Design for Leaving

Fast-talking door-to-door salesman Daffy Duck pushes homeowner Elmer Fudd onto a bus headed out of town. While Elmer's away, Daffy remodels his house with futuristic Acme gadgetry. Naturally, all the gizmos backfire and prove to be catastrophic for poor Elmer's house. It's a funny short with some great sight gags. One of my favorites was when the wall cleaner stripped the clothes off the guy in the painting. Love all the gadgets and robots. The animation and music are good. Mel Blanc and Arthur Q. Bryan are perfect, as always. The subject matter appeals to me as I've always been fascinated by the way people in those times thought we would be living by now. Of course, pigs acting as garbage disposals in our kitchens is just crazy sci-fi that we can only dream about.

Occasionally, I read a review by someone who considers Robert McKimson one of the lousiest cartoon directors. By all accounts, "Design for Leaving" should completely disprove that. When fast-talking salesman Daffy Duck appears at Elmer Fudd's door, the lisping mallard pushes the dimwitted hunter out of the house and installs a series of push-button gadgets...which of course end up working against Elmer! Why must he suffer so?! I figure that the people behind this cartoon saw Americans trying to automate their homes in every possible way, and so they decided to come up with a parody. And a hilarious parody at that. This actually came out several years before "The Jetsons" predicted people having robot servants. But overall, every time that we come up with an innovation, it shortens our attention span just a little.

Anyway, a really funny cartoon.

The WED button. All of New Orleans could have really used that on August 29, 2005.

In this Daffy Duck episode, Daffy Duck, a house designer, annoys Elmer Fudd by renovating his house with tens of modern gadgets. The reason this is annoying Elmer is because each of the gadgets hurts Elmer, physically and mentally. The reason this episode is worth watching is because of all the gadgets. When this episode was made, in 1954, all the gadgets would have hardly been conceived of and some of them would be almost impossible to invent. Nowadays, however, we could make all the gadgets featured. It is interesting how the makers of this episode conceived of all these modern gadgets, fifty years ago. This episode is also quite funny some of the time, which also makes it bearable. Apart from humour and the modern gadgets, there is nothing else particularly worth noting in this episode (except possibly the animation, it would soon become a lot less special in the 60's for Looney Tunes).

I recommend this to people who like old episodes with modern references, episodes where Daffy is being cruel to Elmer and episodes with quite surprising endings. Enjoy "Design for Leaving"! :-)

In what could easily become the next wave of reality 'home repair' shows, Daffy shows up unexpected at Elmer Fudd's home and gives it the 'modern' touch. In other words, he installs an endless number of automatic time-saving devices throughout the house. And, as we can already predict, none of these mechanisms seem to work for everyone's favorite hunter.

Over 50 years later, we have a number of time-saving mechanisms throughout our own home (one of which I'm using to write this very review), but thankfully we've skipped the 'Dirty Window Cleaner', the 'Alcatrez Ascot Tie Machine', and the 'Upstairs-Downstairs Elevator'. Still, with the way humanity races to keep up with technology, I wonder how long it will be before we see stuff like this in our own homes! Still, this is a classic cartoon and a laugh riot, especially for people who became fond of watching Elmer paired with another cartoon character besides Bugs Bunny.

Enjoy, and remember, no matter what you do... DON'T EVER PUSH THE RED BUTTON!!

While not quite one of my favourites, Design for Leaving is a great cartoon and is proof that Robert McKimson deserves more praise than he gets.

The animation, as is the case most of the case with Looney Tunes and always with McKimson, is very good, bright and colourful in colour, detailed and imaginative in backgrounds and smooth and crisp in character design and drawing. The most prolific and most consistently good of the Looney Tunes cartoons' composers, Carl Stalling provides a wholly energetic, beautifully orchestrated and vibrantly characterful music score, that fits so well and makes the material even better.

Design for Leaving's story is not all that special, but is still made incredibly entertaining thanks to the clever dialogue ('DON'T EVER PUSH THE WED BUTTON!'), the even funnier sight gags of which the classic climactic red button gag is particularly funny, incredibly cool and imaginative gadgets and sprightly pacing. Daffy is in his more manic and less greedy version in this cartoon, and he is intentionally annoying but also a laugh-out-loud riot, while Elmer is likeably dim-witted, similarly amusing and easy to sympathise with. It is unusual to see these two together, when you often see Daffy paired with Porky and Elmer with Bugs, but they do work well and there is a great dynamic conflict between them, as you feel sorry for Elmer and positively hate (but love at the same time) Daffy. Mel Blanc and Arthur Q. Bryan does wonderfully with the voice work.

Overall, a great and under-appreciated cartoon that works even better than the premise made it out to. 9/10 Bethany Cox