Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur

I'm not remotely a fan of Chuck Jones, but this is one of his better efforts. The premise is intriguing: Daffy Duck (or one of his ancient ancestors) was alive 'trillions' of years ago, and crossed paths with a hungry caveman.

Casper Caveman has a pet apatosaurus named Fido, who is drawn and animated as one of Chuck Jones's usual insufferably twee critters. However, I laughed out loud when the dinosaur tags along behind his prehistoric master. Two-legged Casper and four-legged Fido each have a distinctive gait, and when they walk in unison the visual counterpoint of their movements is very funny.

For some reason, many Warners toons of this period begin with a multi-plane shot, apparently hoping to convince audiences that they can be just as 'arty' as Disney's cartoons. However, the very crude multi-plane pan near the beginning of this toon (more of a 'bi-plane'; only two planes!) is not remotely as impressive as Disney's multi-planes in 'The Old Mill' and elsewhere.

This cartoon violates the laws of physics even more than usual for Termite Terrace standards, with objects and characters able to pause in midair and change direction ditto.

Various sources have stated that the character Casper Caveman in this cartoon is a caricature of Jack Benny. Well, yes and no. The vocal performance (by Jack Lescoulie) expertly copies Benny's distinctive delivery and some of his catchphrases ('Good night, folks.'), and Jones's animation even duplicates a few of Benny's gestures. However, the character as drawn simply doesn't look like Benny, neither facially nor physically. I wonder if this was an attempt to avoid a lawsuit. Or perhaps it was down to the fact that Jack Benny (who had already made some film appearances dating back to the late 1920s) was at this point best known as a radio star, so movie audiences might not be sure of what he looked like.

An advertisement for 'Duckies' in this toon is a parody of a contemporary real-world ad for 'Luckies', i.e., Lucky Strike Cigarettes, which were the long-term sponsor of Jack Benny's radio show. (He had better luck with his next sponsor, Jell-O.)

A nice try at a slight variation of the usual Warners formula, and I'll rate this one 7 out of 10.

This begins with "Casper Caveman" waking up and walking out his front door (which has a "welcome" mat beneath it! The guy looks like Elmer Fudd but talks like Jack Benny, so it must be parody of him. Anway, Casper is starved and crank so he and his pet dinosaur, "Fido," go looking for food. He spots Daffy swimming peacefully nearby, fires a rock from a slingshot at him.....and the mania is on.

Daffy outsmarts the rock (don't ask), Fido goes goofy after being struck by that rock and assorted other things happened and few of them were funny. I love Daffy Duck cartoons, but these early ones. They are just plain stupid and his little "oh, ooh" laugh is annoying. It sounds like Tigger in Winnie The Pooh. Just because it's Daffy or Looney Tunes, doesn't guarantee it's good to be good. It almost does...but certainly not in this lame effort.

About the only thing impressive about this cartoon is the color and the fine restoration job of it for the LT Golden Collection Vol. Three set.

I find this quite a good Daffy Duck episode. Daffy is absolutely brilliant, but this is not really his episode. He is more of a side character. The people who are supposed to be the side characters and yet feel like the main characters, are Casper the Caveman and Fido the apatosaurus. You guessed it - this is set in the dino age. It is very incorrect to history, for example, humans have never been with dinosaurs. Luckily this does not spoil the episode. Anyway, unlike a few people on this site, I do not think Casper Caveman is the highlight of the episode. In fact, I think he is too harsh at points and it is only in the middle of the episode when he becomes slightly likable. Fido the dinosaur is likable throughout, very silly, cute and dog-like. Daffy is still in his early stage, with his constant "woo-hoo" and craziness, this is why he is so good. The animation is also pleasant as well. At this time the animators were still good, in later cartoons they just came up with any background that first came into their heads.

Casper the Caveman is very hungry and is ready for breakfast. Taking Fido the dino with him on his search, Casper soon finds Daffy. He tries to hunt him - but this little black duck is not going to make things easy for him!

Recommended to people who like the early Daffy Duck and dinosaurs, enjoy "Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur", a pleasant Looney Tunes classic to watch! :-)

Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur (1939)

*** (out of 4)

A caveman wakes up hungry so he grabs his dinosaur and the two go out looking for food. They stumble across Daffy Duck but he's not going to be so easy to catch.

This is another very funny short that manages to have two great characters and one less than stellar one. I will say that I think the caveman isn't all that interesting and even the vocal work for him is rather forgettable. With that said, the rest of the short is full of fun action and plenty of nice laughs including one sequence where Daffy paints a duck with bad results for the caveman. As you'd expect the animation is excellent and with the laughs this is certainly worth watching.

Daffy Duck & the Dinosaur employs some good, solid gags, but I'm not a huge fan of the early, manic-like Daffy. I thought the real star of the show was Casper Caveman, who is supposedly a caricature of Jack Benny (I'll take Paul Penna's word for it, because I really don't know!) Nevertheless, Casper had some great mannerisms and was just a funny, unsuspecting victim of Daffy's crazy plans. Speaking of crazy plans, the ending was also quite funny and refreshing when Daffy gets a little too caught up in his scheme. Overall, this is a good, solid Daffy Duck cartoon. It's not the funniest out there, but it definitely has its moments.

My IMDb Rating: 8/10