Lucky Ducky

If someone were to compile a list of the top five most famous gags by Tex Avery at MGM, this would have to be in there. It’s from ‘Lucky Ducky’ (1948).





One of my other favourite gags in this cartoon is a visual pun that comes out of nowhere. Other directors had lame visual puns (can anyone say “Famous Studios”?). Avery either set up a visual pun to make fun of it, or he surprised the audience by interrupting the action with one, then carrying on. That’s what he does in this cartoon.



When the sign said “School Crossing,” it meant it.

Something else remarkable is the fact that Avery created Daffy Duck in a hunting picture. Here, he has an entirely different smarty-pants duck in a hunting picture, one you certainly wouldn’t mistake for Daffy. The size of the character and lack of dialogue in ‘Lucky Ducky’ help but the gags and pace of the cartoon are quite different than ‘Porky’s Duck Hunt’ (though I miss the singing fish in this one).

The animators in this cartoon are a transitional group—Walt Clinton and Grant Simmons worked on Avery’s later cartoons while Preston Blair worked on the early ones. They’re joined by Louis Schmitt. Let Kevin Langley tell you more about it by clicking on his name.