The infamous but seldom seen Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies, the 1972 ABC Saturday Superstar movie produced by Filmation, was posted in its entirety to Youtube. This particular copy seems to have sequences out of order, but that just adds to its sexy lameness.
Take note of the misdirection of Mel Blanc (a crime only previously committed at Screen Gems by Al Rose, Lou Lilly, and their ilk in 1940-41) and how the voices of Daffy, Porky, and Tweety are improperly sped. Jerry Beck called it the worst Looney Tunes-related thing ever done in one of his books in the 1980s, but this band of characters has been desecrated so much since then that this production’s abhorrent quality has subsided quite a bit.
Poor Virgil. He must have felt like shit working on this stuff.
One thing I will say is that as putrid as this thing is, Warner Bros. at least drew the line at letting Bugs Bunny appear in it. Modern adaptations… not so much.
There’s actually the minor semblance of a decent gag in Daffy’s Ozzie acceptance speech at the end of the thing, thanks to Mel’s reading, where he continuously thanks himself. Only problem is it’s sped up too much. And nothing moves except for his face. And they used Alex Lovy’s W-7 facial design. And Foghorn and Petunia barely move. And there’s no struggling as the security guards drag Daffy away. And…
Hey guys! Let’s get some sodas and some enema bags and watch Space Jam, and the entire output of late cutesy-pie style Chuck Jones and commit ritual suicide!
Anything and everything done by Filmation was dreck. The memories make me shudder.
This thing is really no worse than the rest of Filmation’s output, but the presence of the Looney Tunes character highlights just how inferior and terrible the company’s productions were. If Daffy, Porky and co. weren’t in this, it would just be another long forgotten piece of crap ’70s TV animation. That said, it is fascinatingly bad and amazing that it was ever made.
Interesting as well to see that Dale Hale is credited as storyboarding this, he was a writer for DFE in the ’60s and is still alive today I believe. Perhaps someone should contact him to see if he has any recollections of this, specifically how WB came to loan their characters to another studio and how the film was received at the time. I’m guessing that no one really cared.
Ultimately, what’s saddest about this special is the classic WB characters were products of animators that COULD make funny, entertaining cartoons in spite of meager budgets, punishing deadlines and boorish censor and executive interference, and here they’re being handled by studio that simply could not.
I don’t think the morale at Filmation would’ve allowed for a better cartoon even if this hadn’t been a cheap plug for their latest flash-in-the-pan franchise.
“Rabbit Habit” had better animation, and was just for a joke!
How amusing –I was just thinking of this infamous mess today. I’ve always wanted to see it–just to see just how bad it was. Perhaps I shall try to watch this later.
There was someone on YouTube that “fixed” the pitch problem on Daffy’s and Porky’s voices.
Petunia has a nasal New York accent. That’s just all kinds of weird.
20 bucks says WB eventually puts this on DVD just to make a quick buck.
Petunia doesn’t just sound totally off—she sounds like a non-professional performance. (Like the rest of it’s much better?… eeurgh!)
“Petunia doesn’t just sound totally off—she sounds like a non-professional performance.”
I wouldn’t be surprised if she was voiced by Lou Scheimer’s daughter if that’s the case.
Well, now we know what the worst Looney Tunes-related cartoon of all time is.
It would’ve been better if Scooby-Doo and the Mystery Inc. help Daffy and Co. Rather than having the Groovie Ghoulies help them.