A Duckling Journey

***A Duckling Journey*** is a 1949 American animated musical comedy-adventure film produced by Kenny & Kella Young Productions and released by 20th Century Fox. The film was directed by Dora Wilson and produced by Kenny and Kella Young. The film follows three mallard ducklings embarks towards south at Southern California to find and save their flock of wild ducks, including their parents, after realizing the absence of their return from three-month migration.

The film released on November 9, 1949. The film had received positive reviews and was a box office success, making Fox a head start to compete with Disney in the animation field, and paved way for future animated films along with other Hollywood studios, such Warner Bros., Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer and Paramount. It eventually made a profit in its 1953 reissue and became a cult classic after its re-releases on theaters, television airings and home video releases and is now considered one of the greatest animated films ever made, with a rare 100% rating on the website Rotten Tomatoes. In 1990, *A Duckling Journey* was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant", making it the first 20th Century Fox Animation film and the first animated feature not produced or distributed by Disney to earn that honor.

*A Duckling Journey* is the first 20th Century Fox animated film, as well as the first feature films produced by Kenny & Kella Young Productions. Two direct-to-video sequels *A Duckling Returns* (2004) and *A Duckling Traveler* (2010).

## Plot

In Duck Square, somewhere at the Northern California, three little duckling named Janice, Harry and Piper were finally off from school for the upcoming winter season. On their way back home, one of their friends, Otto the otter, gets his kite stuck in a tree, so Janice climbs up to retrieve the kite as Harry, Piper, Otto, Possi the possum, and Digger the gopher watch her for safety. Janice then approaches a hawk's nest in the tree. The massive hawk then woke up after Janice successfully got her hand on Otto's kite from the nest. Janice, Harry, Piper and their friends flee while the hawk chases after them until Mallard, Janice, Harry and Piper's father, saves the young critters from the ferocious bird and takes Janice, Harry and Piper home. He and his wife Millard remind her that they are both are heading south with other ducks to migrate, and Millard makes a call to Grandpa Duck to come and babysit Janice, Harry and Piper once they're gone. After Grandpa Duck arrives, Millard and Mallard take off, catching up with the other flocks while Janice, Harry and Piper sadly watches and wishes they can go to south despite being told by their parents that they's too young.

When winter arrived, Janice, Harry and Piper plays in the snow with Otto, Possi and Digger by ice skating and building the largest snowman until a blizzard happens, leading to the animals back home. Sometime between spring and summer, the ducks, however, didn't return from migration, which worries Janice, Harry, Piper and Grandpa Duck. They set out to find them, and to do that, they must take a train to south since both ducks can't fly. However, one morning after Janice, Harry, Piper and Grandpa Duck located a safe spot to sleep for the night, Grandpa Duck passes away in his sleep due to his old age, much to the dismay of his grandchildren.

Janice, Harry and Piper is now on their own but as their journey continues, they gets lost and is chased by the same hawk until getting saved by a raccoon named Ringo. After Piper tells Ringo about their journey, the raccoon agrees to take Janice, Harry and Piper to a railroad station he knows about. Upon arriving at the station, Janice, Harry, Piper and Ringo unfortunately realize they don’t have money to pay for a ticket. But, a crow named Clifford allowed them to sneak inside one of the human passengers’ luggage to reach inside the one of the cars. In one of the cars, Janice, Harry, Piper, Ringo and Clifford are hidden behind the luggage on top of the overhead baggage net and they wait for their arrival in Southern California. While on their way, however, Ringo’s aid for Janice, Harry and Piper sadly reminds them of their grandfather as Janice wishes that he‘d be with them if it weren’t for his death. Ringo and Clifford cheers them by playing the banjo for the song until Janice, Harry and Piper feels superior.

30 days later, the train has finally reached Los Angeles, so Janice, Harry, Piper, Ringo and Clifford hide in a woman's baggage to sneak off the train unnoticed. However, they are accidentally discovered while getting off the loading station and quickly flee, avoiding getting caught by the pest control. Successful in their escape, Janice, Harry, Piper, Ringo and Clifford continue on their journey to look for the ducks, only to Janice to get captured by red fox Sly DeFox and his hungry henchmen, ill-tempered bobcat Robert Wildcat and mute snake Silly Snake. They try to devour her, but Harry, Piper, Ringo and Clifford ends up in a comical rescue mission to save Janice from them.

The gang stops at an abandoned bar building, which houses the Swinging Saloon theater restaurant, and Ringo and Clifford introduces Janice, Harry and Piper to Mr. Gobble, the turkey owner of Swinging Saloon, and the restaurant’s performers such as Rick Rabbit, the rabbit pianist, and the singing duo, Craney, the crane, and Ratso, the rat. Janice and Ringo tell everyone about their quest.

The Swinging Saloon inhabitants agree to help Janice, Harry and Piper as they know where the ducks are located. On the continued quest, Janice, Harry and Piper suddenly gets separated from Ringo, Clifford and the gang by the rapids. Afterwards, Janice, Harry and Piper finds themselves in a field, where they then finds their parents and the rest of the flock are in cruel captivity in the new and upcoming butcher shop run by a coyote owner named Wolfard coyote; he captured the ducks and lock them a large cage in his shop. As Janice, Harry and Piper tries to free the ducks, she gets caught and is forced in captivity as well by Wolfard, who tells the ducks that during two to three days by the time his new butcher shop will make his grand opening, he plan to kill all of them both as his meal and to sell them to the customers, much to the ducks‘ dismay.

Meanwhile, Ringo, Clifford and the gang are on search for Janice, Harry and Piper, only to be under the attack by the hawk, who followed Janice, Harry, Piper, Ringo and Clifford. Ringo then fights off the bird before he and his friends shift their focus back to finding Janice, Harry and Piper. At night, Ringo and his pals locate Wolfward’s butcher shop, where they quietly free Janice, Harry, Piper, their parents and the other ducks from cages. However, Rick accidentally sneezes loudly causing Wolfard to wake up and see the flock escaping. While the ducks are free, Janice, Harry and Piper gets recaptured by Wolfard and taken away in his van. Ringo and Mallard chase after Wolfard to save Janice, Harry and Piper.

The duo cuts open the top of Wolfard’s van and rescues Janice, Harry and Piper, only to be discovered and caught by Wolfard. As six suddenly end up on the cliff, Wolfard’s van drops down below. Ringo and Mallard put up a fight against the wolf while Janice, Harry and Piper were about to escape by trying to fly, but watches helplessly as Wolfard knocks Mallard unconscious (followed by injuring his wing) and is attempting to end Ringo’s life by tilting a tree towards his doom. But in courage, Janice stops Wolfard by blinding him to save Ringo. While Ringo escapes from the leaning tree, Janice and Wolfard end up falling down from the cliff, with the tree as it cause to tilt down by them, to Harry, Piper, Ringo and Mallard’s horror.

Disheartened for what seems to be the death of Janice, the two climb up back to the top and, along with Harry, Piper, Clifford, Ringo’s friends, Millard and other ducks, mope for the loss of Janice. But Janice still lives, successfully attempted her first flight as she flies up back the top, much to the joy of Harry, Piper, Ringo, his pals, her parents and the other ducks. As Janice teach Harry and Piper to fly, they thanks their friends for their help on the long and dangerous search, as they tearfully says and hugs goodbye to everyone, before taking off in flight back to the North with other ducks, along with Mallard, with his wing bandage, being carried by the ambulance ducks.

## Production

Development of *A Duckling Journey* started in early 1945, Kenny Young and Kella Young were considered producing animated feature films, despite the disappointing box-office performances of Walt Disney's *Pinocchio* (1940), *Fantasia* (1940), and *Bambi* (1942), as well as Max Fleischer's *Mr. Bug Goes to Town* (1941), during the World War II.

*More coming soon!*

### Re-releases

#### Theatrical re-release dates

* June 10, 1953
* November 9, 1969 (20th Anniversary)
* November 9, 1974 (25th Anniversary)
* March 1, 1986
* January 5, 1989 (40th Anniversary)
* November 25, 1994 (45th Anniversary)
* December 1, 1999 (50th Anniversary)

## Transcripts

### Main

To see the main transcript of the film, click here.

### Trailers

To see the transcript for the trailers of the film, click here.