The 11th episode of the second season of Tiny Toon Adventures, and the 76th episode overall.
A grand adventure directed, produced by, and starring Plucky Duck, Kon Ducki documents Pluck Heyerdahl's attempt to recreate his 1970s ancestors' voyage from Yap to Salinas. Pop-culture references, 8-tracks and mango juice ensue.
The third act is a making-of short showing just how Plucky brought this masterpiece to the screen.
This episode provides examples of:
Overall:
- Credits Gag: ABBA Spelled Backwards Is ABBA
- Running Gag: The "Ah, mango juice!" routine explained downward. Once in the main segment and many times more in the "making of" segment".
Kon Ducki:
- Affectionate Parody: Of high-adventure film documentaries in general, and the 1950 film Kon Tiki in particular.
- Anvil on Head: Or "mast on head", as the case may be.Plucky: Ah, mango juice! *thud*
- Bait-and-Switch: When Plucky’s ship is being assembled, a close-up of Plucky straining is shown, making it look like he’s assembling his ship. However, the next scene shows that he is on his lunch break and was struggling to open a bottle of mango juice.
- The Cameo: During the montage of the Kon Ducki adrift, several famous boats appear, including the S.S. Minnow, with Gilligan and the Skipper, the Bounty with Captain Bligh, and the Nautillus with Kirk Douglas (who, by the way, isn't happy with his cameo).Douglas: These cameos make me wanna puke!
- Didn't We Use This Joke Already?: This exchange when the boat starts to sink a second time:Hamton: Captain, we're sinking!
Plucky: It can't be! We did that gag already!
Sweetie: What?! You're going to bring up redundancy now?! - Experimental Archeology: This whole sketch parodies the Kon-Tiki experiment, in which Thor Heyerdahl attempted to prove his theory of contact between South America and Polynesia in 1947.
- "Eureka!" Moment: Sweetie Pie has one when the crew were faced with being crashed into by a cruise liner. When Hamton asks Plucky "But what could I do? Order them to stop?", Sweetie immediately hits on the idea to head up the crow's nest and hold out a "Toll Crossing" sign. Surprisingly, it works!
- Ice-Cream Koan: Plucky enters a Heroic BSoD, believing he'll never reach Salinas in 21 days. Hamton snaps him out of it with a series of completely muddled sayings, such as “A bird in the hand has a stiff upper lip”.
- In Case You Forgot Who Wrote It: This episode begins with: "Plucky Epic Pictures presents: A Pluck Production of a Plucky Duck Film, "Plucky Duck’s The Voyage of Kon Ducki", starring Plucky Duck as Pluck Heyerdahl, a film directed, produced, written, visualized, conceived, choreographed, and catered by Plucky Duck." Oh yeah, and there's a brief mention that Hamton is in the film.
- In the Doldrums: What Day 18 is for the crew, leading to the Take That! example explained downward.
- Leitmotif: "Columbia, Gem of the Ocean" is the main theme for the raft.
- Miles Gloriosus: Plucky is portrayed as an illustrious explorer who knows what he’s doing and is said to be a tough, practical leader. In reality, he's nothing more than an arrogant blowhard who crumbles and immediately panics at the first sign of trouble.Plucky: Mommy, make it stop!
- Road Trip Across the Street: As the Kon Ducki sets sail to Salinas, the camera pulls back to reveal that Salinas is right next to Yap on the opposite direction.
- Shout-Out: The first and second acts are loaded with references to 1970s pop culture:
- Pluck Heyerdahl's outfit features tight bell-bottom pants and platform shoes.
- The raft has a huge tie for a sail, and for some reason has a "Water Gate" hatch on the bottom.
- ABBA, Peter Frampton and The Bee Gees are all called out by name.
- A couple to The Wizard of Oz, despite that film not being from the 70s. On Day 12, Plucky requests "Oil can" like the Tin Man did when he first appeared. Later, as the ship encounters the massive tidal wave, for some reason the Wicked Witch of the West briefly appears within the wave, albeit riding Miss Gulch's bicycle (itself referencing and parodying the tornado scene).
- Take That!: On Day 18, Plucky says he must keep his spirits up, fearing that his crew is near the point of utter terror. Hamton and Sweetie have fallen asleep while watching a laughing cartoon mouse on TV, and Plucky tells the viewers, "Utter terror takes a lot of different forms, okay?"
- The Load: Plucky in a nutshell. A majority of the difficulties the crew encounter are brought about by his stupidity. To say that Hamton and Sweetie are more competent than him is an understatement.
- Tour Guide Gag: The "And to Your Left is a Naked Pig" gag from the "The Acme Acres Zone" episode segment, "A Bacon Strip" is brought back in this episode.
The Making of Kon Ducki:
- Accidental Misnaming: Shirley constantly misspells Plucky's name on his director's chair. It is misspelled "Pluggy Doug", "Ploogy Doog", and "Plunky Dunk". The first time, Plucky lashes out at her until he realizes he's on camera.
- Affectionate Parody: Of all those "making-of" featurettes from the 1970s and 1980s, such as The Making of Star Wars.
- Blow You Away: An accidental case. For the storm scene, Plucky utilised the largest fan system ever constructed. But upon activation, the large amount of fans ended up blowing a hole in the stage and a lot of the equipment away, resulting in the loss of six weeks' worth of shooting time and leading to Plucky constructing the scene in miniature.
- …But He Sounds Handsome: In spades here, and lampshaded as well:
- Buster sings the praises of the director in his opening narration, but the ruse is revealed quickly when he sardonically questions his script. Plucky snaps at him to continue reading.
- While being interviewed, Hamton speaks glowingly of his experience working on the movie, until he reveals he can’t read the prompt.
- Call-Back: Several to the "mango juice" scene in the first act, to the point that the episode ends with a variant of it!
- Costumes Change Your Size: Sweetie unzips her costume to reveal a full-size Richard Nixon.
- Fun with Flushing: As part of the "special effects" to simulate the storm scene, Plucky built a scale model of the boat and filmed it being flushed down the toilet.
- The Gadfly: Fifi has a sly grin on her face as she demonstrates how she creates Plucky’s mask. She clearly enjoys making her director angry. Her innocent expression when Plucky bursts out of the mold, ranting and raving, sells it.Fifi: Monsieur director Plucky, someone has parked in your very private parking space!
- High-Pressure Emotion: To remove the plaster cast from Plucky's face, Fifi tells him that someone parked in his private parking space. The rage builds up inside Plucky until he explodes, splitting the cast in two.
- Latex Perfection: In order to play Plucky's stunt double, Hamton wears a latex mask made from a mold of his face.
- Never My Fault: Played for laughs. Plucky gets upset at Hamton for forgetting his lines, when after the first couple of takes, it comes from suffering the blunt trauma of what Plucky set him up to take in his place. Leading Plucky to do it himself and rendering his own plan pointless.
- Obvious Stunt Double: Plucky originally planned to have Hamton be his stunt double for the scene where he gets hit with the mast. Hamton's inability to remember his lines lead to Plucky having to do his own stunts.
- Orphaned Reference: In universe: the latex mask Fifi made for Plucky was supposed to be part of Hamton’s stunt double costume. When Hamton kept getting his lines wrong, Plucky inadvertently did the stunt himself.
- Overly Long Gag: Hamton's "stunt duck" scene, though his increasingly delirious Non Sequitur, *Thud* reactions make it worth it:
- Prima Donna Director: Plucky. He verbally and physically abuses the staff, gives outlandish demands, and only starts acting nice when he realizes he’s on camera.
- Rule of Three: Plucky's director's chair is misspelled three times. First as "Pluggy Doug", then as "Ploogy Doog", then finally as "Plunky Dunk".
- Take That!:
- Towards, of all companies, Columbia Pictures. Warner Bros. was apparently happy to see them off the "Burbank Studios" lot.
- "I don't have to think! I'm the director!"
- Who Writes This Crap?!: When Buster reads over the script Plucky wrote self-promoting himself as he introduces the segment, he asks, "Who wrote this stuff?".Plucky: Just read it!
