DAFFY DUCK AND THE DINOSAUR (1939)
Article 5196 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 6-30-2016
Directed by Chuck Jones
Featuring the voices of Mel Blanc and Jack Lescoulie
Country: USA
What it is: Warner Brothers cartoon

Casper Caveman and his pet dinosaur Fido go on an expedition to catch a duck for breakfast. But their target is Daffy Duck, so…

If this cartoon had been made a few years later, the caveman would have probably been Elmer Fudd and the prey would have been Bugs Bunny. As it is, the caveman is modeled after Jack Benny and Daffy is the prey, but it plays out pretty much the same. This is an early Chuck Jones effort; it’s good but not great. The two extended gags include Daffy trying to avoid a rock from a slingshot, and a sequence where the caveman follows a series of signs (some of which are parodies of thirties-era advertisements) to a duck breakfast. The dinosaur is used for a couple of gags, but it really doesn’t play much of a role in the proceedings; with minor modifications, it could have been set in the present. My favorite gags are some of the signs, and the scene where a rock realizes it’s just been tricked.