Studio: Famous Studios
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Produced by: Sam Buchwald
Short Synopsis
A mother duck's clutch hatches into a row of ordinary ducklings and one enormous egg, which hatches into Baby Huey, a duckling the size of a grown man, in a bonnet and nappy, with the strength of an ox and the mind of an infant. The other ducklings want nothing to do with him; he breaks everything he touches and ruins every game, and they run away from him. A fox has his eye on the ducklings, and lures them off with the usual tricks, intending to eat them. Huey, lonely and following his brothers, blunders into the fox's plans and, without ever understanding what is happening, destroys them: the fox's traps spring on the fox, his dinner escapes, and the giant duckling's affectionate clumsiness finishes him off. The ducklings, rescued, accept Huey as one of them, and the fox is left flattened.
Why It Matters
- It is the debut of Baby Huey, the giant duckling who became one of Famous Studios' most durable characters, with a dozen theatrical cartoons, a long comic-book run and a 1990s television revival; Sid Raymond's dim, booming voice set the character at once, and the fox versus Huey formula established here never changed.
- The film is in the public domain in the United States, its copyright among the Noveltoons that National Telefilm Associates let lapse, which has made the debut widely available; Jack Mercer, the voice of Popeye, shares the story credit.
Notes and Trivia
- Huey's name is a joke on the New Deal politician Huey Long, by 1950 a fading reference.
- Martin Taras, co-writer, later drew the Baby Huey comic books.
- See also: Pest Pupil (1957), Teacher's Pest (1950), Pleased to Eat You (1950).