Sunday, August 31, 2014

Looney TV: Duck Dodgers in the 241/2th Century (1952)

Chuck Jones came up with a novel parody of the sci-fi hero, Buck Rogers, by casting Daffy Duck as "Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2th Century" in a righteously hilarious classic short, released in 1952.

Dodgers is summoned to locate Planet X, and, in turn, retrieve some iludium phosdex (a shaving cream atom---don't ask). Ah, but the Martians have other ideas. You know how this goes.

Edit, 8/9/23: Unfortunately, like the sequel, the video is unavailable in a usable form. In its place is the title card:


51 years later, after a sequel had been released, Dodgers would return, this time in a TV series for Cartoon Network, which lasted two seasons, and boasted a theme song performed by Tom Jones and the Flaming Lips (!). Too bad CN and Boomerang can't be bothered to dust the show off again just for kicks and giggles. For now.

Rating: A.

2 comments:

magicdog said...

Always loved this short!

Imagine my suprise when CN would greenlight a series based on DD! It wasn't bad - especially since we had a gander at the Martian Queen, among other characters never seen before.

I still prefer the original short, however.

hobbyfan said...

I was ok with the show, and I remembered seeing this short a few times. Daffy was at his best here.