Assault and Peppered (Looney Tunes)

Assault and Peppered
This entire short alone should be assaulted with as much salt to the wound as possible. And don't hold the pepper either.
Series: Looney Tunes Episode Number: 944 Air Date: April 24, 1965 Writer: John Dunn Director: Robert McKimson Previous episode: "Moby Duck" Next episode: "Well Worn Daffy"

Assault and Peppered is a 1965 Warner Brothers cartoon starring Speedy Gonzales and Daffy Duck from Warner Bros/DePatie–Freleng Enterprises. In this short, Daffy Duck as an evil land baron, whips and berates poor and starving mice for starving on his property out of generosity to borrow some of his home-grown food, to the point where the out-of-character duck declares a war against the poor, until Speedy Gonzales comes to the rescue to stand up for them.

Why It Got Assaulted and Should Get Peppered

1. The entire cartoon is a rehash of the Bugs Bunny and Yosemite Sam cartoon, "Bunker Hill Bunny", but it removes all of the charm and likability from it.
2. Continuing from the previous short, Daffy still retains his evil personality, and perhaps worse than the other DePatie-Freleng shorts. In this short, he whips several poor and starving mice on his property under the pretense of them "lowering the value" and begins to declare a war against the poor to extend his hatred for them, even after the mice had apologized for starving on his property.
   • The worst part is that each scene where Daffy whips the poor Mexican mice for "starving on his property" and he declaring war against them is incredibly cruel, tasteless, as well as extremely insensitive and racist towards Mexican people as it highlights Daffy's race hatred towards them, and is not even funny or comedic in the slightest. Not only that, it also even highlights further Daffy's extreme classism towards poor people.
   • Considering the small size of the poor Mexican mice in comparison to Daffy himself, the violence of Daffy whipping the poor Mexican mice for "starving on his property" (to the extent that it even causes one of the mice to lose his sombrero and part of his hair) is incredibly lifelike, brutal and hurtful, and is not even funny or comedic in the slightest. This is clearly evident when he whips one of the poor Mexican mice for the second time, the impact of the whip was so strong that his sombrero disintegrates, leaving him with a bald head!
3. Stock-like music from William Lava, that also doesn't fit in the Looney Tunes franchise in the slightest.
4. The jokes in this short aren't funny whatsoever and are repetitive and/or brutal, hurtful or just plain insensitive and tasteless.
5. The short itself mainly involves Daffy and Speedy battling each other in a war of cannons Bunker Hill style, and yet most of the short boils down to a lot of filler, with practically nothing going on throughout their entire duel, since the majority of the short basically consists less of the slapstick of Daffy and Speedy firing explosive cannons on each other and more on Daffy and Speedy yelling at each other, all which none of it is even funny or witty in the slightest. The short itself also suffers from being fairly boring, mainly due to the fact that there is only weak humor compared to any real fast-paced action or interesting concepts.
6. Slow pacing for a series that is normally fast-paced on the jokes, which completely kills the series' comedic timing.
7. Poor animation and art designs.

Redeeming Qualities

1. Speedy Gonzales is still a likable character, as with his other appearances.
2. Mel Blanc, as always, does an amazing job with the voice work.
3. Daffy Duck still gets his comeuppance in the end, as with his other pairings as a villain with Speedy Gonzales.

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