Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies
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| Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Goolies | ||||||||||||
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 The first foray into feature-length film for the Looney Tunes franchise, and a bad way to start it. And funnily enough, Filmation would later ruin another beloved classic cartoon.
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Daffy Duck and Porky Pig Meet the Groovie Ghoulies is a 1972 animated special that aired as part of The ABC Saturday Superstar Movie. It is a crossover between Warner Bros.’ Looney Tunes and Filmation’s Groovie Ghoulies, and is the only time Warner Bros. outsourced its characters to Filmation.
Summary
Daffy Duck is a Hollywood producer making a movie based on King Arthur, starring as himself. However, a ghost known as “The Phantom of the Flickers” steals the movie and plans to destroy every frame of film Daffy made, so it’s up to his biggest fan Frankie and the other Groovie Ghoulies to save the day.
Why It’s Not Groovy or Goodie
- Due to the closure of the original Warner Bros. cartoon studio following the failure of the Warner Bros.-Seven Arts era Looney Tunes cartoons of the late-1960s, none of the original crew members who worked on the original Looney Tunes shorts such as Friz Freleng, Chuck Jones, Robert McKimson, etc. had any involvement in this television special. Instead, Warner Bros. outsourced the work to Filmation.
- This results in the animation quality being awful and worse than in the DePatie-Freleng Enterprises and Warner Bros.-Seven Arts eras. Like other Filmation shows, the animation is very limited and was produced on a very low budget.
- Tons of animation errors, such as animating a character to the wrong color or the wrong voice. Typically, Filmation was too cheap to order retakes and turned the special in without any script approval or quality control.
- The colors are also dull and ugly, as they look like the film has aged, even when it was given a high-quality restoration.
- Daffy, Tweety and Porky’s voices are all messed up due to Filmation incorrectly editing Mel Blanc's recordings. Daffy and Tweety's voices are sped up way too much (the former also sounding too high-pitched due to being pitched six semitones up rather than three, and the latter talking way too fast), while Porky's voice isn’t sped up at all due to Filmation forgetting to speed up his voice. Elmer, Sylvester, Foghorn, Wile E. Coyote and Pepé's voices also sound deeper than normal due to Blanc phoning-in his voice roles for these characters including not doing the Elmer voice to his satisfaction as the result of not being thrilled about working on the special. Yosemite Sam is the only character who still sounds the same.
- Jay Scheimer does a poor job voicing Petunia Pig, as her voice by is unfitting for her character, sounding more like a mature adult woman than a pig with a cute girl voice as in her other appearances.
- It doesn't help the fact that after this film, Mel Blanc would continue phoning in the voice for Yosemite Sam throughout the years 1979 until his death in 1989, due to Blanc's aging and failing health during his final years.
- Misleading title: Despite appearing in the title, Porky doesn’t really have a big role.
- Badly-drawn, off-model characters, especially Wile E. Coyote and Pepé Le Pew.
- Bugs Bunny, one of the two main protagonists (next to Daffy) of the Looney Tunes series and is one of the most popular characters in the show, doesn't even appear in this special, not even so much as a mention.
- Other classic Looney Tunes characters that didn't appear in the special were Taz, Granny, Road Runner, Marvin the Martian and Speedy Gonzales.
- Very weak and awfully-written storyline, using the cliche of a villain planning to destroy something that someone had worked hard for. But it turns out the villain was the Vampire's uncle and he was jealous of Daffy ruining his career.
- Pathetically unfunny attempts at humor and jokes, such as the wordplay involving the word "super" while Daffy Duck and the Witch are interacting with each other for the first time.
- Overuse of low-quality Hanna-Barbera and Disney sound effects, as well as a laugh track.
- Awful music which doesn't sound like it would belong in a Looney Tunes short. The music doesn't follow in the tradition of Carl Stalling's or Milt Franklyn's works or even sound remotely similar to William Lava's scoring in the 1962-69 Looney Tunes shorts and feels like it came straight from a poor man's Hanna-Barbera cartoon.
- Some gags feel too drawn-out, like the scene where Tweety blows a whistle to call more bulldogs against Sylvester.
- Rather poor grasp at the original source material. The Looney Tunes own a motion picture studio with no logical explanation. Wouldn't it make sense to caricature the people at Warner Bros. to own the studio and have the Looney Tunes be the actors?
Redeeming Qualities
- After being horribly miscast as an evil villain during the DePatie-Freleng and Seven-Arts eras due to very bad flanderization, Daffy has been recast as a more likable character once again for the first time since the original cartoons in this TV special (though he was later flanderized again only once in "The Chocolate Chase").
- The idea of crossing over Looney Tunes with the Groovie Goolies was not a bad idea as a whole, and could have work really well.
- The voice acting is decent (except for Jay Scheimer as Petunia Pig).
- Mel Blanc does passable voice acting, aside from Filmation's poor editing.
- The live-action segment of the Ghoulies is impressive, with far more character acting than the actual animation of the special.
- It marks the first appearance of Petunia Pig in any media since the 1940s, and her first ever color appearance.
Trivia
- Unlike the other Looney Tunes feature films and television specials, this film never saw a home video release (presumably due to it's negative reception), and Warner Bros. has no further plans to release this film on DVD or streaming services such as Boomerang or HBO Max due to legal issues involving Warner Bros. outsourcing the work to Filmation.
Video
The full special.
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