Lucky Ducky

**Lucky Ducky** is a 1948 cartoon directed by Tex Avery.

## Plot

The story begins with the dedication reading “Dedicated to those duck hunters who leave at dawn with loaded gun… and come home late loaded…”.

Two dog hunters, who, originally meant to by George and Junior, and are actually named after the two bears, are seated in the motorboat in the center in the lake where a large flock of mallard ducks are seen swimming around the boat, and others flying overhead, the ducks dance around the edge of boat to rhythm “The Conga”. The clock nails on a tree has a sign above reading: “No Hunting before 6 AM”, and as the clock hits 6 O’clock the bells, and the whistle goes off, and all the ducks flew away, George and Junior look around and react, then look at camera and slap their faces, until they hear a duck quacking, and look up, and see a mother duck flying with a nest strapped around here. They fire one shot, which rings out scaring her, firing enters left and outs the strap, causing the egg to fall out of the nest, and as the shell breaks, a pair of wings protrude from shell and flaps up and down as the shell falls downward.

George and Junior look upward as the egg falls and lands on the edge on boat. They watch as two feet break through the shell then a duck’s head. The duckling dances back and forth as he peels of the sections of the shell and jumps off the boat into the water. George and Junior lower the muzzle of their guns into water, then raise guns, and find them tied together. The duckling jumps up from lake and laughs at them before diving back down into the water. As the duckling swims underwater, he takes the brace and bit and drills the bottom of the boat causing the water to spout upward, George covers the hole with his hands, but fails to notice the water, which begins to spout out of his ears, so Junior covers George’s ears, but fails too when the water spouts out of his ears, so George reaches his hand and turns Junior's nose like a nozzle and succeeds when the water ceases to flow from Junior's ears. George removes his hand covering hole in boat, the duckling jumps out of hole, pinches George’s nose before diving back into the hole and jumps again to laugh at them and dives back down. George, now mad, takes his gun, and drains the muzzle into the hole, the duckling underwater takes the clothespin and clips the end of gun. George has his gun aimed at hole in the bottom of the boat, but fires a gun, then reacts upon not hearing an explosion, so he pulls gun out of the hole and looks at it and discovers a clothes pin has clipped to the end of gun, but now as Junior removes clothes pin, the gun fires, leaving George's face blackened and hair singed. The duckling jumps up and laughs and then holds the end of boat and begins to tilt it.

The duckling bounces boat up and down in the air, and as George and Junior hang onto it, the duckling laughs and then jumps out and swims away. George tries to start the motor, but fails when it won’t work, so Junior takes the rope and wraps it around George's head and pulls it, and as the motor begins to start up, the boat travels hurriedly. The duckling hears the boat coming and starts to swim away. The boat cuts a pathway through the water where the fish and ground can be seen through the pathway, the duckling swims onto bank and into the water again the boat travels over the bank and cuts the path, causing the tree and the edge of the bank to sink down into a lake, the duckling runs over the log above the stream and the boat cuts the logs into a shape of a bridge, one tree leaning against the other, the duckling runs up one tree and down the other and the boat travels up one tree cutting into a shape of a stairway and down the other which cuts into a shape of a ladder. The duckling runs down the road as the boats follows they travel up the mountain and drills into a Mount Rushmore sculpture on the mountainside. The duckling runs into a tree and the boat follows the duckling into the tree, and as the duckling exits from the 2nd tree followed by the boat, the duckling runs pass the large tree and small tree, which save each other by using their branches as the boats enters through. The duckling swims through the mud, and as the boat stops before the muddy stream, they pick up the boat and tip toe through the mud and then continue the chase. The duckling runs between two trees, and as the boat squeezes through the trees and flattens, the duckling runs up against the boulders. The boat with George and Junior are crashing into him and the boulder, which flattens everyone against the rock.

The chase resumes, and as the duckling, George, and Junior stop at the “Stop School Crossing” sign, the schoolhouse walks across the street. Then while the chase continues, they run past the border where technicolor ends and everything in black and white has begun, and as they all stopped suddenly when they notice that everything is black and white, they see the sign that reads “Technicolor Ends Here”. As they run back to color, Junior steps over the George divided between color and black and white. The duckling runs until he stops and leans on the edge of a cliff, the duckling screams when he saw Junior coming, so he pulls out a “Quick Grow” bottle and pours it on the tree and the tree begin to grew. While Junior crashes into a fully grown tree, the duckling laughs even as he climbs up the tree, George brings an axe, and as he picks up George and starts to chop down a tree, he now notices that he hasn't picked the axe up, but has used George to chop the tree down, George spills out small logs from his mouth. Junior sniffles on the tracks of a duckling until he reaches the reeds, so while the duckling inside pours the pepper on nose and opens the top cap of his nose to pour the rest of the pepper on his nose and closes it, Junior is about to sneeze, but is saved when the duckling brings a cream berry pie to him, just before he sneezes the pie on the George, the cream and berries have fallen on George giving him the appearance of Santa Claus. The duckling dives down the hole of a log, but while Junior reaches his hand inside the log to try and grab the duckling, the duckling releases the rubber band, sending Junior's hand flying out of the log and into the mouth and through his hat. Now mad by this, Junior then pulls out a gun, and points toward the hold of the log, but is horrified when the duckling waves an ugly mask at his gun, causing it to scream, shrink to the size of cap pistol, and like a toy pistol, which then hangs limp and shells fall from it to the ground, the duckling jumps out of the log and laughs at George and Junior and runs away. Angry, Junior takes the rifle from the George, and tries to shoot at him, but fails when it isn't firing at all. As he opens up a rifle and takes out a shell, he checks and then hands the shell to the George. To his horror, the shell goes off making the George’s appearance as Picaninny. Cross, George hands the remains of the shell to Junior, which is depressed when it goes off as well and also forces him to take an appearance as Picaninny.

The duckling walks leaving his tracks, and as George and Junior's guns sniff at the tracks, the guns stand up point toward the left, and to their terror, George and Junior see the tracks going in all directions, so George gets an idea and takes out a duck call box from his pocket, and as he takes out the whistle and blows the whistle, the duckling pops out of the whistle and blows a duck call whistle at the George and runs away. Now as George and Junior start the chase, the duckling jumps into the lake swimming he panics and starts running. George and Junior start riding and chasing the duckling in their motorboat with their rifles prepared. The duckling stops and holds the stop sign to stop the George and Junior, who aim at the duckling, but fail to shoot him when the duckling nods his head “no” and points toward the sign on a tree that reads: “No Shooting after 5 PM”, so to their horror, George and Junior see it, and as the clock hits 5 O’clock, the bells and whistle goes off. George and Junior just have to scream before all the ducks return to the lake, and when George and Junior are feeling bored again, the ducks on the boat dance to “The Conga”, and as the camera shows the same duckling dancing to “The Conga”, the film closes.

## Availability

* (1988) VHS - *Tex Avery's Screwball Classics*
* (1990) LaserDisc - *Tex Avery's Screwball Classics*
* (1993) LaserDisc - *The Compleat Tex Avery, Side 4*

## Censorship

On Cartoon Network and Boomerang, the small hunter dog is left in blackface after a bullet shell explodes in his face. The big, dopey dog does the same and gets the same results. The entire scene is cut so that it cuts to black as soon as the shell explodes.

## Notes

* There is no dialogue in this film.
* This short was originally in development as a *George and Junior* entry, but was ultimately produced with two random dog characters instead.
* The duckling would later reappear (and get a speaking role) in the Tom and Jerry short "The Duck Doctor"
* The water-plugging gag would later reused in *The Quick Draw McGraw Show* episode.

## References

1. ↑ http://www.whataboutthad.com/mgm-cartoon-filmography-by-production-number/
2. ↑ https://archive.org/details/catalogofcopyrig3291213libr/page/106/mode/1up/
3. ↑ https://web.archive.org/web/20070205112019/http://looney.goldenagecartoons.com/ltcuts/mgmcuts.html
4. ↑ Adamson, Joe, *Tex Avery: King of Cartoons*, 1975, De Capo Press
5. ↑ https://yowpyowp.blogspot.com/2022/05/is-there-plumber-in-house.html