Moby Duck

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Moby Duck is a 1965 Looney Tunes short directed by Robert McKimson.
== Title ==
The title is a pun on the book Moby Dick.
== Plot ==
A ship has crashed into an island. Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales are sitting sadly on a pair of rocks. Daffy complains he's all alone on a deserted island. Speedy points out he's here too and offers Daffy his company, but the duck spurns him, complaining ducks can't eat mice and kvetches that Speedy can barely speak English.
Daffy paces as he wonders how he's going to get food. When Speedy says he can run, Daffy demands Speedy find some food for him. Speedy however is just as clueless as Daffy is, and instead decides to pace along with him.
While pacing, Daffy stumbles across a box on the shore. It is filled with canned goods. He runs over and is happy that he is finally going to have some food. Speedy is also happy that there's food for him and Daffy, but Daffy greedily tells the mouse that he's not to going to share any of the food with him. Speedy begs him for at least a crumb, but he still refuses.
Daffy notices that the food is all in cans. He learns that Speedy has a can-opener inside his pocket. He begs Speedy to give it to him, and Speedy offers it, if the duck will give him a few cans of food. Daffy however refuses, walking away saying "I never saw such a selfish mouse." He opts to open the can the old fashioned way, with a rock. Daffy then attempts to open it with a boulder, but this backfires, and it hits Daffy. Speedy continues to offer Daffy his assistance, lowering his price down to one can, but Daffy stupidly refuses, saying that he'll starve to death before he trades with him.
While walking, Daffy sees an axe and attempts to open the can with it, but it backfires as the ax blade falls off the handle and into the ocean. In response Daffy throws a temper tantrum, whacking the can with the handle. In a gag that is likely recycled from Rabbitson Crusoe, Daffy attempts to open the can by putting it up near his butt, and asking a swordfish to run near it, only for the can to fall off, and instead Daffy is stabbed by the swordfish, which he heals with a cast.
Speedy returns and gives the can-opener to Daffy, apologizing for being selfish. Daffy however still refuses to give Speedy the food, and he fights him for the can opener, all the while the food is washed near the shores of a rock. Daffy attempts to get it, but a group of angry sharks force him back, which upsets him.
Speedy reveals the real reason why he offered Daffy his can-opener so easily. He happens to be dining with Robinson Crusoe at a restaurant on Friday, which is located around the deserted island.
Daffy rushes to the restaurant, but when he learns of its special, pressed duck, he's scared off, and swims into the ocean.
== Notes ==
* This cartoon's plot is a semi-remake of "Canned Feud" (1951) and "Rabbitson Crusoe" (1956), both of which were directed by Friz Freleng fourteen and nine years earlier. However, unlike the well fed mouse who was starving Sylvester purely out of sadism in the former short, here Speedy Gonzales is starving and repeatedly offers to give Daffy the can opener, if he can have at least one of Daffy's hundreds of cans, which the greedy Daffy refuses to do. Additionally, the cartoon ends differently with Speedy giving Daffy the can opener for free because he had found another source of food.
* This is the first Daffy and Speedy cartoon directed by Robert McKimson. From this cartoon onward, McKimson would direct the rest of the cartoons which feature Daffy Duck and/or Speedy Gonzales (save for only two Road Runner cartoons, "Rushing Roulette" and "Sugar and Spies", and one Daffy/Porky cartoon, "Corn on the Cop", which is instead directed by Irv Spector) throughout the DePatie-Freleng era, while the directing duties of the Road Runner shorts (except those two) were handed over to Rudy Larriva via Format Films.
* This was also the second short to pair Daffy and Speedy together.
* Not counting "It's Nice to Have a Mouse Around the House", this cartoon marked a change in Daffy's personality when he is paired alongside Speedy, where Daffy appears to be an extremely grouchy, nasty and bitter character with his mean spirit taken to extremes, and in these cartoons he heavily disregards others in favor of only getting what he wants. Though these traits were previously seen in "Stork Naked" and "The Iceman Ducketh" in 1955 and the previous year, but by this cartoon, these traits have been exaggerated and made permanent throughout the rest of his appearances until the late-1960s (except for a few exceptions like "Skyscraper Caper") before they have been dropped for good in the more recent Looney Tunes revivals since the 1970s.
* This was the final Warner Bros. cartoon Treg Brown worked on as a film editor, and one of the few he worked alongside Lee Gunther.
* Coincidentally real ducks do indeed sometimes attempt to eat mice.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=km6ok8NJx1g
* MeTV aired a previously unreleased restored print of the cartoon on Toon In with Me.
== Gallery ==
Moby Duck (1965) Credits 1.jpeg
Moby Duck (1965) Credits 2.jpeg
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=== TV Title Cards ===
MobyDuckTMMS.png|The Merrie Melodies Show
== References ==
Category:1965
Category:Cartoons directed by Robert McKimson
Category:Daffy Duck Cartoons
Category:Speedy Gonzales Cartoons
Category:Shorts
Category:DePatie-Freleng Looney Tunes
Category:Looney Tunes Shorts
Category:Cartoons produced by David H. DePatie
Category:Cartoons with characters voiced by Mel Blanc
Category:Cartoons with music by Bill Lava
Category:Cartoons with film editing by Treg Brown
Category:Cartoons animated by Warren Batchelder
Category:Cartoons animated by Bob Matz
Category:Cartoons animated by Norman McCabe
Category:Cartoons animated by Don Williams
Category:Cartoons animated by Laverne Harding
Category:Cartoons with backgrounds by Tom O'Loughlin
Category:Cartoons with layouts by Dick Ung
Category:Cartoons written by John Dunn
Category:Cartoons with film editing by Lee Gunther