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Daffy – The Commando
Daffy – The Commando
	Title card
Directed by	I. Freleng
Story by	Michael Maltese
Produced by	Leon Schlesinger
Starring	Mel Blanc
Music by	Carl W. Stalling
Animation by	Ken Champin
Color process	Technicolor
Production; company	Leon Schlesinger Productions
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures
Release date	November 20, 1943;
Running time	7:24
Country	United States
Language	English

Daffy – The Commando is a 1943 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Friz Freleng.^[2] The cartoon was released on November 20, 1943, and stars Daffy Duck.^[3]

Plot

Early one morning, somewhere in World War II-era Germany, Commander Von Vultur is pacing back and forth inside his bunker while fuming about how so many American commandos have managed to slip behind German enemy lines undetected. He receives a telegram from the "Gestinko Gestapo", threatening him with his 'ka-rear' if he lets 'vun' more 'kommando' through. Hearing an American warplane overhead, he calls in his batman – Schultz – whom he abuses by knocking him regularly over his helmet with a mallet. They run outside and use a searchlight to search for any more landing commandos and eventually spot one, who just happens to be Daffy floating down on a parachute, whilst singing Billy Bennett's "She Was Poor But She Was Honest" in a fake Cockney accent.

After a quick shout of "Put out those lights!" gets the searchlight turned off temporarily and allows him to land unseen, Daffy uses his fingers on the searchlight's lens to make shadow puppets of animals and dancing chorus girls on the clouds to distract the Germans before hiding behind an asbestos curtain. When Von Vultur opens the curtain, Daffy makes an ugly face, causing Von Vultur to run off frightened.

Back at Von Vultur's bunker, Daffy tricks him into telling him the time and presents him with a ticking time bomb "as a little token of our esteem". Von Vultur hands the bomb off to Schultz, who is literally blown through the roof. When Schultz falls back, Daffy (who was hiding underneath Schultz's helmet) stops Von Vultur from hitting Schultz over the head with a mallet, and instead hits him. Von Vultur chases Daffy to a telephone booth, where Daffy continues to make fun of him.

Daffy jumps in a plane, narrowly avoiding "a whole mess of Messerschmitts". Daffy is shot down by Von Vultur, his plane progressively disintegrating from back to front, eventually leaving just the engine and propeller), with Daffy still clinging to the controls. Daffy runs into what he believes is a tunnel where he can hide, but it turns out to be the barrel of a huge howitzer cannon. Daffy is shot out by Von Vultur. However, Daffy flies unharmed (as a "human cannonball") into Berlin, where (a rotoscoped) Fuehrer Adolf Hitler is giving a speech. Daffy whacks Hitler on the head with a mallet, causing Hitler to yell for Schultz.

Telephone booth scene

A gag where Daffy is on a pay phone as Von Vultur is trying to get into the booth has Daffy speaking to him in semi-correct German, while holding cue card–like signs with the dialogue translated for the audience (a classic example of "breaking the fourth wall"). In many public domain prints, the signs are illegible, but read as follows:

Daffy 1: "Kannst du nicht sehen, diese Telefon ist busy? Bleiben Sie ruhig!" ("Can you not see this telephone is busy? Stay calm!")
Sign 1: ENGLISH TRANSLATION: "Can't you see this telephone is busy? Wait your turn!"

Daffy 2: "Bitte, mein Herr, haben Sie ein Fünf-Pfennig-Stück?" ("Please, sir, have you a five pfennig coin?") "Danke schön." ("Thank you very much.")
Sign 2: "Got a nickel, bud?"

Daffy 3: "It's all yours, Von Limburger!"
Sign 3: GERMAN TRANSLATION: "Ich bin fertig mit der Telefon, Herr Von Limburger." ("I'm done with the telephone, Mr. Von Limburger.")

When Von Vultur enters the phone booth, he attempts to contact Schultz, but instead gets an operator, replying: "Ist dat you, Myrt?" This is a reference to the American radio comedy series Fibber McGee and Molly, which was popular at the time. Myrtle was the never-heard switchboard operator in the show ("Is that you, Myrt?" was a popular catchphrase in it that referred to her).^[4]

Home media

This short is in the public domain^[5] due to United Artists (successor-in-interest to Associated Artists Productions) neglecting to renew the copyright in time. It was also featured in Bugs & Daffy: The Wartime Cartoons (1989) (MGM/UA), and then on the Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 6. An episode of Futurama titled “When Aliens Attack” uses a short clip in the screen gag on the opening sequence.

References

^ ^a ^b ^c ^d "Daffy the Commando (1943)". Allrovi. Rovi Corporation. Archived from the original on January 16, 2013. Retrieved October 9, 2011.
^ Webb, Graham (2011). The Animated Film Encyclopedia: A Complete Guide to American Shorts, Features and Sequences 1900-1999 (2nd ed.). Jefferson, NC: McFarland. p. 85. ISBN 978-0-7864-4985-9.
^ Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 70–72. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
^ Dunning, John (1998). On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio (Rev. ed.). New York: Oxford University Press. p. 251. ISBN 0-19-507678-8. Retrieved October 9, 2011. Is that you Myrt?.
^ Film Superlist: Motion Pictures in the U.S. Public Domain by Walter E. Hurst. Per Looney Tunes in the Public Domain Archived 2016-03-26 at the Wayback Machine.