utgard14 It's Daffy Duck versus his sadistic animator in one of the all-time greatest Looney Tunes cartoons. It's a brilliant and experimental short from the great Chuck Jones. It's very creative and very funny from beginning to end. The animation is gorgeous. Everything is constantly changing (backgrounds, Daffy's appearance, etc). The music is wonderful. Mel Blanc's voicework is, of course, perfect. The script is hilarious and full of great lines. Love the ending. I just can't see a single thing wrong with this classic cartoon. It would spawn many copycats over the years in various mediums. Even Jones himself would go back to the idea with Rabbit Rampage a couple of years later. It's one of my top five Looney Tunes shorts and, I think, the best solo Daffy cartoon ever made.

TheLittleSongbird There is nothing here that hasn't been said already. This is by far one of the better Daffy Duck cartoons, for it is witty, inventive and hilarious like a Looney Tunes cartoon should be. The concept has been done before, so it just loses out on the originality element, but I overlook this every time I watch this, because everything else works brilliantly. Where to begin praising it? The genius script, Daffy's performance or the animation? Well I'd best start off with the animation. The animation is wonderful, colourful and solid looking, looking so good after all these years and the backgrounds themselves are picturesque. The music is a real joy to the ears, if there is anything I love more than anything else in the world it is good music, and I loved it here. And the script? I seriously need to think of another Daffy cartoon where I was laughing so hard non- stop. The script was a gem, full of witty asides and quotable lines. Mel Blanc's absolutely fantastic vocal performance is to be praised too, Daffy was at his manic and cynical best here, and Blanc delivered flawlessly.All in all, as far as I can see there is nothing wrong with Duck Amuck. 10/10 Bethany Cox

jeffcox31 Duck Amuck is a brilliantly done cartoon. Too often cartoons are just seen as a bunch of random wacky jokes, but Chuck Jones adds another level: character driven comedy. To be sure, this cartoon is VERY wacky. But but what makes this cartoon really work is the exploration of the character of Daffy Duck. Chuck Jones was the driving force behind Daffy's change from a hyperactive, insane character who harassed others for no apparent reason into the scheming, easily angered, self centered character he is best known as today. In Duck Amuck, Jones crystallizes his vision for Daffy's new direction, showing him as a character who wishes to put on a good show for his audience, but is so easily frustrated that everything seems to be working against him. Instead of going with the flow, he flies off the handle at everything that goes wrong, which in turn is worsened by whoever is doing all of this stuff to him. In his best characterization, Daffy manages to be sympathetic enough that the audience still roots for him, even though he probably deserves whatever he has coming to him. In his worst characterization, his greediness and anger take over to the point he becomes completely unsympathetic. This cartoon and the so-called "Hunter's Trilogy" feature Daffy's best characterization, the cartoons featuring Daffy and Speedy Gonzales made in the mid 1960's have the worst.

tedg I have a small list of films I think are essential viewing. This is on it, only one of two allowed for that year.Looking at my list, there are a few animated shorts, and I think that makes sense. Animators can play games with narrative that wouldn't read in conventional presentations.This little think is only seven minutes long, but that space quite a few narrative folds are presented.Daffy is forced to be someone different as the animator changes his context. This we saw decades before with "Sherlock Jr," but Keaton's identity didn't change so radically. Here, the identities are movie stereotypes, in fact stereotypes that only exist in movies. But then Daffy is redrawn directly to be a different being, first in the same shape with different colors and then in a radically different shape, part flower. Flying from his tail/flagpole is a flag with a screw and a ball on it. Screwball comedy.Then we play with the animator manipulating the camera, far and close. Remember that this was the period of Hitchcock's developments of camera awareness, and the short may well have played in front of "Dial M" or "Rear Window."(Remember also that this was after the two similar cartoons that spoofed the rerelease of "Robin Hood," so the cartoon ABOUT movie notion was established.)Then we have the noir black curtain falling on our duck, protected temporarily by a prop, but he fights back against noir, first against the black curtain itself and then its cause, an unresolved ending. After this, we have the duck encountering a mirror image of itself and subsequently being destroyed, noir winning (as it always must). At this point in movie history, noir had. And finally, we zoom back in narrative space to see the cartoonist who has been manipulating the cartoon by pencil, brush and eraser that we see as themselves drawn elements. And behold, we see the narrator is... a cartoon character!Ted's Evaluation -- 4 of 3: Every cineliterate person should experience this.