The Foxy Duckling Explained

The Foxy Duckling
Director:Arthur Davis
Story:George Hill
Animator:Manny Gould
Don Williams
J.C. Melendez
Layout Artist:Thomas McKimson
Background Artist:Philip DeGuard
Music:Carl Stalling
Studio:Warner Bros. Cartoons
Distributor:Warner Bros. Pictures
Color Process:Technicolor
Runtime:7 minutes
Language:English

The Foxy Duckling is a Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies color cartoon short directed by Arthur Davis.[1] The short was released on August 23, 1947.[2]

Plot

An insomniac fox is having trouble sleeping, and despite his best efforts (tossing and turning, clamping his eyes shut, etc), he simply cannot fall asleep. He stumbles across a book entitled Insomnia and its Cure, which tells him filling his pillow with duck feathers is essential for a good night's sleep. The next morning, the fox heads out to capture a duck and soon comes across one. The duck, however, proves to be too much for the fox to handle, as he is constantly outsmarted and all his plans to capture him backfire at every turn.

Frustrated, the fox tries one last ditch effort to capture the duck, who is flying just out of his reach. Using many boards and nails, he creates himself a crude wooden bridge to reach him, though the duck outsmarts him yet again by almost-completely sawing off the part of the tree the boards were attached to, leaving it on the verge of collapsing should even the slightest bit of movement be had... and as luck would have it, the bridge is balanced dangerously over a rather large ravine. Though he is frightened, the fox still persists on capturing the duck, who then lets loose one of his feathers onto the wooden bridge... which the extra weight proves to be just enough to cause it to collapse, along with the fox, who falls to his death.

Satisfied, the duck starts to fly away, but he is stopped by the angel spirit of the now-dead fox. Panicked that the fox now has the ability to fly with his newly-gained angel wings, the duck quickly takes off into the distance with the fox following closely behind.

See also

References

  1. Book: Beck . Jerry . Friedwald . Will . Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies: A Complete Illustrated Guide to the Warner Bros. Cartoons . 1989 . Henry Holt and Co . 0-8050-0894-2 . 178.
  2. Book: Lenburg . Jeff . The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons . 1999 . Checkmark Books . 0-8160-3831-7 . 6 June 2020 . 104–106.