Daffy Duck: Frustrated Fowl

Directed by Chuck Jones

Daffy Duck: Frustrated Fowl was released in conjunction with Bugs Bunny: Hare Extraordinaire None of these shorts have been released on disc before, and Chuck Jones's "Daffy Dilly" (1948) is a welcome addition to any cartoon library. Daffy sets out to win the money a gloomy millionaire is offering to anyone who can make him laugh--and succeeds in spite of himself. But many of these cartoons are, simply, duds. "This Is a Life?" (1955), "People Are Bunny" (1959), and "Person to Bunny" (1960) spoof largely forgotten TV shows. How many viewers under 65 will recognize caricatures of Art Linkletter and Edward R. Murrow? The films pitting Daffy against Bugs play like weak remakes of Jones's "Rabbit Fire" trilogy or Friz Freleng's "Show Biz Bugs"--"Person to Bunny" even repeats some of Daffy's tap dance to "Jeepers Creepers" in "Show Biz." The very late "Suppressed Duck" (1965) is painfully unfunny. Once again, some of the films have been inexplicably cropped to simulate a widescreen format.