The Iceman Ducketh (1964)
Directed by Phil Monroe and Maurice Noble
Story by John Dunn
Animation by Bob Bransford, Tom Ray, Ken Harris, Richard Thompson, Bob Matz, Alex Ignatiev, Harry Love
Music by Bill Lava
Daffy Duck is a would-be hunter in the Klondike who is eager to cash in on the trade for animal furs. However, he begins his quest just as the snowy winter sets in. He hopes to snag Bugs Bunny’s soft furry coat for profit, but the rascally rabbit constantly outwits the neurotic and increasingly agitated duck.
“The Iceman Ducketh” was the final Bugs-Daffy frenemy pairing of the Golden Age and the final short created by Chuck Jones’ unit. Jones had barely begun work on this title when he was fired by Warner Bros., and the production was completed as a joint effort between Jones’ co-directing partner Maurice Noble and longtime animator Phil Monroe. Jones’ absence is sorely missed, as the cartoon’s visual style looks cheap and shoddy.
John Dunn’s script has a few amusing moments, such as Bugs claiming he has the same tailor as the Duke of Windsor and a sight gag with Bugs throwing water from a bucket that creates an ice barrier which Daffy crashes into – the rabbit looks to viewer and cheerfully says he was inspired by the “invisible shield” of a toothpaste commercial.
But on the whole, “The Iceman Ducketh” is a weak offering that marks a behavioral shift for Daffy to a misanthropic villainy, a persona that he would maintain for the rest of the 1960s in his godawful pairings with Speedy Gonzales.
The cartoon’s denouement is more than a little sadistic, with Bugs settling in for a long hibernating rest while an angry and blue-skinned Daffy is trapped up a tree, his feathers torn off from an offscreen fight with several bears that sleep at the foot of the tree, preventing his escape and dooming him to freeze through a long winter. Sorry, that is not funny.