It is no exaggeration to rate this the funniest cartoon ever made. Favorite moment: when Daffy is turned into some kind of a four legged polka dotted creature with a screwball flag on its tail and flower petals around its face. Second favorite moment: When Daffy sees himself in the mirror in this state. This scene always brings out wild, silly giggling in me Mozart would be proud of. The Fleischers did the intercession of the animator into the surreal cartoon thing before this. A lot of animators did. In fact, it's there all the way back in the cartoons of WIndsor McCay, Emile Cohl and J. Stuart Blackton. None of those animation giants ever came close to doing it as well and developing it so satisfyingly as Chuck Jones does here. Jones's level of surrealism puts colleague Bob Clampett to shame, and his timing here puts even mentor Tex Avery to shame. Those elements--imagination and timing--are what makes Duck Amuck rise above any other cartoon in sheer hilarity, and that includes the other Chuck Jones cartoons (Jones's Rabbit Seasoning comes close, though). There are wittier cartoons. There are more beautifully drawn cartoons. There are far more terrifying cartoons. There are cartoons that deeply move us. Well, poop on them. If an alien came down from outer space (other than Marvin the Martian) and wanted to know what an animated cartoon was like, I'd show him, her, or it Duck Amuck, And I've no doubt he, she, or it would be laughing his, her or its xnarf off. If it were possible, I'd give it 11 stars. No, I wouldn't. I'd give it 100.
Review of Duck Amuck
