S.O.S. Daffy Duck

This is yet another old Looney Tunes classic that I have treasured for years and watch when I can. I'd really recommend it to Daffy Duck fans since the movie brings back some old throwback episodes with slight edits. You can clearly tell when the old scenes and the new scenes are meshing with one another due to the animation, but I wasn't too bothered by that.

Daffy is on his way to millionaire J.P. Cubish's house to try and make him laugh one last time. If he does so, Cubish will give him one million dollars. I'm not going to reveal anything else since that is not my style (it's also against the rules here to do so without putting up a warning, I believe), but you'll see for yourself how good the movie is if you watch it.

As you are fully aware, I am a huge Looney Tunes fan. I can't help it, when I was little, it was an all-time favourite in the household, and at 18 I still love to watch these cartoons. Some are better than others, that I agree with, it's the same with Tom and Jerry pretty much too, but when you watch Looney Tunes you are guaranteed to have great animation, energetic music, wicked humour and amazing vocal characterisations from the one and only Mel Blanc.

As for Daffy Duck's Quackbusters it is a real treat. True, it has one or two slow moments and one or two weak links, particularly the link before the Duxorcist(one of about two cartoons I knew nothing about before I watched this compilation film), where I wasn't completely sure whether the cartoon had started already or not. That said, out of all the compilation films this one has the best premise and I think overall storyline. Plus it is the overall best paced, as it does move swiftly in general.

The animation is in general very nice, more in the cartoons than in the edited bits, but the film does have some nice colourful backgrounds and also some atmospheric and spooky ones. The music is playful and energetic as well, though the song Monsters Lead Such Interesting Lives from the beginning short Night of the Living Duck was very interesting and beautifully sung by Mel Torme. The cartoon itself was an interesting start to the film.

I loved the humour too. All the Looney Tunes films have good to great humour, that sticks relatively close to the cartoons, and this is no exception. I loved the material in 1001 Rabbit Tales, I liked it even more here, in both the dialogue and sight gags it was fresh and witty like Looney Tunes humour should be. This is evident in the cartoons especially, Transylvania 6-5000 has really great dark, subtle humour particularly from the Count, and in The Abominable Snow Rabbit with the Abominable Snowman when he mistakes Daffy for a rabbit and starts naming him George. The Duxorcist was also interesting, and it was nice to see Water Water Every Hare and Hyde and Go Tweet(although that had a concept that had been done to death I was impressed how fresh and clever it was), while Claws for Alarm was very creepy and atmospheric almost as creepy as Scaredy Cat, which creeped me out big time. Daffy Dilly is a lot of fun, and is very relevant to the story, I especially loved it for the ending, while Prize Pest was also very well done. In fact, the weakest one was Punch Trunk, I still liked it don't get me wrong it was very sweet with an adorable tiny elephant but it was on the undemanding side and not as memorable as the others.

The characters are wonderful. Daffy of course is the star, like Bugs was in 1001 Rabbit Tales, while Bugs is impressive too. It was also nice to see Porky, Sylvester and Tweety, while the Count in Transylvania 6-5000 is also very memorable. The voice work is spot on, particularly with Mel Blanc who is superb in his final set of vocal performances. I can't help mention Mel Blanc constantly when praising these cartoons, it's just that his voices are a big part of their success and I think it is right to think he is one of the greatest voice actors who ever lived, he was that amazing and very rarely disappointed. Yes even with lacklustre material(like it was in some of the Speedy Gonzales cartoons) he put 100% into everything he did.

Overall, a slightly uneven but on the whole delightful compilation film. 8/10 Bethany Cox

There were quite a few of these "movies" made during mainly the 1980's and they were all basically the same thing. A bunch of the original shorts tied together by some new animation featuring those crazy characters. However, some of the shorts are not fully in there, and the new animation sequences are quite weak compared to the old shorts which makes one probably want to just watch the old shorts again. This movie's theme is basically a ghostbuster kind of theme with Daffy Duck taking the helm. I would enjoy this except it is not the old really Daffy Duck, but the newer less daffy and more smartaleck one. The new stuff is basically copying the "Ghostbusters" movie especially the scene where the female duck is possessed. Still, the shorts are funny as we have some involving Porky pig and Sylvester and Bugs and that Snowman dude. All in all a rather boring effort on their part creating new stuff that just is not all that good. However, you are still treated to some rather good classic shorts anyway.

Daffy Duck's Quackbusters is a hysterical and hilarious movie featuring the classic Warner Bros. characters: Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Sylvester, Tweety and of course Daffy Duck. Much of the movie includes clips from the old shorts to create a story about Daffy Duck against super natural forces. The new animated parts for this show are not as funny as the old clips however. All an all, I'd call this movie a classic.

This is one of several Looney Tunes compilations made by Warner brothers in the 80s, and it was the one I watched the most- and still do when it's on TV- as a youth. It's another example from the others of old 50s cartoons put together into a plot that is meant just to string one short to the next, with Mel Blanc's obviously inconsistent voice filling in. Not that his voice at 80 is hard to take at all, but it does become jarring on repeat viewings to suddenly get that age gap just in-between lines of dialog, as if we as the audience didn't notice. The story for the film springs off from a short where Daffy- selling goofy objects on the cheap- tries to sucker JP Cubish for all of his loot by getting him to laugh (which he does finally, hilariously, by getting hit with pies). He leaves his fortune to Daffy with the provision that he use it in a 'service' kind of fashion. So, he opens up shop as a Ghostbuster racket, hiring out Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig for odd jobs out in Transylvania and haunted houses. It all leads up, in the end, to a humiliation due to a tiny elephant.

Like with the less successful string-together flicks of the early 80's, the storyline that is put together for Quackbusters is less than great, even a little too clunky. As a kid I didn't really put much bother to it, but again on repeat viewings it becomes about as obvious as Sylvester's jitters get. One such example is the very flat and ill-conceived bit where Daffy goes to the possessed woman's place. On the other hand, out of the all of the other animated films put together with the shorts- save for the Bugs Bunny and Road Runner Movie- this has the best shorts. My favorites include when Tweety gets the Heckle & Hyde treatment (very, very funny), or when Sylvester gets terrified by mice under a sheet. But the most indelible lines, in just sheer ludicrous and hysterical, fall-on-the-floor funny parts, are when Bugs tricks around the Blood Count ("Walla-walla-Washington", still gets me every time), and when Bugs and Daffy visit the Imbominable snowman. The film is also topped with a pre-short by a fairly humorous song sung by Mel Torme.

So, if you're one of those fans of Looney Tunes that hasn't seen the compilation films before, this is probably the best place to start, as the sum of the shorts are far greater and worth your time than what might be found in the other string-together films. That it still remains memorable more for the older shorts than the newer material is a credit of the late, great Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, and Robert McKimson (the three ORIGINAL directors of the films, not of the in-between segments).