Planet X for Earth or Mars, pulling disintegrating guns on each other (with Daffy's actually literally disintegrating!), or passing bullets from their guns with threatening messages with Daffy's last one saying "Ouch!" And space cadet Porky once again proves how smarter than Daffy he really is. So while I don't think Duck Dodgers in the 24 and a Half Century is a great cartoon, it's certainly a very good one.

Sometime in the 2300s, Earth has run out of illidium phosdex, used to make shaving cream, so the government sends Duck Dodgers (Daffy Duck) and his cadet (Porky Pig) to get some from Planet X (to get there, Duck Dodgers suggests that they do a nonsensical zigzag, but his cadet says that they should just follow Planets A, B, C, etc.). Unfortunately for Duck Dodgers and his cadet (but fortunately for the audience), Marvin the Martian is also trying to claim the planet. After that, the rest of the cartoon consists of Daffy and Marvin trying to destroy each other with progressively wackier and wackier weapons (which was probably an allusion to the arms buildup in the Cold War).

"Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2th Century" is mostly Daffy and Porky doing their usual crazy stuff, with some great one-liners: "Whoops. Had the silly thing in reverse." and "This planet ain't big enough for the two of us!" This is what classic cartoons are all about!