. . . Americans will be aware that many if not most of them sport at least THREE monikers: A)a "White Man's" name, B)an "Indian Language" handle, and C)an English translation of the latter. Since Warner Bros. has always been on the cutting edge of these sort of cultural nuances, it should come as no surprise to viewers that the female descendant of Early Asian Immigrants (via the Aleutian Land Bridge) answers to BOTH "Daisy June" (her A name) AND "Little Beaver" (her C descriptor, which she calls herself at 3:40 when she exits her wigwam, leaving Daffy alone with her lover, escaped convict #603-732). Little Beaver's "B" designation is NOT given here, since Warner Bros. knows that Americans cannot handle the Truth. Though Daffy calls himself "Little Beaver" as he's French Kissing the hulking jail breaker in the guise of Daisy June, this does NOT make Daisy any less of a Little Beaver, despite what the cast credits typed up long after the fact may say.
4 Reviews
Anyone familiar with "tribal traditions" of so-called "Native" . . .
oscaralbert31 August 2017
Warning: Spoilers
Daffy the Singing Cowboy
TheLittleSongbird7 September 2017
Daffy Duck is one of Looney Tunes' best, most interesting in personality and most iconic characters and one of my favourites in animation. His best cartoons are cartoon masterpieces and there is good reason as to why Daffy is used frequently.
'The Daffy Duckaroo' is not one of his best cartoons by any stretch of the imagination and is an uneven cartoon, but there are a lot of good elements and when it's good it's very enjoyable. Considering that Daffy is such a great character it was a little frustrating that 'The Daffy Duckaroo' wasn't better. The plot is thin and rather familiar and some of the cartoon may not bode well with the easily offended.
It is also let down by its tacked on, misplaced and heavy-handed ending, that is just an attempt to address a topical gag that doesn't gel with the rest of the cartoon and reminds us at how it was made in WWII. It also brings one of the best scenes to an abrupt stop which is a shame. A lot of cartoons were made in this period, not all of them did this.
However, the animation is very good. The black and white is crisp and there is meticulous background detail and smooth character drawing.
Carl Stalling to me was always the best Warner Brothers/Looney Tunes composer as well as the most consistent. 'The Daffy Duckaroo' is another example of consistent greatness, his music is lushly orchestration, cleverly synchronised, vibrant, characterful and not only fits and adds to the action but actually enhances it.
Regarding the gags, while there could have been more and could have been more witty, they are still clever and funny, the highlights being Daffy in drag, the chase sequence and the Charles Boyer impersonations. Daffy, even in reasonably early development, has his manic, energetic and witty persona and carries the cartoon with aplomb.
Mel "The Man with 1000 Voices" Blanc is characteristically brilliant.
Overall, decent but uneven. 7/10 Bethany Cox
'The Daffy Duckaroo' is not one of his best cartoons by any stretch of the imagination and is an uneven cartoon, but there are a lot of good elements and when it's good it's very enjoyable. Considering that Daffy is such a great character it was a little frustrating that 'The Daffy Duckaroo' wasn't better. The plot is thin and rather familiar and some of the cartoon may not bode well with the easily offended.
It is also let down by its tacked on, misplaced and heavy-handed ending, that is just an attempt to address a topical gag that doesn't gel with the rest of the cartoon and reminds us at how it was made in WWII. It also brings one of the best scenes to an abrupt stop which is a shame. A lot of cartoons were made in this period, not all of them did this.
However, the animation is very good. The black and white is crisp and there is meticulous background detail and smooth character drawing.
Carl Stalling to me was always the best Warner Brothers/Looney Tunes composer as well as the most consistent. 'The Daffy Duckaroo' is another example of consistent greatness, his music is lushly orchestration, cleverly synchronised, vibrant, characterful and not only fits and adds to the action but actually enhances it.
Regarding the gags, while there could have been more and could have been more witty, they are still clever and funny, the highlights being Daffy in drag, the chase sequence and the Charles Boyer impersonations. Daffy, even in reasonably early development, has his manic, energetic and witty persona and carries the cartoon with aplomb.
Mel "The Man with 1000 Voices" Blanc is characteristically brilliant.
Overall, decent but uneven. 7/10 Bethany Cox
The Daffy Duckaroo was an uneven Daffy Duck cartoon by Norman McCabe
tavm30 August 2010
Just watched this Warner Bros. cartoon on YouTube as linked from the What About Thad? site. It seems Daffy Duck is a movie cowboy crooner who decides to retire to live in the real west desert. He encounters an American Indian girl duck he immediately falls for. Unfortunately, she has a relationship with a big human Indian named Little Beaver. When he returns, Daffy disguises himself as another female Indian who Little Beaver now falls for due to Daffy's way of dress and his moves...There's some funny scenes of both Daffy with the female duck and Little Beaver with Daffy of them both impersonating Charles Boyer and a few more visual and verbal gags I liked but by the end when a topical gag related to the situation of World War II comes on, it just confused me. So despite some nice visual touches by director Norman McCabe, The Daffy Duckaroo was quite an uneven effort to me.
Just a Mini Ha-Ha.
F Gwynplaine MacIntyre3 February 2007
Warning: Spoilers
Amazingly enough, here's a Daffy Duck cartoon that actually gives him a backstory! According to 'The Daffy Duckaroo', it seems that our Merrie Melodies mallard WAS a big singing-cowboy star, but he gave it up because (as he says) "I want to be a lone ... ranger." If this premise had come along a few years later, when audiences were much more familiar with Daffy -- and more aware that his lust for fame and fortune vastly surpasses his singing ability -- nobody would believe it. But this is a comparatively early Daffy toon, when the character was still developing, so ... what the heck.
Riding along through the Painted Desert, Daffy encounters a winsome Amerindian maiden, a sweet Sioux who pitches woo to him while speaking in a prole Jewish accent. (Not a Brooklyn accent, as somebody else has claimed on this site.) She holds up a sign marked "DO NOT DISTURBUM". But along comes her boyfriend, a huge Red Indian with a big beezer named Little Beaver (an obvious reference to the 'Red Ryder' B movies). For some reason, Daffy decides to dress up like a squaw to take the squawk out of this guy's tomahawk. Heap ugh!
I try to make allowances for earlier generations' taste in humour. The Warner Brothers cartoons have an ongoing motif of female impersonation, which can be very funny unless (stand up, Bob Clampett) it gets too fetishistic. And I also understand the Looney Toons' penchant for racial humour, regrettable as it is. But when those two themes both happen at the same go, I stop laughing. When Bugs Bunny impersonates a Japanese woman (in 'Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips') or here, where Daffy pretends to be an Amerindian girl, I find the racial impersonation ON TOP OF the sexual impersonation to be just a bit too distressing. Daffy Duck en femme simply isn't as funny as Bugs Bunny in that same mode. Daffy dressed as Minnehaha rates, at best, a mini ha-ha.
SPOILERS COMING: Warner Brothers toons from the World War Two era tend to finish with a gag that was very topical at the time, but which is incomprehensible to modern audiences. (Such as a reference to 'A cards'.) In 'The Daffy Duckaroo', a fast-paced chase sequence abruptly peters out with a wartime shortages gag about rubber tyres, ending in a very weak joke about a putt-putt: a vehicle designed for low fuel consumption, in the days of severe petrol rationing. Since wartime shortages and rationing were far worse here in Britain than in Daffy Duck's America, I just can't laugh. Daffy dropped a brick this time, and I'll rate this cartoon just 3 out of 10.
Riding along through the Painted Desert, Daffy encounters a winsome Amerindian maiden, a sweet Sioux who pitches woo to him while speaking in a prole Jewish accent. (Not a Brooklyn accent, as somebody else has claimed on this site.) She holds up a sign marked "DO NOT DISTURBUM". But along comes her boyfriend, a huge Red Indian with a big beezer named Little Beaver (an obvious reference to the 'Red Ryder' B movies). For some reason, Daffy decides to dress up like a squaw to take the squawk out of this guy's tomahawk. Heap ugh!
I try to make allowances for earlier generations' taste in humour. The Warner Brothers cartoons have an ongoing motif of female impersonation, which can be very funny unless (stand up, Bob Clampett) it gets too fetishistic. And I also understand the Looney Toons' penchant for racial humour, regrettable as it is. But when those two themes both happen at the same go, I stop laughing. When Bugs Bunny impersonates a Japanese woman (in 'Bugs Bunny Nips the Nips') or here, where Daffy pretends to be an Amerindian girl, I find the racial impersonation ON TOP OF the sexual impersonation to be just a bit too distressing. Daffy Duck en femme simply isn't as funny as Bugs Bunny in that same mode. Daffy dressed as Minnehaha rates, at best, a mini ha-ha.
SPOILERS COMING: Warner Brothers toons from the World War Two era tend to finish with a gag that was very topical at the time, but which is incomprehensible to modern audiences. (Such as a reference to 'A cards'.) In 'The Daffy Duckaroo', a fast-paced chase sequence abruptly peters out with a wartime shortages gag about rubber tyres, ending in a very weak joke about a putt-putt: a vehicle designed for low fuel consumption, in the days of severe petrol rationing. Since wartime shortages and rationing were far worse here in Britain than in Daffy Duck's America, I just can't laugh. Daffy dropped a brick this time, and I'll rate this cartoon just 3 out of 10.
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