Tom Turk and Daffy

Tom Turk and Daffy is a 1944 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon directed by Chuck Jones.^[2] The cartoon was released on February 12, 1944, and stars Porky Pig and Daffy Duck.^[3] Michael Maltese and Tedd Pierce are both the writers of the short, and are credited here as "The Staff".

The voices of Daffy and Porky were provided by Mel Blanc, while Tom Turk was voiced by Billy Bletcher.^[1]

Plot

On a cold snowy day, Daffy Duck is making a snowman until he hears gunfire in the distance. A turkey, named Tom Turk, desperately begs Daffy to hide him from Porky Pig, who here is portrayed as a pilgrim hunting for a turkey for a turkey dinner. Daffy agrees and hides Tom in the snowman he made and proclaims to Porky that he won't tell him where his turkey went, as locks and stamps appear on his beak. Inside the snowman, Tom Turk mutters, "What a pal, what a pal, what a pal, what a pal, what a pal. What a pal". However, Daffy eventually gives in after Porky mentions all the food he would've prepared for dinner, including candied yams, standing on a stool marked "stool pigeon", rushing the snowman with Tom inside in front of Porky, and putting up hundreds of signs pointing to it. Inside the snowman, Tom Turk mutters, "Quisling".

Tom Turk, betrayed by Daffy's perfidious attitude, digs under the snowman and plucks his back feathers onto Daffy, who was breaking down for being a stool pigeon to him. Porky then mistakes Daffy as the turkey he was hunting, which Daffy denies ("Turkey? Who's a turkey? Now wait a minute, Myles Standish. I'm a duck. Quack, quack, quack! I can swim. Observe."), and Porky proceeds to chase him across the snowy landscape, with Daffy rolling down each hill in a giant snowball. Daffy hides, then deliberately pelts Porky with snowballs offscreen, then wallops him on the head with a mallet in a giant flying snowball. He gets some water out of a frozen lake and throws it at Porky. The water freezes into a bucket-shaped piece of ice as it flies at Porky, hitting him. Daffy remarks, "Cool as a cucumber". Porky wakes up, and chases him. Daffy deliberately throws water on himself, freezing for protection. Porky hits him with his gun, breaking the ice in half, only to vibrate. Daffy uses water from a river to make an ice bridge, and, disguised as a toll collector, tricks Porky into paying the 10¢ toll. Porky crosses the ice bridge, only to realize that Daffy made a dunce, a dope, and a sucker out of him when he envisions himself first wearing a dunce cap, then as a bottle of dope, and finally a sucker. This makes him angry, and then he starts running in place, angrily smiling, kicking snow back as he has finally lost his sanity, and then runs at Daffy. Daffy, realizing he's angered Porky, runs as Porky angrily chases him, on the warpath against him, charging through rocks and snow (which Daffy runs on top of), and running out of a pile of snow as a snow tank. Daffy runs over a giant pile of snow (which Porky runs straight through, literally splitting it apart), then ditches him, then runs back to Tom, who was building another snowman. Daffy meets up with him again, and begs Tom to help him hide from Porky. Tom agrees, and "attempts" to hide Daffy in different places, but finds all of them fruitless. The cartoon ends with Tom continuously "hiding" Daffy in different places into the night.

Cast

• Mel Blanc as Daffy Duck, Porky Pig
• Billy Bletcher as Tom Turk (uncredited)

Notes

• The screenwriters of this cartoon are not credited by their actual names, instead, they are credited as "The Staff". It is unknown who actually wrote this short.
• Tom Turk later reappeared in the 1949 Daffy Duck short "Holiday for Drumsticks", albeit redesigned and having a different voice.
• This is the final Chuck Jones short that was animated by Rudy Larriva.^[4]
• The word Tom Turk mutters while inside the snowman is "Quisling",^[5] which is the name of the Norwegian Prime Minister Vidkun Quisling who sold out to the Nazis which would be synonymous with "traitor" and "Benedict Arnold" forever after, which, his betrayal towards Norwegians, resulted in a relatively bloodless invasion of Norway by the Nazis while Quisling himself is granted preferential custody of his occupied nation.^[6]

Home media

• VHS - Cartoon Moviestars: Porky Pig and Friends
• LaserDisc - The Golden Age of Looney Tunes
• DVD - Looney Tunes Super Stars' Porky & Friends: Hilarious Ham

See also

• Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies filmography (1940–49)
• List of Daffy Duck cartoons
• Porky Pig filmography
• Jerky Turkey

References

External links

Wikiquote has quotations related to Tom Turk and Daffy.

• Tom Turk and Daffy at IMDb