The Super Snooper

Plot synopsis:
Daffy Duck is Duck Drake, a "Private Eye, Ear, Nose, and Throat". He receives a call that summons him to the J. Cleaver Axe-Handle Estate, where somebody supposedly has been murdered. He arrives at the house and suspects a shapely female duck with red hair and a curve hugging red dress of committing the crime. The woman, referred to as 'The Body' shows him affection; saying "Rowr! Rowr! Oh baby! gorgeous hunk of duck," and showers him with kisses. However, Drake, is only interested in inquiring about the murder.
Drake immediately accuses her of hating the deceased and drawing her "little pistol" out of her bag (the gun is a revolver with a very long barrel but somehow fits inside a change purse), pointing it at him and slowly squeezing the trigger, tighter and tighter and tighter...until six rounds plug Drake right in the face. At first the bullets appear to have decapitated him until his head sticks out from his jacket with his beak full of holes and proclaims loudly "Not so TIGHT!" He then elaborates (after she hikes up her skirt to reveal her long curvacious legs, turns the lights out and plants numerous kisses on him) how 'The Body' grabbed the deer rifle off the wall, prompting the man (having apparently survived the pistol shots) to run screaming from the room then letting him have it when he tries to sneak out. Drake is shot multiple times while mimicking a game dummy so that the scoreboard goes from 5 to 200 before eventually saying "Pretty good shooting, sister".
The woman insists that he searches her and kisses him on the lips two more times. Amazingly, the target is still alive and kicking so the next scene involves her crushing him with a grand piano suspended from the ceiling. Drake predictably ends up on the receiving end of this reenactment after startling the woman into releasing the rope holding up the piano, which falls and crushes him through the floor, leaving him with piano keys for teeth. Even though the victim has been shot twice and squished by a piano, he is still defiantly clinging on to life, with the love struck duck getting another chance to kiss him on the cheek. This results in a last desperate attempt to kill him by moving nearby train tracks to the front door because the victim always watched the 5:15 express go past every day. At that precise time Drake opens the door and is flattened by the oncoming train, leaving him with a lantern on his head. After insulting the driver, he makes the shocking discovery that he is in the wrong house. "Silly boy! The ax handle estate is a couple of blocks up the street," The Body tells him.
Finally accepting that the seductress is innocent, he is further stunned when she claims being guilty "Of being crazy about you sweatheart!" Drake, having ignored her advances throughout the entire episode, notices the "old ball and chain" look in her eye (quite literally) and flees. He runs right through the front door. Not giving up on her 'cutie pie,' The Body hikes up her skirt and chases after him, also breaking through the front door which now houses their bride and groom imprints.

Tags: psychedelic, romantic

Review:
Gumshoe Daffy And The 'Inevitable Babe'.
Daffy Duck starring in a film-noir cartoon?
I love it!Daffy is "Duck Drake: private eye, ear, nose and throat" who narrates this crime tale, a la film noirs of the period.
His takeoff on a Sam Spade or Mike Hammer-type investigator is hilarious and a good spoof of those type of crime stories."Drake" encounters the "inevitable amorous babe who's just crazy about us hard-boiled gumshoes" and thinks she's the killer in this murder at a rich mansion.
He tries out several theories on how she killed her husband, demonstrating each and with the predictable (and humorous) results.As with any spoof, some of the jokes on dead-on and very good, others are so bad or so corny you wince but either way this provides good entertainment and is pure 100 percent Daffy Duck.
The excellent graphics don't hurt, either.
Kudos to writer Tedd Pierce and director Robert McKimsom for another solid effort..
Film noir with Daffy Duck.
As a huge lifelong fan of Looney Tunes and of Daffy Duck (one of Looney Tunes' best characters), while not quite one of my favourites The Super Snooper is a very entertaining spoof of film noir.
There is not much to criticise here actually.
A couple of jokes are a tad corny (the ending didn't quite work for me) and it does feel a touch heavy on the slapstick occasionally.
Nevertheless it is still very entertaining indeed.
Contrary to one reviewer, I for one thought the animation was very good.
Sure there has been better animation before, but it is bright, colourful and atmospheric, the backgrounds are suitably detailed and fluid and the characters are very well drawn, as said the atmosphere evoked is highly effective.
Carl Stalling can be counted on to provide a good music score, and he certainly does, great even.
It is beautifully orchestrated and characterful as well as enhancing the action brilliantly in the way few other composers scoring cartoon shorts did so well.
Dialogue is smart, fresh and witty and the story spoofs the film noir genre in a brilliantly clever and remarkably suspenseful way.
The gags a vast majority of the time work really well and the best of them like the piano, bullet-holes-in-Daffy's bill, the train and the goofy walk gags are incredibly funny.
The characters work well on their own and complement each other beautifully.
Daffy carries the cartoon with brilliant comic timing and great charisma, while the Lady Duck (possible inspiration for Jessica Rabbit?) is a deliciously seductive and potentially deadly counterpart.
Mel Blanc gives as always stellar vocal characterisations, again demonstrating his incredible and unequalled ability to voice multiple characters and give each of them a unique and different personality from one another.
Marian Richman's voice acting is also very suited to the Lady Duck.
In conclusion, very entertaining and very good.
Just not the best of Looney Tunes, or one of my favourites.
8/10 Bethany Cox. duck noir.
As the Termite Terrace crowd loved to spoof everything in popular culture, it should as no surprise that they took a swipe at 1940s detective movies.
Robert McKimson's "The Super Snooper" casts Daffy Duck as Duck Drake, a Sam Spade-style private eye, nose, ears and mouth.
One day, this hard-boiled gumshoe gets a call telling him that there's been a murder in a local mansion.
So, he goes there and finds the sexiest female duck of all, whom he immediately suspects of the murder.
So, he tries to recreate the crime, always making the hot babe cooperate...but it results to his detriment!
While Chuck Jones famously cast Daffy in the kinds of roles deliberately not suited to him ("The Scarlet Pumpernickel", "Duck Dodgers in the 24th 1/2 Century", "Robin Hood Daffy"), Robert McKimson clearly also had an eye for this.
We see here Daffy in exaggerated form: he's so convinced of his own rectitude that he goes to any length to prove it, no matter what happens...and then we get a big surprise at the end!
And besides, THAT IS ONE HOT BABE!!!!!!!
A cross between Veronica Lake, Grace Kelly and Barbara Eden, if you will.Anyway, I gotta disagree with a reviewer who in another review said that Warner Bros.
should have closed Robert McKimson's animation unit and left Arthur Davis's unit open.
McKimson really directed some impressive work (though Davis also directed some good ones).
This is certainly a funny one..
Fantastic!
I very much enjoyed this Daffy Duck episode, for the following reasons: 1.
The idea was very good, Daffy Duck can pull off a detective role very well (as you may already know even if you have not watched this particular episode).
2. The woman character was excellent, she CERTAINLY liked Daffy!
3. The way Daffy narrated the story at the beginning and then re-did the mystery in the middle and towards the end were very well done and clever.
4. The funny-walk scene is hilarious and well-animated.
5. There were many amusing points in the episode, if a tad slapsticky at times.In this episode, Daffy stars as Duck Drake, a detective, who one day receives a call which does not interest him, until the caller posts a huge wad of cash through the phone.
Daffy decides, now he has such a good fare, he will go out and investigate the mystery.
He turns up at a very large merchant house, where a suspicious butler welcomes him in, with a funny walk, which Daffy imitates (and this was nearly twenty years before the Ministry of Silly Walks began!).
He then meets a very over-dramatic, seductive woman duck and Daffy guesses what happened and why she is the murderer.
Will he find out if she really committed the crime..?
The only thing that I did not find top notch in this episode was the animation, it was not the best for Looney Tunes.
Also, there is a little too much slapstick for me.Very well worth watching, I recommend this to people who like Daffy Duck, to people who like his detective roles or who want to see them and to people who like it when Daffy is paired with a woman duck.
Enjoy "The Super Snooper"!
In the animated short SUPER SNOOPER .
. Warner Bros.
anticipates the day when Americans can pay for services through their phones, as most of us do daily now.
An anonymous caller makes two phone payments to private eye Duck Drake (portrayed by Daffy Duck)--the first for his time, the second for his expenses.
The rest of this piece raises the issue of whether Daffy will become a pioneering cartoon gigolo.
I did not view SUPER SNOOPERS with the benefit of an alternate commentary soundtrack, so I do not know for sure whether the wedding music concluding this Sadie Hawkins fowl affair was Warner Bros.' idea, or a finale dictated by America's Pre-Release Film Censorship Board.
Frequent Looney Tunes viewers familiar with Warner's penchant for staging gay marriages among its stable of animated male stars might be surprised that Daffy is running off with (or running from) a less anachronistic female here.
But if you look closely at this alleged duck chick, she may sport the head of a bird, but she's certainly drawn with the legs of a woman.
Waddle your heart out, Daffy..
"THIS is innocent?!".
Daffy Duck as a private eye?!
Difficult to fathom, isn't it?
Yet he is indeed "The Super Snooper", donning the customary trench coat, hat, cigarette, and ineptness as he visits a wealthy estate and tries to trap a slinky dame into a confession.
In doing so, the hapless duck is hilarious!My favorite scenes in this cartoon are: the piano gag; bullet holes in Daffy's bill; and Daffy & the butler doing their goofy walk.Need help solving a mystery?
Then call on Daffy Duck, "The Super Snooper".
Of course, it would help if he actually pays more attention to where the scene of the crime is!