Attack of the Drones (referred to on-screen as Duck Dodgers in Attack of the Drones) is a Looney Tunes short starring Daffy Duck as Duck Dodgers and directed by Rich Moore (with animation by Rough Draft Studios). It was one of the completed shorts as part of a cancelled initiative to create more Looney Tunes shorts following the release of Looney Tunes: Back in Action and was later included in that film’s Australian DVD release in 2004.
A ravenous horde of space monsters is about to attack Earth and Duck Dodgers decides that the best way to fight back is to create multiple robot copies of himself. Unfortunately, his solution ends up creating a new problem once the drones decide to go on a rampage after the monsters are taken care of. It’s up to Dodgers to clean up this mess, which ends up being easier said than done.
Tropes that appear in this short:
- Crossover Cameo: Stitch note , the Great Gazoo and Dr. Zoidberg are among the aliens present at the meeting going over the invading space monsters.
- Don't Celebrate Just Yet: Dodgers gets an award ceremony midway through the short for defeating the space monsters and praises his drone army for their actions. As soon as the festivities are over, chaos ensues and Dodgers doesn’t know it until he’s told about it.
- Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: Dodgers when he discovers that he didn’t actually get rid of every clone once more show up at his fake awards show.Dodgers: Hey, who said you could copy yourself? That was my idea! (realizes how the whole mess with the drones started) Oh yeah...
- Failed a Spot Check: Dodgers doesn't notice his clones are going on a rampage until it is literally pointed out to him, even though it's hard to miss.
- Fearful Symmetry: What Dodgers’ nunchuck duel with one of his drones amounts to, even though neither side is able to land a hit on the other thanks to the nunchucks exploding while being spun around their own neck.
- Gone Horribly Right: Dodgers’ method to destroy the space monsters with his army of drones works in his favor. Too bad he failed to realize that setting them to a high level of violence during the cloning process would end up causing a lot of damage afterwards.
- Hologram: The temperamental short alien appears as this to Dodgers via the latter’s beeping spray paint can. Dodgers gets hit by the holographic alien’s stick during his conversation with him. After being ordered to destroy the drones, Dodgers runs through the hologram and gets covered in paint.
- Jet Pack: Dodgers tries to use a rocket pack to find some drones faster. It ends up being too heavy for him to carry and he ends up dragged across the floor before crashing into some stairs, causing the rocket to leave him and his face scraped entirely. The rocket ends up landing on Dodgers a few seconds later.
- Laser Blade: Dodgers attempts to use a multi-bladed one against some clones ruining a “comically outdated child’s game”. The only thing he accomplishes with it is getting himself impaled while activating it.
- Me's a Crowd: There’s a building where people can put themselves inside copy machines. Not only can it be used to create copies of their resumes, but also themselves as humans, robots, and animals. Dodgers uses it to create the robot clones of himself that cause more problems later.
- Mirror Routine: Dodgers gets into one with a clone that ends with himself getting shot by the clone while dancing.
- More Teeth than the Osmond Family: The monsters in the first half of the short have a large set of chompers that can easily tear through steel.
- Nice Job Breaking It, Hero: Despite being able to defeat the monsters easily, Dodgers’ drones immediately go on a rampage as soon as his award ceremony is over. Setting their violence level to 98% when making them didn’t help and the short green alien calls Dodgers out on letting the drones cause damage without him initially realizing it.
- Opening Scroll: Mocked in the beginning of the short.A complex trade negotiation threatens to bog down as three distinct federations of interstellar actuaries blah blah blah blah blah...
[beat]
Hey, look!
[shifts away from the scrolling text to a...]
Space fight!
[The camera focuses on a laser fired by one of the soldiers and reveals they’re at war...]
With monsters! - Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: Takes its name from Attack of the Clones.
- Real Vehicle Reveal: After Dodgers leaps off the building the meeting is taking place at, he seemingly lands on a space car with a flame decal. As he’s ready to leave the parking lot, he’s actually riding on a tiny space bicycle to get to the building where the copy machines are at.
- Robot Me: The 100 drones that Dodgers makes of himself to fight off the monsters and later become enemies that he has to destroy. He realizes too late that the drones have created more copies of themselves at the end of the short.
- Trap Door: Dodgers disposes of the initial batch drones via giving them fake awards and then dropping them through a trap door where they get shredded. He eventually has to shove them down the trap door himself when several of the drones get stuck.
