Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur

Millions of years ago, in stone age times, a cave man wakes up hurt and heads out to hunt for food with his trusty dinosaur for help. They come across some open water and spy Daffy Duck swimming and decide that he'd make a good meal - that was their first mistake.

This cartoon opens with a disclaimer that informs us that, for no great reason, this cartoon is set millions of years ago - just in case the audience can't guess that from the presence of cavemen and a dinosaur. This short features Daffy in `crazy' mood, which I always enjoy more than his bitter and cynical mood. The action is quite funny even if it isn't that imaginative at times.

The cave man sounds a little like Elmer Fudd and even vaguely resembles him to the point that I wondered why they didn't just get him in instead. Daffy is hilarious and is what makes the cartoon such fun, the dinosaur of the title doesn't have that much to do but has a few laughs - although he is a bit of a dumb animal.

Overall this is a good cartoon because I believe that any chance to see Daffy in crazy mood is worth a look even if the material is not as imaginative as it could have been.

It is the time of the dinosaurs. Caspar Caveman and his pet dinosaur are going hunting. They encounter Daffy Duck at a local lake, but the duck keeps escaping.

Casper Caveman is Fred Flintstone but less appealing. I am not sure to whom he is supposed to be referencing. The character needs to be dumber and less too cool for school. He seems to be modeled after a crooner. I do not like him and that is the vast majority of my problem. The Honeymooners is still over a decade away, but that's what this needs to be. He needs to be Ralph Kramden. I really do not like Casper's design and personality.

Caspar Caveman and his pet dinosaur go hunting for breakfast, and guess whom they come across! Of course, Daffy isn't going to get caught so easily, especially since he conveniently has a number of tricks up his sleeve.

I guess that Daffy Duck was a relatively new character when this cartoon came out, but they sure did some funny stuff with him. I think that my favorite scene was when Caspar Caveman slingshots a rock at Daffy, and Daffy escapes it, and it ends up conking the dinosaur on the head and the dinosaur does a dazed dance. "Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur" is what people mean when they talk about classic cartoons!

This begins with "Casper Caveman" waking up and walking out his front door (which has a "welcome" mat beneath it! The guy looks like Elmer Fudd but talks like Jack Benny, so it must be parody of him. Anway, Casper is starved and crank so he and his pet dinosaur, "Fido," go looking for food. He spots Daffy swimming peacefully nearby, fires a rock from a slingshot at him.....and the mania is on.

Daffy outsmarts the rock (don't ask), Fido goes goofy after being struck by that rock and assorted other things happened and few of them were funny. I love Daffy Duck cartoons, but these early ones. They are just plain stupid and his little "oh, ooh" laugh is annoying. It sounds like Tigger in Winnie The Pooh. Just because it's Daffy or Looney Tunes, doesn't guarantee it's good to be good. It almost does...but certainly not in this lame effort.

About the only thing impressive about this cartoon is the color and the fine restoration job of it for the LT Golden Collection Vol. Three set.

Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur (1939)

*** (out of 4)

A caveman wakes up hungry so he grabs his dinosaur and the two go out looking for food. They stumble across Daffy Duck but he's not going to be so easy to catch.

This is another very funny short that manages to have two great characters and one less than stellar one. I will say that I think the caveman isn't all that interesting and even the vocal work for him is rather forgettable. With that said, the rest of the short is full of fun action and plenty of nice laughs including one sequence where Daffy paints a duck with bad results for the caveman. As you'd expect the animation is excellent and with the laughs this is certainly worth watching.