In his book, "Of Mice and Magic," Leonard Maltin cites "Aqua Duck" as an example of the nadir of the Warner Bros. animation studio. Indeed, it is very late; released in September 1963, not long before Warners closed its studio proper and began to outsource such work to another, employing the very same people that they had previously retained. However, even the quality of this short is miles above anything done by the DePatie-Freling unit in the later 1960s. Daffy is out in the desert, succumbing to dehydration, and manages to excavate a large gold nugget in the course of his search for water. Being a "greedy little duck," he rebuffs repeated attempts by a silent pack-rat to offer him water in exchange for the nugget. It's essentially a one man show for Daffy, and in its use of spare, desert backgrounds, "Aqua Duck" tries to recapture some of the effect, and magic, of "Duck Amuck" with a more conventional storyline derived from the tradition of the Western.
Although the finished product employs nowhere near the level of creativity of "Duck Amuck," it works well enough to at least fit in with Daffy's other output; he doesn't do anything we wouldn't expect him to do, and he does not play off the pack-rat as unnecessarily mean as he does with Speedy Gonzales in DePatie-Freling subjects. The music score, by William Lava, is dedicated rather than generic, and while it does not employ the humorous synchronicity of a Stalling-Franklyn score it doesn't get in the way either. Mel Blanc only has to play one character, and the timing is a little rushed as in later Daffy Duck cartoons, but not nearly as badly.
While "Aqua Duck" is less than deserving of its terrible reputation, that doesn't mean that it is altogether free from the brush of failure that rather obviously paints later Daffy Duck subjects. It's just a matter of the Warner Bros. animation studio, with resources growing short, attempting to achieve something convincing and characteristic of its product while waiting to learn of its fate. In a way, "Aqua Duck" can be seen as a metaphor for what the Warners' unit was going through at the time, in the same manner as so many of their other cartoons have that sort of self-confessional tone. In this case, though, they are trying find a way to make some rain, which, for the studio, never came.
Although the finished product employs nowhere near the level of creativity of "Duck Amuck," it works well enough to at least fit in with Daffy's other output; he doesn't do anything we wouldn't expect him to do, and he does not play off the pack-rat as unnecessarily mean as he does with Speedy Gonzales in DePatie-Freling subjects. The music score, by William Lava, is dedicated rather than generic, and while it does not employ the humorous synchronicity of a Stalling-Franklyn score it doesn't get in the way either. Mel Blanc only has to play one character, and the timing is a little rushed as in later Daffy Duck cartoons, but not nearly as badly.
While "Aqua Duck" is less than deserving of its terrible reputation, that doesn't mean that it is altogether free from the brush of failure that rather obviously paints later Daffy Duck subjects. It's just a matter of the Warner Bros. animation studio, with resources growing short, attempting to achieve something convincing and characteristic of its product while waiting to learn of its fate. In a way, "Aqua Duck" can be seen as a metaphor for what the Warners' unit was going through at the time, in the same manner as so many of their other cartoons have that sort of self-confessional tone. In this case, though, they are trying find a way to make some rain, which, for the studio, never came.