Daffy Duck in Hollywood (1938) User Reviews

Cartoons are where you find them.

[lee_eisenberg · 7/10 · 5 September 2006]

In this short cartoon, a tensed-up director is trying to complete a movie, but Daffy Duck comes up with several ways to delay it, including bullets in a camera. One gets the feeling that the creative team behind "Daffy Duck in Hollywood" was probably poking fun at Hollywood. But even ignoring that, we get a real surprise once we see the finished movie.

So, this is partly a look at old-style Hollywood (especially the old-style editing), but it remains entertaining in the 21st century. Motion pictures really are our best entertainment.

A real treat, isn't it? Yes sir, yes sir, yes sir, ye-e-e-e-s sir!

Quite an unusual Daffy Duck.

[Mightyzebra · 8/10 · 5 August 2008]

This is one of the first Daffy Duck episodes of all time - and I have to say that his animation and voice were a great deal more different! Personally I'm glad they didn't stay with these qualities of his for long, but I am glad that they stayed with his craziness for a good more ten years or so! :-)

This episode is quite clever in presentation. A movie director called Von Hamburger (who looks strangely like Porky) is directing his film and he needs it finished very quickly to give to his producer so he can see it. After Daffy has annoyed Von Hamburger with gags (both funny and mediocre) he goes off to the film studio to make himself a movie, by cutting clips from old movies and sticking them together with glue. Just as Von Hamburger is giving the producer, I.M Stupendous, his film reel, Daffy replaces it with his film...

I liked this episode for the interestingly old Daffy (this is the second oldest episode I have seen of him), the muxed ip movie he made, the animation and some of the humour. For some reason, after watching quite a few of these old Warner Bros shorts, I'm beginning to like old humour.

I recommend this to people who like the crazy Daffy Duck, the old Daffy Duck and Hollywood. Enjoy "Daffy Duck in Hollywood"! :-)

Daffy does Hollywood

[llltdesq · 8/10 · 8 February 2002]

This short by Tex Avery lampoons Hollywood and the filmmaking process and does so quite well. Daffy wants to be an actor in the worst way, but can't manage that, so, by cutting and splicing clips from film archives, he "directs" his own movie. As a personal aside here, one of the saddest things here is that his "movie" is better than some of the product being turned out in recent time that has separated entirely too much of my money from my pockets with little benefit for me! Hilarious gags abound here. Well worth watching. Recommended.

"Wow! I'll give 'em a REAL feature!"

[slymusic · 16 January 2008]

A delightful cartoon directed by Tex Avery, "Daffy Duck in Hollywood" stars - who else? - our favorite duck, the absolutely screwy, wacky, obnoxious Daffy, who invades a motion picture studio, thus creating havoc on the set and harassing the director (a pompously trilling, mustachioed pig), yet impressing the producer (a pompously ill-humored, sharp-suited dog) when he secretly replaces the director's final product with his own cut-and-paste job.

Two highlights from this cartoon: Daffy swipes the director's cigarette and bounces all over the set writing the words "Warner Bros." in smoke ("Just giving my bosses a plug! I've got an option coming up!"). As the director commences shooting a crucially romantic scene featuring a hen (representing actress/singer Jeanette MacDonald) and a rooster (representing actor/singer Nelson Eddy), Daffy suddenly interrupts the scene by rapidly & repeatedly smooching the hen and, once again, bouncing all over the set.

The Daffy that we see in "Daffy Duck in Hollywood" is one of the earliest versions of this famous duck: insane, energetic, goofy, nonsensical, silly, and above all, bouncing all over the screen with his high-pitched "Hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo, hoo-hoo!"

This Warner Bros. animated short foreshadows a day . . .

[oscaralbert · 7/10 · 27 July 2016]

. . . when Tinseltown turns Topsy-Turvy, and actors such as Brad Pitt begin directing pictures themselves such as FURY, INGLORIOUS BASTERDS, and TREE OF LIFE. The title character of DAFFY DUCK IN H0LLYWOOD is a case in point. After his humble beginnings as the Black Sheep among Donald's nephews, Daffy is shown here being ejected from the Duck Clan for smooching Auntie Daisy Belle. Just as Andy Warhol would later become obsessed with filming Ultraviolet sleeping inside an over-sized Campbell's Soup Can for eight hours at a crack, Daffy becomes hung up here trying to picture "Turkey, with all the trimmings." For all of his contortions, Daffy is rewarded with just a pig in a poke. Meanwhile, Wonder Pictures Producer I.M. Stupendous merely fiddles as key cast and crew members light up cancer sticks amid miles of highly flammable nitrate film. This, of course, is all happening in 1938, so you expect some version of Brad Pitt to come crashing through the door to assassinate Time Magazine's "Man of the Year:" Adolph Hitler.

Nice, but Daffy Duck and Tex Avery have both done much better

[TheLittleSongbird · 7/10 · 27 August 2016]

Daffy Duck is one of Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies', and animation's, most iconic characters, as well as one of the best, most interesting and funniest, with several cartoons ranging from very good to masterpieces.

Tex Avery was one also talented animator/director, with a style unlike any other and one that is immediately distinctive. He has also been responsible for some classic cartoons and also some memorable characters. 'Daffy Duck in Hollywood' was an early effort for both Daffy and Avery, and to be honest both have done much better than this. Not bad, in fact very nice on the whole, but both were more than capable in doing much more than just very nice.

A noticeable flaw is the animation and character design of Daffy. Here in 'Daffy Duck in Hollywood' he moves awkwardly and looks crude, like there was still uncertainty as to how he should look. In fact, the character designs generally are not as carefully drawn or as fluid as they could have been.

Didn't care much for the live action at the end either, oddly enough what the cartoon has been said to be most interesting for. The placement just seemed clumsily inserted and random, almost out of place, also didn't think they were needed or added much. The director character is amusing and interacts very well with Daffy, but the exaggerated way he speaks occasionally later on feels overdone.

On the other hand, the rest of the cartoon is quite beautifully done, with lovingly detailed backgrounds and vibrant colours. The music brims with lively energy and luscious orchestration, not only being dynamic to the action and adding to it but enhancing it as well. The writing is witty and amusing, and there are some great moments in terms of humour. Particularly good are the incredibly clever cigarette gag and the scene with Daffy, the hen and the rooster and what happens afterwards.

Characters carry 'Daffy Duck in Hollywood' extremely well and are fun, same with the rapport between them, and nothing can be complained about with the expert voice acting either, Mel Blanc especially having a ball.

On the whole, nice but considering this was Daffy Duck and Tex Avery couldn't help expecting more, both have done much better. Worth a peak though. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Early Daffy Duck Just Doesn't Measure Up

[ccthemovieman-1 · 4/10 · 10 May 2007]

This isn't much. Daffy Duck didn't really become that funny until later, at least a full decade later. I'm glad they got rid of his stupid, laugh. He's my favorite cartoon character of the '50s, but not here, not this early in his "career." He's smaller, has a different voice and his humor is generally geared to little kids.

All the laughs in here were in the first minute, such as the exaggerated German film director rolling his "r's," which was funny at first but then overdone.

The cigarette lighter gag was clever, then Daffy blowing smoke rings that say "Wanrer Brothers" just so "I can give my bosses a plug. I've got an option coming up." It's that kind of clever stuff we saw in later years. The rest of this - Daffy being a nuisance in the filming of a movie - really wasn't that good.

By the way, you know it's an older cartoon when the characters are all dressed like human beings but they have animal-heads.

A below par display from both Daffy Duck and Tex Avery

[phantom_tollbooth · 3/10 · 3 November 2008]

Tex Avery's 'Daffy Duck in Hollywood' was Daffy's fifth cartoon and his lunacy was still borderline psychotic at this stage. He terrorises a movie director for no good reason other than it's fun. Or that's the idea anyway. 'Daffy Duck in Hollywood' is actually a largely weak effort in which Daffy's heckling is severely off-form and amounts to little more than popping up at inopportune moments or in unexpected places. He has a couple of funny lines and a great bit in which he paints the name of Warner Bros. in the air with smoke, confiding in the audience "Just giving my bosses a plug, I've got an option coming up". For the most part, however, Daffy is more annoying than entertaining and it's rare for me (a raving Daffy Duck nut) to have such a reaction to my little black hero. Another problem is the character of the director who proves to be an unsuitable foil for Daffy since he barely reacts to the duck's provocation, simply going on with his attempts to direct. His sole character trait is a tendency to roll his R's and Avery takes this foible to ludicrous extremes, turning a potentially unfunny gag into something that raises a laugh just through sheer persistence and over-exaggeration. The main notable feature of 'Daffy Duck in Hollywood' is the live action sequence at the end, a movie created when Daffy stitches together various bits of stock footage from the archives. It's a potentially great idea that falls flat thanks to poorly chosen snippets and mistiming. All in all then, 'Daffy Duck in Hollywood' is not a great cartoon and certainly isn't representative of the enormous talents of Tex Avery or the consistent charm of Daffy Duck.

Is he really there?

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 16 May 2016]

"Daffy Duck in Hollywood" is an 8-minute (about a minute longer than they usually are) cartoon from 1938, so this one will soon be 80 years old. It came out briefly before World War II and features an early version of Daffy Duck and how he makes it to Hollywood. Now I personally must say I would have enjoyed this cartoon a lot more if it was just a couple shenanigans happening between Daffy and the animated equivalent of Hollywood stars, but nope. This is not what this cartoon is about. At times it feels as if Porky(?) is as much of a main character here. Admittedly, Porky was famous before Daffy but still. The most random and for me weakest aspect, however, was the inclusion of live action sequences out of nowhere. The cast and crew includes a bunch of famous names, but I personally am not impressed. I have seen better stuff by Tex Avery. This one gets a thumbs-down.