Porky: Hey, th-th-th-that wasn't in the script!
Daffy Duck: Don't let it worry ya, Skipper. I'm just a crazy, darn fool duck. Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo-woo-hoo!
Daffy Duck: Don't let it worry ya, Skipper. I'm just a crazy, darn fool duck. Woo-hoo! Woo-hoo-woo-hoo!
— Porky establishing a Looney Tunes hallmark, and a familiar face giving his very first lines of dialogue.
"Porky's Duck Hunt" is a 1937 Looney Tunes short directed by Fred Avery. It is a landmark short in the series, being one of the first truly zany cartoons and thus codifying what distinguished a Warner Bros. cartoon from anyone else's cartoons. This was also the first time Mel Blanc performed the voice of Porkynote and the debut appearance of then-unnamed Daffy Duck.
The plot of the short is fairly simple—a young Porky Pig goes out on a duck hunt, only to find trouble from the other hunters, as well as one particularly pesky duck roaming the ponds...
This short was an immediate smash hit with audiences, and thus received a follow up a year later, Daffy Duck and Egghead.
This short can be found on the DVD sets "The Essential Daffy Duck" and "Porky Pig 101".
Has nothing to do with Porky Pig or Porky Minch appearing in Duck Hunt.
"Porky's Duck Hunt" provides examples of:
- Ascended Extra: Though this is most notably remembered as Daffy Duck's first appearance, he doesn't really have a very prominent role, he's just one of several ducks to vex Porky, and a decent amount of the humor featuring Daffy doesn't involve him personally (he only has two lines). He also has an extremely different voice than the one they gave him in his next cartoon. Despite all of this, it was enough to make him a Looney Tunes star.
- Breaking the Fourth Wall: Porky's reaction to seeing Daffy throw his dog back towards him when he thinks his dog got Daffy:"Hey! Th-th-that wasn't in the script!" (with script in hand).
- Breakout Character: Daffy Duck.
- Butt-Monkey: Porky and his dog.
- Credits Gag: The ending title card has Daffy make one last appearance, bouncing and looping around the letters. This was because Bob Clampett (who was animating for Tex at the time) had some leftover animation he wanted to put in but couldn't within the actual cartoon, so Tex allowed him to put it in the That's All, Folks! card.
- Comically Cross-Eyed: The short features a cross-eyed hunter whose gun barrels are also crooked. When he tries to shoot down a duck, he ends up shooting down planes!. Daffy's eyes aren't straight either.
- Cutaway Gag: What else would drunk, singing fish and Daffy eating an electric eel have to do with the plot, let alone the name of this animated short?
- Early-Installment Weirdness: Daffy doesn't have his trademark lisp here. (However, if you listen carefully Daffy does slightly lisp the "it's" in "It's me again!" when he visits Porky again, so it's likely that Daffy was planned to have the lisp from the start, but the extent of how much he would lisp wasn't settled yet.) Also, Porky is a lot more clumsy and oafish than he would be in later cartoons.
- Idiot Ball: Porky uses a duck call in a hunting zone.... where there's other duck hunters.
- I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: Porky, while showing off his hunting gear, points his shotgun at his dog, then say "It's not loaded. W-w-w-watch" and points it at the ceiling and pulls the trigger. It fires and the neighbour upstairs comes down and punches Porky in the face, and walks away, revealing a hole in his pants. Happens again at the end after Porky comes home after his unsuccessful hunt and disgustedly throws his gun on the floor, causing it to shoot the ceiling again. The neighbour comes down again and punches Porky, then leaves, revealing two holes in his pants.
- Incoming Ham: "It's me again!"
- I Shall Taunt You: The ducks do this to Porky. After he fails to shoot even one duck out of the abundantly many in the sky and goes home heartbroken and empty-handed, the ducks put on quite a trapeze show in the sky for him right outside his window.
- Lazy Artist: Zig-zagged. A scene with Porky in a boat has the cel of the boat's oars painted side up.
- Mad Hatter: In the first line Daffy ever delivers, he cheerfully calls himself "just a crazy, darn-fool duck."
- Misplaced Wildlife: Electric eels don't live in North America and certainly aren't duck prey.
- My Car Hates Me: Porky has a hard time shooting his own rifle. Daffy is able to shoot the rifle with no problem however, and the rifle even fires a round by just bouncing off a floor. It seems that the rifle fails to respond only when Porky tries shooting it.
- No Celebrities Were Harmed: A caricature of comedian Joe Penner appears to deliver his Catchphrase "You wanna buy a duck?"
- Oh, Crap!: Porky's dog has this reaction after accidentally swallowing Porky's duck call when Porky (whose attempt to use it had gotten them shot at) slams the duck call to the ground in frustration, as the call goes off every time the dog hiccups; leading to Porky and the dog being forced to flee while under siege from the other hunters firing at them.
- Porky Pig Pronunciation: With Mel Blanc now voicing Porky, they were able to use this trope for the first time. Near the end, Porky realizes he is "all outta bul-b-b-b-bull-b-b-b-b-all outta shells!"
- Public Domain Soundtrack: The opening uses the classic tune "A-Hunting I Will Go" and at one point, some fishes get drunk and appropriately sing the classic drunk song "Moonlight Bay".
- Subverted: A cockeyed hunter rises from the blinds, and Carl Stalling cues up "I Only Have Eyes For You."
- Screwball Squirrel: Daffy Duck, natch.
- Talking with Signs: When the electric eel appears, a hand moves in front of the camera holding up a sign reading "This is an electric eel, folks."
- Zany Cartoon: One of the earliest examples.
