Looney Tunes: July 1995
Cover
It's the Hip Fab Fun cover. The four stars, top to bottom, are occupied by Tweety, Bugs Bunny, Elmer Fudd, and Yosemite Sam.
Daffy Duck, dressed in yellow, plummets from a cliff, with plenty of slack in the line tied to him. He screams, "This is despicable!" Above, Speedy Gonzales is alarmed as he watches Daffy fall, the hand crank for the winch supplying the line spinning wildly as the rope unwinds.
Credits
Synopsis
A hotel in Acapulco people enjoy their meals, a great ocean view, and the fast service of busmouse Speedy Gonzales who does his and the waiter's work. When it comes time to present the checks and collect tips, then Daffy is around rather than sleeping. Speedy suggests he help with the dishes to even out the work and Daffy agrees. The duck ends up balancing a huge stack of plates, and then being thrown off balance when the manager comes through a doorway, slamming the door into Daffy. The plates fall into the ocean and Daffy nearly follows them.
The manager catches Daffy before he falls and pulls him back, but now the duck must work to pay for the plates. His new job is to be the hotel's entertainment: a cliff diver. Speedy helps get Daffy ready with a practice dive. Rather than have Daffy plunge into the water right away, a bungee cord is used to pull him back. This works either too well or not well enough as Daffy falls and bounces many time. When the bouncing stops and the bungee is disconnected, the dizzy duck walks off the cliff edge. Speedy reminds him he has wings and Daffy remembers he's a duck and can fly... and deal with water.
Rather than do the usual dive, Daffy boasts he can dive from the highest precipice, El Droppo. The audience at the hotel is thrilled with the idea, as is the manager. Speedy figures something is wrong but doesn't realize it until Daffy has jumped: It's low tide, meaning Daffy is about to hit rocks rather than water. On the way down, Daffy panics and forgets he can fly. Speedy passes out fans to all the onlookers, planning to make enough wind to blow Daffy to safety.
The fans aren't used. A Giant Mexican Condor catches Daffy and carries him off. The audience is thrilled, as is the hotel manager. The only one not thrilled is Daffy. The Condor isn't all that attractive, but she's very attracted to Daffy.
Did You Notice...
Page 1: The unnamed hotel is if not La Mirador, at least based on it. La Mirador has an open air restaurant from which cliff dives can be viewed.- Page 3: If the manager isn't exaggerating, those dishes are indeed expensive. According to the 1996 World Almanac, page 797, as of May 1995 the exchange rate was 6.18 pesos to the dollar. That makes those million peso dishes worth almost $162,000 at the time.
- Page 4: Daffy's quip about a lemming inventing cliff diving comes from the false belief that lemmings periodically run over cliffs and fall into the ocean. This belief stems from the 1958 Disney nature film White Wilderness in which lemmings were herded over a cliff where they fell into a river.
- Page 7: Mikhail Baryshnikov is a Russian-American dancer and choreographer who is perhaps most known for his ballet performance.
- Page 9: Daffy's claim of 6.0 landing reflects the scoring system for dives in use at the time of publication. The top diving score rating was 6.0 rather than 10.0.
- Page 10: Daffy's outfit, especially his headwear, is somewhat reminiscent of that of Carmen Miranda. Carmen Miranda was Brazilian rather than Mexican. Daffy's outfit could also perhaps be some sort of Aztec costume. (EC)
Technical Nits
Page 11: Any place where there is exposed rock at low tide is not a place to dive at any time. A headfirst dive into shallow water leads to broken necks and paralysis.- There is no Great Mexican Condor, nor is there a cliff at Acapulco named El Droppo.
Credits
Synopsis
Bellboy Daffy see Yosemite Sam get out of a large limousine and finds out from doorman Porky that Sam is a pianist. The duck figures he can get a big tip out of Sam. Daffy helps Sam with his bags, but doesn't count on Sam having brought an astonishing amount of stuff with him. Eventually the duck is weighed down with a chest, barbells, golf clubs, a bicycle, Sam's own piano, and more.
Sam checks in, and after being told by Bugs to be careful of his language, is to be shown to his suite. All his baggage won't fit in the elevator, so Daffy hauls it up the stairs after giving Sam his room keys. When the duck finally has Sam's stuff placed in his room, Sam asks him to call a plumber. Sam managed to get a toe stuck in the faucet while taking a bath. Daffy makes the call and Bugs shows up as the plumber. Bugs quickly has Sam free, but only after sending him spinning with the faucet. Sam's lack of clothes keeps him from doing much about his treatment right then.
While Sam dresses, Bugs tries his hand at the piano. Sam hears that and, after telling Bugs to keep away from his piano, sits down and plays. He sings as he plays Camptown Races or something resembling it and Bugs and Daffy join singing. Sam stops playing, but keeps singing and they all end up on the balcony, where Bugs kicks him over the edge and into San Francisco Bay. Daffy is horrified that Bugs cost him his tip. Bugs tells the the duck he wouldn't have gotten a tip anyway.
Sam returns, wet, angry, and ready to shoot Bugs and Daffy. He tells them to say their prayers, so they kneel and do. Sam can't stand to shoot them like that, so orders them to put their hands up, and then to sing. The pair break into opera of which Sam doesn't think much. When Sam asks about any last words, Daffy ask about his tip. That question really angers Sam and Bugs and Daffy run as he starts shooting.
Did You Notice...
- Page 18: The Ritz Raff, besides punning riff-raff, is if not based on, at least borrows part of the name of the Ritz Carlton hotel in San Francisco.
- Page 23: A carillon is set of tuned bells. Here, the name puns carrying on.
- Page 24: Sams line in the last panel, "Ah pity the fool..." is a line made famous by Mr. T who first used it in the 1982 movie Rocky III though it was perhaps made more known from repeated use in the 1983 television series The A-Team.
- Page 29: The Golden Gate bridge in the second panel shows that the city is indeed San Franciso.
Technical Nits
- Pages 26 and 28: Sam's Camptown Races lyrics are alternative, at least. According to the traditional lyrics: The races don't sing the song, Camptown ladies do. The race isn't five miles long, the racetrack is five miles long. The singer bets not on a "mare" but a "nag."
Other items:
There are two one-page fillers, and a two-page art puzzle.
- Bugs Bunny
- Bugs pulls an April Fool's joke on Elmer, but Elmer misses the point when he tries to pull it on Daffy.
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- Draw!
- One page shows a grid of boxes over a line drawing of Yosemite Sam. The facing page has only the grid. Copy each box to make another drawing of Yosemite Sam.
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- The Last Laugh
- Four three-panel cartoon strips featuring Wile E. Coyote.
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- Acme punch bowls pack a wallop.
- Vague instructions prove dangerous.
- A Road Runner call is a bit too effective.
- Wile E. wonders why his plans go wrong.
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Last update 22 September 2004