See Ya Later Gladiator

I really wanted to like this, while I love Daffy Duck I don't care much for Speedy Gonzales. I still watched it regardless and was disappointed. Well admittedly I have been disappointed with a vast majority of Speedy cartoons, but this in particular could and should have been MUCH better! For one thing, the animation here looks really cheap, no colour, vibrancy or fluidity, instead the backgrounds are lifeless and all the characters especially Emperor Nero look really odd. In short, it looks like mediocre at best TV animation standard. I didn't like the music either, generic and forgettable, and some of it was annoying. The writing was lousy, and the visual gags are very unimpressive. In fact, the sole saving graces really are that it goes by quickly, one or two "funny" lines from Daffy(who deserves better than this) and Mel Blanc's voice characterisations. Everything else is pretty much disposable. 4/10 Bethany Cox

In a weird way, I sort of liked this as Daffy actually HAS good authority in a way to go after Speedy -the latter's musical mayhem-and in the main parts of the short, the two don't fight but go against Emprorer Nero and his lions. But yeah, this is far from the best. No wonder the two retired. BTW Marty, I've seen you on another forum I use doing those Daffy-Speedy threads..my advice is to watch it...

Oddly, the open theme music is somewhat good, and likewise the payoff gag at the end. I noted something. Besides Blanc doing all the voices on these, there is no star billing for the duck and mouse in these shorts, as with the newer characters - Norman Normal, Merlin the Magic Mouse,etc.etc.etc.

The open music, like that one most is heavily compressed even in the original version as shown theatrically, as far as I know.

A great many Warner Brothers cartoon fans consider the cartoons produced in the mid to late 1960s to be lousy beyond description as a class. While I don't tend to agree with that blanket judgment (or with most blanket judgments, come to that), I feel that, for this one particularly, lousy is an understatement. If someone argues there is a worse effort out there, I'd have to seriously disagree. Everything about this one screams, "Garbage" and at the top of its lungs. Every complaint (most legitimate, some not) that is made about the later cartoons as a class is here-bad music, horrid backgrounds, no imagination, lousy writing, bad animation (even for limited animation)-everything about this one makes it the nadir of Warner Brothers animation. Not even ridicule can make this one sufficiently entertaining to make it worth watching more than once and only that if you are a hardcore Warner Brothers completeist. Watching it will temporarily lower your IQ 20 points. You have been warned.

Of course, the Daffy and Speedy cartoons of the 1967-1969 period (when Warner Bros. Animation had a new executive producer, Bill Hendricks) are usually mediocre, and this is no exception. You can tell it's going to be a cheap cartoon when you see the bizarre stylized Warner Bros.- Seven Arts opening titles (with even more bizarre theme music than usual!) The background music isn't really WB-like, but more TV cartoon-like, and the animation resembles that of a Hanna-Barbera and Filmation cartoon. Daffy and Speedy look really hideous in this short, as well. In fact, one of the only high points in it is that Mel Blanc, the original voice actor providing Speedy Gonzales's and Daffy Duck's voices, lends his talents to this odd-ball cartoon. Some parts are a bit predictable, but I think it was pretty funny when after destroying Nero's fiddle, the Roman emperor says, "Now I'm gonna break your neck!" Then they must stop and wait at an old "Rome-style" crosswalk, with a torch flame that changes color with the traffic light! Nonetheless, with its cheap animation, it looks more like a cheap parody on MAD TV rather than a real Looney Tunes cartoon, but at least it's better than the WB animation studio when it was run by Sander Schwartz.

Daffy and Speedy cartoons are not good to begin with, but this is ever worse than normal. The plot is ridiculous, sound effects lame, and the characters, especially Daffy, look off model at times. It looks like they spend about $12 to make this.

Avoid at all costs.