Daffy's Diner

Daffy Duck has a nice little racket going - he runs a mouse burger café in the desert. To cut costs he uses rubber mice but adds so much chilli that no one ever notices. However when a tough Mexican bandito cat spots the rubber he give Daffy 4 minutes to get him a real mouse. Daffy goes after the only mouse in the area - unfortunately for him that mouse is Speedy Gonzales.

Yet another in the series of Daffy/Speedy movies which scream out from their first frame as being slightly cheap and may not created with as much quality control and care as some of the better cartoons from the Warner Brother's stable. I have now seen several of these and have been less than impressed by all of them. Here the plot is a bit thin but doesn't try to do anything new with it. The jokes are the usual Speedy stuff and few of them approach being funny but most are just average.

The animation is as poor as it always was in Daffy/Speedy films - the backgrounds just feel so damn careless and cheap, it immediately gives the impression that this was not given the care it should have been and was maybe knocked out quickly. The character animation is a little better but not much. Daffy is not the character I love - here is just too simple and his bitterness is not allowed out. Speedy is also pointless - he has nothing but speed to him and he could easily be just any old mouse. The Mexican cat is best not mentioned.

Overall if you like Daffy/Speedy cartoons then you'll like this - plus I salute your acceptance of low quality products. However the lack of care in the production shows through in so many different ways.

Love animation, it was a big part of my life as a child, particularly Disney, Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, and still love it whether it's film, television or cartoons.

Am not the biggest fan of the Daffy and Speedy cartoons, there are a few decent ones but most are more very average or more misses than they are hits. Speedy Gonzales is not a favourite of mine, though his annoyance factor varies, but Daffy Duck is an iconic character in animation for good reason. Do not always, more often not, find that they gel together, their conflict doesn't make much sense and the antagonism tends to be there for not much of a reason with a few exceptions.

'Daffy's Diner' is thankfully one of the best in the Daffy/Speedy cartoons. Not great still mind you, but with noticeably fewer problems. The conflict still doesn't make much sense because a duck and a mouse are too much of a mismatch in partnership, but Daffy and Speedy are good foils here. Daffy may be reduced of his manic energy, but he is more sympathetic than the usual greedy and abrasive Daffy in his and Speedy's outings. Speedy is not as annoying as he can be, and Daffy as noted has a legitimate reason for his pursuit.

The music, apart from perhaps the opening credits music, is nice and characterful though, and has orchestration parts that are lively and lush, some of the music Daffy/Speedy cartoons can sound tinny, stock and canned but not here in 'Daffy's Diner'. The dialogue is not particularly fresh but it is quite sharp-witted and amusing and there is a crisp pace throughout. The gags are nothing innovative but a few smiles and laughs were gotten out of me, especially the ones with the garbageman and the cactus.

Mel Blanc's vocals as expected are very exuberant and full of vigour, few actors have voiced multiple characters in one cartoon alone and give all of them a different identity with such conviction, though at this particular point Daffy's voice sounds deeper.

By all means 'Daffy's Diner' is not without its drawbacks. Lower budgets and tighter time constraints are very obvious in the animation, which is as usual for the series very limited, with scrappy drawings, lifeless and sparse (incomplete looking even) backgrounds and flat colours.

Do not expect anything new from the story, despite the fact that it's a different setting it is the same basic formula that forms the Daffy and Speedy cartoons and with little variation.

Also did not care much for El Supremo, a character that is not very tasteful and very easily forgettable once the cartoon is over, or the ending, which felt rushed and a bit of a cheat in outcome.

Overall, decent and one of the better cartoons from Daffy and Speedy together. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Daffy Duck owns a "Mouseburger Cafe" in the middle of the desert. Because of his tight budget, he uses rubber mice rather than real mice for his burgers (perhaps an unintentional foreshadowing of where the fast food industry would be headed 30 years later). But when a Mexican bandito cat named El Supremo discovers this, he demands that Daffy brings him real mouseburger. Unfortunately for Daffy, the only mouse in the area is Speedy Gonzales.

Daffy/Speedy cartoons are typically very hit or miss. There's a mix of good and bad cartoons in the series. And fortunately, this cartoon falls under the "good" category. Daffy, for once, is actually a fairly sympathetic character with an understandable reason for going after Speedy (so that he can avoid being massacred by El Supremo - who, by the way, is a funny character in and of himself). He's not really a "good guy", per see. But he's considerably less evil and more sympathy-inducing than in other D/S shorts. There are plenty of solid gags, such as the garbageman mistaking Daffy hiding in a trashcan for "talking garbage." And while the ending's a bit of a downer, since Daffy winds up the loser when it really should've been El Supremo, it doesn't spoil an otherwise solid cartoon.

Overall, this cartoon stands with Daffy Rents and Snow Excuse as probably the three best cartoons in the Daffy/Speedy series. That, of course, isn't saying much. But when taken by its own merits, Daffy's Diner is a nice little cartoon. And a fine farewell to the DFE-era of WB cartoons.