Studio: Leon Schlesinger Productions (Merrie Melodies)
Distributor: Warner Bros. Pictures, The Vitaphone Corporation
Produced by: Leon Schlesinger
Short Synopsis
In the Stone Age, Casper Caveman, a caricature of Jack Benny with Benny's voice supplied by Jack Lescoulie, goes hunting for breakfast with his dinosaur Fido, an amiable apatosaur. He fires a rock from a slingshot at Daffy Duck, who directs it past like a traffic cop; the rock realises its mistake and comes back, knocking out Fido. Daffy torments the caveman with a "No Swimming" sign that stops him in mid-dive, a painted duck on a boulder that Casper hits head-first, a stiff drink and a trail of billboards leading him on. At last Daffy inflates a giant balloon duck for Casper to catch; Casper pricks it, and the explosion blows the cartoon, caveman, dinosaur and all, to the Great Beyond, where Casper, floating up with his harp, gives his closing line: "Good night, folks."
Why It Matters
- Jones's second Daffy cartoon is the slow, big-eyed Jones of 1939 applied to a manic character, and the result is odd and rather lovely: Fido the dinosaur is a Disney pet, Daffy is a whirlwind, and the Jack Benny caricature, with the real Benny's cadences, is one of the best celebrity gags of the period. The explosive ending is unusually final.
- It is in the public domain through non-renewal, and so has been among the most-seen early Daffy cartoons for decades. It was also the last Warner cartoon released under the Vitaphone Corporation's name, after which Vitaphone existed only as a copyright holder, a detail that mattered when the renewals came due.
Notes and Trivia
- Jack Lescoulie later became the announcer of NBC's Today show.
- Casper Caveman's "Good night, folks" was Benny's radio sign-off.
- See also: Porky's Duck Hunt (1937), To Duck or Not to Duck (1943), Prest-O Change-O (1939).
