cartoons – Nik Dirga

God love a duck: My favourite cartoon ducks of all time

Who doesn’t like ducks? It’s the time of year here in New Zealand when the ducks roam the footpaths, with little baby ducks trailing after them. It reminds me of how versatile the plucky duck is in the world of comics and cartoons. There’s been many a duck star in fiction, but only some of them can be the top ducks. Here’s my 10 favourite fictional ducks!

1. Daffy Duck – There’s nobody more despicable than Daffy Duck, who woo-hoo’ed and bounced his way through the very best of Looney Tunes cartoons – the perfect counterpoint to sly Bugs Bunny or naive Porky Pig, an unrepentant greedy ball of ego and id who will never quite win, but who will amuse the heck out of us while getting there. The platonic ideal of a cartoon duck, and while there’s been a lot of ducks who quack me up, there’s only one Daffy.

2. Uncle Scrooge – Carl Barks turned Uncle Scrooge into one of the most fascinating characters in comics – a tightwad capitalist with a slight warm streak, a daring adventurer at odds with his own selfishness. Sure, he’s a duck, but Uncle Scrooge is also refreshingly human, and starred in some of the best comics of all time.

3. Howard The Duck – Steve Gerber’s twisty, wordy and satirical comics were a surprise hit in the late ’70s – Howard even ran for President! – but the duck’s name was long marred by the weirdly sloppy 1986 Howard The Duck movie, which missed most of the comic’s subtlety. The movie has its moments (hellooooo, Lea Thompson) but go back to those original comics and you’ll find a dense, philosophical soup of goofy comic book parodies, existential meandering and always, a simmering sense of anger at an unfair world. They are a product of their time but honestly the yearning at the core of Gerber’s writing still resonates strongly today.

4. Donald Duck – I know, Donald Duck at number four?! But here’s the thing – I just don’t think Donald Duck’s cartoons were anywhere near as good as Daffy’s, and that frickin’ cartoon voice is just annoying. Now, in the comics, Donald Duck is a lot more fun, a short-tempered adventurer whose ego always gets in the way. But… Uncle Scrooge remains an even better character, and as great as Carl Barks’ immortal comics are, they’re ultimately more of an ensemble act that Donald is part of. I do love Donald, don’t get me wrong, but that doesn’t change that there’s a few greater ducks in this here flock. (To avoid a flood of Disney ducks, I’m only listing two here, so sorry, Darkwing Duck, Daisy, Launchpad McQuack, Huey and Dewey and everyone else. Not Louie, though, he sucks.)

5. Destroyer Duck – Born of outrage, Destroyer Duck was created by Steve Gerber and the legendary Jack Kirby in protest over comics creators’ rights and stomped his way through a half-dozen or so issues published by Eclipse Comics in the early ‘80s. It’s an exceedingly bitter comic book with lots of swipes against the industry and Gerber’s satire and Kirby’s dynamic artwork are an interesting combination. However there’s one big flaw – Jack Kirby, godlike as he was, simply could NOT draw a duck bill to save his life. His Destroyer Duck often looks a little too awkward.

6. Super Duck – This fella was a weird kind of rip-off of Donald and Daffy published by Archie comics for a surprisingly long time. His appearance changed an awful lot over his career but I first came across him in some old Archie reprint digests. He had this strange off-brand Donald Duck look with an insanely big head and “cockeyed” expression that made him look perpetually deranged. Oh, and he often wore lederhosen. But his adventures were pretty funny, for a B-level runner-up kind of waterfowl.

7. Dirty Duck – This nasty fellow was a creation of the great underground comics artist Bobby London of Air Pirates and Popeye fame. Dirty Duck cartoons are scrawly, foul-mouthed countercultural fun in a style that’s heavily influenced by George Herriman’s Krazy Kat cartoons and very much a product of the groovy, acerbic ’70s. Unfortunately they’re hard to find these days other than some scraps online, although London has been promising a collection of the classic strips for some time. I’m down for it, whenever it happens.

8. Duckman – And what about those adult ducks? Jason Alexander voiced Duckman as a kind of rude and crude mallard version of George Costanza filled with outrage and self-loathing in this long-running adult cartoon, which boasted an edgy alt-duck design I’ve always liked. The cartoon was hit or miss for me, but I do like Duckman as a character.

9. Dippy Duck – Yet another dimwitted cartoon duck, but this one boasts the unique pedigree of being created by none other than Stan Lee and the extraordinarily versatile artist Joe Maneely just before Marvel Comics became a thing and Maneely died tragically young. I rather like how this scruffy, silly duck DOESN’T represent the 1000th ripoff of Donald’s design and the unique look old Dippy has. Only one issue was ever published, though.

10. Buck Duck – Oh, we’re in the dregs now. Yeah, this guy kind of sucks, OK? Buck Duck can stand for the flood of generic cartoon ducks that swamped kids’ comics back in the ‘40s and ‘50s, all rote rip-offs hoping to be the next Donald – your Dizzy Duck, Dopey Duck, Lucky Duck, the off-puttingly creepy Baby Huey and all the other wild amuck ducks out there. Not every duck can be a dynamo. But that’s cool – there’s more than enough great ducks for everybody.

What’s up, doc? Why Looney Tunes never get old

Like any child in the pre-internet era, I spent an awful lot of time watching cartoons. I watched the good, the bad and the ugly.

I’d watch Flintstones and Jetsons, Woody Woodpecker and G.I. Joe, Super Friends and Yogi Bear. A lot of the worst featured sub-par animation where only characters’ mouths moved jerkily, or backgrounds that appeared to be made on a rusty photocopier.

Always in the top tier, of course, were Disney and Warner Brothers. Disney made some ground-breaking, amazing animation, and set the standard. But when it comes to the best – the toons that make you feel glad to be on this planet, the ones you’d watch again and again – I’m a Looney Tunes man through and through.

Even as a kid, I knew that the half-hour or so of vintage Looney Tunes cartoons that played weekday afternoons were something special.

As I limp my way into mid-middle age, I still find comfort in binging a handful of Warner Bros’ seven-minute gems, still as hilarious and free-wheeling as they were decades ago. Time has rubbed some of that rebellious edge off the Looney Tunes – I know there have been cartoons starring them since the original run ended in 1969, but watching Bugs play basketball with NBA stars just ain’t the same to me as having him run rings around Elmer Fudd and Daffy Duck in the “rabbit season” trilogy. The originals remain the peak of the animation form and a showcase for sheer mad creativity.

Bugs is always funny, Daffy is reliably explosive, Porky amiably daft, Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner Shakespearean in their eternal struggle, and even Foghorn Leghorn’s blowhard act raises a chuckle from me. (Let’s not talk too much about Speedy Gonzales or Pepe Le Pew, though.) There’s a lot of formula and a few bucketloads of caffeinated frenzy over the 900 or so Looney Tunes, of course, and I heartily recommend only watching a half-dozen or so in one sitting lest all the ACME equipment and carrot-chewing permanently liquify your brain.

But watching some of these cartoons for the 10th or 20th time in my life, I’m struck the most these days by the sheer hand-hewn artistry of them all. Pixar and its computer-generated toon spawn have entertained and delighted us all too, but there is something tangible and awe-inspiring about watching the OG toons, where every single line was drawn by a probably chain-smoking, squinting human being.

Animation is a form where innovation led to an explosion of energy, Reid Mitenbuler writes in his highly entertaining recent history of the early years of the form, Wild Minds.

Walt Disney became the biggest household name, but the likes of Tex Avery, Bob Clampett, Chuck Jones, Friz Freleng, Mel Blanc, Frank Tashlin and many more shaped the anarchic spirit of animation and shook up Disney’s tendency for stuffiness. The Looney Tunes may have been repetitive – coyote chases road runner, hunter chases duck, cat chases bird – but it was the ceaseless creative invention around the margins of these blueprints that still amuses today.

To get a real feeling for the artistry of these gents, watch some of a Looney Tunes cartoon some time frame by frame. (You can pull one up on YouTube and pause it, then press the “.” key to do just that.)

It’s astonishing to watch the carefully hand-drawn antic life in these drawings, more than 50 years on. No short-cuts, none of that partial animation that made my childhood “Super Friends” toons seem so static. In motion, these moments sometimes pass so quickly they’re as zippy as the Tasmanian Devil.

That didn’t stop the geniuses from labouring over every single line and contorted facial expression. Frozen in time, you see the craft that went into it all. That’s what makes them art.

Give me animation: The Disney remakes nobody ever really asked for

fullwidth.21a338c9 So the first autumn cold of the season hit the household, and I spent most of a day prone on the couch undertaking a surefire cure for the blues: Cartoons.

I mainlined a bunch of old Disney classics I hadn’t seen in years in between sips of lemon tea, like “Pinocchio” and “Dumbo” and “Beauty and the Beast.” And for the first time in ages I saw them through childlike (and decongestant-addled) eyes, as the remarkable works of art they are. Thousands and thousands of hours of labour went into their creation. Watching the lush colours and textures of “Pinocchio” unfold, it’s hard to imagine that this was only a decade removed from the black-and-white doodles of “Steamboat Willie.”

Disney is this kind of insanely massive corporate monolith these days, and that sometimes obscures the creative legacy of the company. Sure, they patented Corporate Cuteness (TM) and there is often a bland, monocultural sameness to much of their work. Yet at their best, the classics mainline the universal themes of the fairy tales they’re often based on to hit some primal notes.

c03a6b0aa4c0296c0e21828cb06b7326 I’d forgotten how bloody DARK “Dumbo” and “Pinocchio” are. There’s runaway children sold into slavery, a mother placed in chains, cruelty from the cartooniest of funny animals. (And we won’t even talk about “Bambi.”)

The monolith Disney of 2019 is bashing out product on many fronts, some great (Marvel hasn’t put a foot wrong), some less. The frenetic urge to remake their animated classics with technically gorgeous, ultimately heartless CGI “live action” versions is pretty depressing.

As pop culture continues to eat itself, Disney is avidly mining everything from “Beauty and the Beast” to “The Lion King” and “Mulan” for slick retellings that for all their pizazz never really live up to the simpler hand-drawn lines and colours of their inspirations. I’ve watched a few of these “remakes” and they vanish in the mind like mist, yet images from the original cartoons are un-eraseable.

aladdin-genie I watched the upcoming “Lion King” trailer and I just felt bored. I don’t hate these remakes, but they seem pointless, just more grist for Scrooge McDuck’s vaults. They’re stretched out (1941 “Dumbo” 64 minutes; 2019 “Dumbo” 112) and excessive elaborations of the gorgeous simple lines of the originals. What’s cute becomes creepy rendered in vivid CGI — blue Will Smith in the also upcoming “Aladdin” remake is something I never really needed to see, and it’s kind of freaking me out.

The real creativity was seen in the labouring of men and women working in the ‘30s and ‘40s on perfecting an amazing new art form of animation. Their work hasn’t dated in nearly 80 years.

hqdefault There’s nothing I’ve seen yet in a CGI cartoon remake that approaches the stunning surrealism of the original “Pink Elephants on parade” sequence of “Dumbo” or the explosion of colour and passion of “Fantasia.” There have been lots of great original CGI cartoons from Pixar and the like of course, but Disney’s flood of redundant remakes is like a gift nobody really asked for.