''The Night of the Living Duck'' is a six-minute 1988 '' Merrie Melodies'' cartoon starring

Daffy Duck Daffy Duck is an animated cartoon character created for Leon Schlesinger Productions by animators Tex Avery and Bob Clampett. Styled as an anthropomorphic black duck, he has appeared in cartoon series such as ''Looney Tunes'' and ''Merrie Mel ...

, directed by Greg Ford and Terry Lennon. It was released to theatres as a part of ''

Daffy Duck's Quackbusters ''Daffy Duck's Quackbusters'' is a 1988 animated compilation film featuring classic Warner Bros. Cartoons shorts and animated bridging sequences, starring Daffy Duck. The film was released to theaters by Warner Bros. on September 24, 1988. It was ...

'' on September 24, 1988 and precedes the film in all of its releases. The title is a pun on ''

Night of the Living Dead ''Night of the Living Dead'' is a 1968 American independent horror film directed, photographed, and edited by George A. Romero, with a screenplay by John Russo and Romero, and starring Duane Jones and Judith O'Dea. The story follows seven pe ...

'', although the cartoon has nothing to do with said film's theme of a zombie apocalypse. This short was also one of Mel Blanc's final performances, as it was released less than a year before his death.

Plot

Daffy Duck, indulging in his

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

fandom in a sequence reminiscent of his earlier film ''

The Great Piggy Bank Robbery ''The Great Piggy Bank Robbery'' is a 1946 Warner Bros. ''Looney Tunes'' theatrical cartoon directed by Bob Clampett. The cartoon was released on July 20, 1946, and stars Daffy Duck. The short is Clampett's penultimate Warner cartoon, produced s ...

'', is reading a scary comic book called "Hideous Tales" (issue #176). The comic's "Noseman" story ends in a cliffhanger involving Schmodzilla and Daffy rifles his bookcase looking for the next issue ("It's a veritable collector's item!"). While doing so however, a monster clock falls and beans Daffy, knocking him out. In his dream, Daffy finds himself as the featured act in a nightclub where the customers are classic movie monsters consisting of

Count Dracula Count Dracula () is the title character of Bram Stoker's 1897 gothic horror novel ''Dracula''. He is considered to be both the prototypical and the archetypal vampire in subsequent works of fiction. Aspects of the character are believed by some ...

and his two brides,

Frankenstein's monster Frankenstein's monster or Frankenstein's creature, often referred to as simply "Frankenstein", is a fictional character who first appeared in Mary Shelley's 1818 novel ''Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus''. Shelley's title thus compares ...

and his

bride A bride is a woman who is about to be married or who is newlywed. When marrying, the bride's future spouse, (if male) is usually referred to as the '' bridegroom'' or just ''groom''. In Western culture, a bride may be attended by a maid, bri ...

, the Wolf Man, Imhotep's

mummy A mummy is a dead human or an animal whose soft tissues and organs have been preserved by either intentional or accidental exposure to chemicals, extreme cold, very low humidity, or lack of air, so that the recovered body does not decay fu ...

form, the

Gill-man The Gill-man—commonly called the Creature—is the main antagonist of the 1954 in film, 1954 black-and-white science fiction film ''Creature from the Black Lagoon'' and its two sequels ''Revenge of the Creature'' (1955) and ''The Creature Wal ...

, the Fly,

Medusa In Greek mythology, Medusa (; Ancient Greek: Μέδουσα "guardian, protectress"), also called Gorgo, was one of the three monstrous Gorgons, generally described as winged human females with living venomous snakes in place of hair. Those ...

(who has a petrified man nearby her),

Leatherface Leatherface is a fictional character in ''The Texas Chainsaw Massacre'' film series created by Kim Henkel and Tobe Hooper. He first appears in '' The Texas Chain Saw Massacre'' as a disfigured, cannibalistic and mentally unstable mass murdere ...

, the

Invisible Man ''Invisible Man'' is a novel by Ralph Ellison, published by Random House in 1952. It addresses many of the social and intellectual issues faced by African Americans in the early twentieth century, including black nationalism, the relationship b ...

, the Headless Horseman, a cyclops, a slime monster (possibly the Blob), a two-headed man, some skeletons, and some unidentified monsters as well as Alfred E. Neuman. Daffy appears unable to sing, but there is a bottle of "Eau de Tormé" in Daffy's dressing room, which makes him sing like Mel Tormé. After drinking the spray's entire contents for maximum effect, he sings "Monsters Lead Such Interesting Lives" to the room with a ghost named "Ghouley" playing the piano. The monsters love the song. Then he goes around the room, greeting the patrons. But his good-natured ribbing of Schmodzilla does not go over well with the giant lizard when Daffy quips things like "Say, Schmod baby, leveled any major cities lately?", "You know, Schmodzilla's just like any unemployed actor, except when he pounds the pavement, it registers a ten on the

Richter scale The Richter scale —also called the Richter magnitude scale, Richter's magnitude scale, and the Gutenberg–Richter scale—is a measure of the strength of earthquakes, developed by Charles Francis Richter and presented in his landmark 1935 ...

!", "Oh, what's the matter? The public not buying those cheap special effects anymore?" Schmodzilla then eats Daffy (with recycled screams from ''

Boobs in the Woods ''Boobs in the Woods'' is a 1950 Warner Bros. ''Looney Tunes'' cartoon, directed by Robert McKimson. The cartoon was released on January 28, 1950, and stars Daffy Duck and Porky Pig. The cartoon is similar to the 1942 short '' My Favorite Duck ...

''). Daffy wakes up to find himself stuck in a wastebasket along with the comic he was looking for (''Hideous Tales'' issue #177) with "Schmodzilla" on the cover. Daffy scoffs and Schmodzilla on the cover comes to life saying "You were expecting maybe Calvin Coolidge?"

References

External links

The Night of the Living Duck
at

Internet Movie Database IMDb (an abbreviation of Internet Movie Database) is an online database of information related to films, television series, home videos, video games, and streaming content online – including cast, production crew and personal biographies, ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Night of the Living Duck Merrie Melodies short films Animated crossover films 1988 films 1988 animated films 1988 short films 1980s monster movies Films scored by Carl Stalling Films scored by Milt Franklyn Daffy Duck films Warner Bros. Animation animated short films 1980s Warner Bros. animated short films 1980s English-language films