Looney Tunes: September 1995
Cover
It's the Hip Fab Fun cover. The four stars, top to bottom, are occupied by Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Marc Antony, and Pussyfoot.
Astronaut Daffy Duck, out on a space walk, is alarmed as he sees a swarm of space bugs about to chomp on the air line coming from his ship.
Credits
Synopsis
Space Station Deep Dish Pi, far across the galaxy near a wormhole and orbiting the planet Midden in the Shmattazoid sector, is where Duck Dodgers and Cadet Porky are stationed. After some colossal screw-ups, Dodgers was sent there to operate the galactic dead letter office, away from the rest of civilization. As Dodgers and Porky discuss this, a mail ship emerges from the wormhole.
The pair deals with the slime-covered ship as well as the lost and rejected mail. The mail includes broken glassware, old flyers and magazines, and rejected fruitcakes. They're building new landforms on Midden from rejected mail. Eventually Porky and Dodgers get to the last couple items. One is a box of self-delivering newspapers and the other is addressed to Duck Dodgers.
Dodgers' parcel is a holographic message from a sweepstakes. He isn't a winner, but is told he can qualify for the next round of the sweepstakes by ordering a lengthy subscription. Disgusted, he hurls the hologram-projecting package away and it hits the box of self-delivering newspapers, setting it off. The papers go flying, hitting anything in their path. Porky manages to shut the door on them as he and Dodgers escape the sorting room.
Recovering from the encounter, they hear the wormhole alarm sound. Dodger's looks forward to a rare visit and rolls out the red carpet for an official greeting. The visitor is one of the S'keet'r armada who tells Dodgers he should surrender. The duck laughs at the idea until he's stung, then he responds with Acme's version of a fly swatter. The S'keet'r calls for help, and gets it as many more emerge from the wormhole.
Dodgers starts out by running away, then realizes who he is and that he needs to stand firm. Instead, though, he sends Porky to deal with the swarm as he sends a panicked signal for help. That doesn't work and soon he and Cadet Porky seem to be trapped. Porky then opens the door to the mail sorting room, letting the newspapers fly out and clobber the invaders.
The distress call wasn't completely ignored, the chief saw the invasion repelled and congratulates Dodgers. Dodgers is told he getting a promotion and a permanent assignment. This news thrills Dodgers, until he discovers what his permanent post is: space station Deep Dish Pi.
Did You Notice...
Page 1: Both the name and the design, or at least the three C-clamps, of Deep Dish Pi parody the television series Deep Space Nine.- Page 1: The planet must not be highly regarded, being named Midden. A midden is, at best, a pile of refuse.
- Page 1: Dodger's chair is a Lazy Martian chair, complete with a side handle to operate the footrest, just like a La-Z-boy recliner.
- Page 2: Dodgers and Marvin blew Planet X to, well, not much, in Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century (Jones, 1953).
- Page 3: The slime falling on Dodgers as he opens a hatch is reminiscent of the scene in the original Star Trek series episode The Trouble With Tribbles where Captain Kirk opens a bin, resulting in a shower of tribbles.
- Page 4: The Federated Conglomeration parodies the Federation from Star Trek.
- Page 4: Midden is aptly named, with landforms being made from trash.
- page 7: The holographic message is borrowed from the 1977 movie Star Wars.
- Page 7: Ed McMaven and the Publisher's Dumpinghouse Sweepstakes poke fun at Ed McMahon and the Publishers Clearinghouse Sweepstakes.
- page 7: Among the item Dodgers starts to pack up is an issue of Bunny Band, a comic magazine published in Italy. Early in this series of Looney Tunes, the stories pblished in the U.S. were selected from stories published elsewhere, so this is a clue that this story likely first appeared in Bunny Band.
- Page 9: The space station has separate pigs' and ducks' rooms.
- Page 10: The S'keet'r's call of "help me" echoes a line from the 1958 movie The Fly.
- Page 10: Dodger's Thursday Afternoon Special isn't exactly a Saturday Night Special, which is a small, inexpensive, and often poorly made, pistol.
Technical Nits
Page 13: The wormhole's tongue is missing as the S'keet'r fleet arrives.
Credits
Synopsis
Marc Antony and Pussyfoot are being taken along on a cross-country vacation. Marc Antony is concerned that Pussyfoot has to travel in a cat carrier and also seems prone to motion sickness. The first stop of the vacation is at Yellowstone, and Pussyfoot is left in the car until Marc Antony lets her out. The kitten immediately bounds right up to the edge of Old Faithful, which is about to erupt. The dog rushes and pushes Pussyfoot clear just as the geyser erupts, sending the dog into the air on the plume of hot water.
On Mississippi paddlewheel riverboat, the seasick Pussyfoot is again let out by Marc Antony. This time she heads right for the paddlewheel, jumping from paddle to paddle. Panicked, the dog rushes to her aid and flips her back onto the boat, but ends up in the water himself.
In New York, everyone makes the trip up to the torch of the Statue of Liberty. Everyone except Pussyfoot gets to admire the view. Again the dog lets her out of the carrier, but she crawls right back in before Marc Antony notices. Assuming the worst, he tries to jump to the railing, only to go through it. Luckily for him some very alert fire boat operators aim their water streams at him and keep him suspended in the air. They then lower him to where his fall won't be quite so long. Somehow all that gets Marc Antony and Pussyfoot, for once not in the cat carrier, a ride in the city's Salute To Heroes parade.
Did You Notice...
- The title plays on that of the 1969 film Easy Rider.
- Page 19: Kibble is a coarsely ground grain. Today it is perhaps most known as being part of the name of the dog food Kibbles'n Bits.
Technical Nits
- Page 19: The sign at the entrance to Yellowstone National Park is blank.
- Page 20: The observation areas in Yellowstone National Park are boardwalks. Visitors are warned to stay on the boardwalks since it would be very easy to be severely burned from hot water and steam.
- Page 20: Old Faithful's eruptions are not as predictable as shown. While the rough time of an eruption can be predicted, the duration of the eruption cannot be predicted.
- Page 21: It's a good thing this a comic with cartoon characters. Otherwise Marc Antony would have severe burns, if he even survived.
- Page 25: The twin towers of the World Trade Center should be significantly taller than the other buildings in the fourth panel. Also, that angle showing the World Trade Center would not show the front of the Statue of Liberty.
Credits
Synopsis
Wile E. Coyote takes delivery of an Acme Laser Blaster. When he tries it, the emission is so intense that the blaster is forced backwards, pressing the coyote right through several rock formations. Road Runner is startled by the goings on, but completely unharmed. The laser blaster finally stops firing and comes to rest. Disgusted, Wile E. kicks it and starts to walk away. His kick was enough to start it again and it blasts him.
Did You Notice...
- Page 29: That the laser blaster experiences a backwards force from its emission indicates either cartoon physics or an insanely powerful output. Or, most likely, both.
Technical Nits
- Page 29: Wile E.'s interaction with delivery person seems to break, or at least bend, one of the "Eleven Rules" Coyote/Road Runner cartoons.
- Page 29: That the laser blaster experiences a backwards force from its emission indicates either cartoon physics or an insanely powerful output. That it manages to survive, if barely, blasting itself through solid rock shows a material strength that only cartoon physics can provide.
Other items:
- The Last Laugh
- Four three-panel cartoon strips featuring Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck
- Daffy complains of never getting mail, but finds he doesn't want some of what Bugs gets.
- The "Fish of the Month Club" has a problem: long delivery times.
- Bugs and Daffy stop burrow so Bugs can stretch his legs as only a cartoon character can.
- Checking their location, Daffy discovers the hard way that they're under a road being built. ( I-65 was completed before 1980.)
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Last updated 29 September 2004