| Scrap Happy Daffy | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Directed by | Frank Tashlin |
| Story by | Don Christensen |
| Produced by | Leon Schlesinger |
| Starring | Mel Blanc Dorothy Lloyd Tedd Pierce[1] |
| Music by | Carl W. Stalling |
| Animation by | Art Davis |
| Color process | Black-and-white |
Production | |
| Distributed by | Warner Bros. Pictures The Vitaphone Corporation |
Release date |
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Running time | 7:56 |
| Language | English |
Scrap Happy Daffy is a 1943 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes short directed by Frank Tashlin.[2] The cartoon was released on August 21, 1943, and stars Daffy Duck.[3]
Daffy is a guard at a scrap pile, encouraging Americans to “Get the tin out”, “Get the brass out”, “Get the iron out” and especially “Get the lead out”. Singing We’re in to Win, Daffy goes over the various things Americans can send to help with the war effort. He calls Hitler "Schikelgruber", which is the birth name of his father. However, Fuehrer Adolf Hitler who reads about Daffy’s scrap pile helping to beat Benito Mussolini, is furious about this and responds to this by giving his men the following order: “Destroy that scrap pile!”
With the word out, a Nazi German submarine fires a torpedo to the scrap pile — which has a billy goat inside, and the goat immediately starts eating everything in sight. Daffy, hearing the noise, tries to find out what's making the noise. After temporarily pointing a rifle at a reflection of himself, Daffy finds the goat hiccuping with the garbage inside him and amiably offers him a glass of Alka-Seltzer. However, when Daffy sees the swastika that the goat is wearing on his collar, he starts messing with the goat. Temporarily getting the better of the goat, Daffy is almost undone when he tries to whack the goat with a mallet.
Daffy is ready to call it quits (saying “What I'd give for a can of spinach now”, a reference to Popeye), but is encouraged by the ghosts of his ancestors who encamped at Valley Forge with George Washington, who explored with Daniel Boone, who sailed with John Paul Jones, and who stood in for Abraham Lincoln. Daffy's spirits back up when he realizes, “Americans don't give up, and I’m an American... duck!”, and then he turns into "Super American" in a reference to Superman. Daffy flies after the goat, knocking him around. The goat makes a run for the submarine, but Daffy repels all bullets shot at him and starts yanking on the periscope. Just then, the scene changes to Daffy yanking on a fire hose and getting hosed down. Daffy wakes up, thinking it was all just a dream until he looks up at the Nazi submarine sitting on top of the scrap pile, where they tell Daffy, “Next time you dream, include us out!”.
Animator Eric Goldberg writes, "Despite the film's jingoistic nature, it still boasts all the hallmarks of a great Tashlin cartoon: Dynamic, stylized poses in the animation. Graphically styled layouts and backgrounds. And outrageous humor — we dissolve from the back end of a horse with a black tail to the forelock on Adolf's face; the goat is capable of doing a four-footed military goosestep. Scrap Happy Daffy is one of the classic World War II propaganda cartoons."[4]
This cartoon was colorized in 1995, with a computer adding color to a new print of the original black and white cartoon. This preserved the quality of the original animation. However, this new colorized version was never broadcast on American television.. A clip of this cartoon was shown on a documentary about World War II-era cartoons ("ToonHeads: The Wartime Cartoons") and on a documentary on Frank Tashlin on the third volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection, and is featured independently on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 5 and the Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: Volume 3.
The original black and white cartoon is also available as a special feature for the DVD release of the Warner Bros. 1943 movie Air Force. This cartoon is in the public domain.
