“Name your poison, kid.”
Supervision by Norman McCabe; Story by Don Christensen; Animation by Vive Risto; Musical Direction by Carl W. Stalling. A Looney Tune released on May 2, 1942.
Ducks fly south when winter starts to hit. And fly north again when summer returns to their original residence. As such, they live in a perpetual state of blissful warmth and never suffer from seasonal depression. How I envy them. But according to Daffy, it’s gotten old. He opts to stay behind this migration to see what winter is like. I can guarantee that the thrill will run out by the smallest fraction of time it took for you to somehow lose interest in the only time of the year worth living through.
Things start out great. With a full lake to himself, Daffy can splash, jump and “woo-hoo” to his heart’s content. (What’s with the fade-out?) Since he has an audience, he tries showing off his fancy dives. As it is wont to do, winter ruins everything with a jump cut. Daffy switches to skating. It couldn’t get worse than this, right? Hold my cold duck. The snow, snow, snow comes down, down, down, in crushing freezing pile-ups, and anyone with half a brain would be smart to cry. Yup. In fact, it snows so hard that even the captions describing the scene can’t find Daffy. Can’t say he wasn’t warned.
Daffy is able to poke his head out of the storm to scold any of us who might have been laughing at his starvation. See, as if winter wasn’t already evil and vile enough, it also destroys a majority of food that nature’s babies need to survive. If I haven’t made myself clear enough, I was always on Heat Miser’s team. I don’t want to set the world on fire, but I can’t lie that I’d die happy. I don’t know how long Daffy has been struggling by this point, but he’s starting to see trees as meat. Protein! Delicious, filling protein! You’re needed!
Then, a blessed aroma. Food! It is food, right? Surprisingly, there’s no ‘could be’ joke. The scent vapor just spells ‘yeah food’. Daffy doesn’t have a nose to follow wherever it goes, but nostrils are enough. The scent is coming from a cabin just yonder. Inside of which dwell a couple of natural duck predators: a fox and a weasel. The weasel will be called ‘Abigail’ later on, so that’s his canon name. The fox has none, so if I had more of a following, I’d allow readers to vote on the name he’ll receive. Instead, I’ma call him Jackson.
These two have food all right, but they’re not happy. It’s all beans. Sure, they’ve got all the protein and fiber you could ask for, but have you eaten canned beans recently? Not as a side dish, but a main course. They’re kinda bland, and very soft. Not satisfying to chew. No surprise, Jackson has reached his breaking point. He wants meat. Thick, juicy, plump, marbled, direct from a corpse, meat. And there’s a knock at his door. The two are pleased to find a duck, but he’s a starving duck. And if you’re going to have duck, you want it to have some fat. That is some delicious fat.
Good thing they have food. Donning lady disguises, they invite Daffy in to fill his belly, while they method act their way through “Arsenic and Old Lace”. Just, hold the arsenic. There’s even a musical number where they try to play up the beans as the best meal Daffy’s ever had in his life. What they don’t know is, if you’re starving any meal will be the best meal of your life. When Daffy is stuffed to their satisfaction, they reveal the charade. Really should have waited for him to fall asleep or something.
Daffy flees, with Jackson close behind. Abigail, being the dumb one of the duo, runs into a wall. It’s a fairly short chase; Daffy is able to lose the fox by treating a log spanning a chasm as a railroad switch that makes a second path. Jackson runs into oblivion. I hope they have meat in heaven. Daffy runs all the way to Brazil. He might accidentally burn off all the calories the beans bestowed upon him. Last I heard, he had taken residence in the headdress of the furry version of Carmen Miranda. As for Abigail, I think he’s still loyally waiting for his friend to return with the duck. So beautiful. So tragic. One of the two, anyway.
Favorite Part: During the chase, Daffy stops Jackson. “Hey, jusht a minute bub, jusht a minute.” Is he gonna follow up with ‘are you following me?’ Nope. He just hits his pursuer.
Personal Rating: 3. I really don’t like winter. It’s lucky to have scored so well.