Rodent to Stardom (Looney Tunes)
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| Rodent to Stardom (episode 979) | ||||||||||||
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There's definitely no show business here whatsoever.
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Rodent to Stardom is a 1967 Looney Tunes short directed by Alex Lovy. In this short, Daffy Duck tries to upstage Speedy Gonzales after director Harvey Hassenpfeffer finds stardom in him.
Why It Isn't a Star
- It is a rip-off of "A Star is Bored" from 1956 and "Show Biz Bugs" from 1957, as both shorts involve Daffy trying hard to upstage another character to gain a better role in a movie.
- Abysmal animation, as typical of any Seven Arts cartoon. In addition, the background designs are (with the exception of only Cool Cat's debut short) the worst for the series, as the cartoon often goes as far as having blank white backgrounds with black lines at many points in the cartoon.
- Much like "Good Noose" and "The Music Mice-Tro", this short is a Daffy Duck torture cartoon, as Daffy is often forced into scenes in the movie that would get a person killed in real life, such as having bricks fall on his head and having him fall off a cradle from a tall height. Worse, none of these scenes are funny or cartoonish in the slightest, but rather brutal, lifelike, and hurtful.
- Harvey Hassenpfeffer is an unlikeable character because of how he forces Daffy to partake in the aforementioned scenes without showing any remorse or care about Daffy, especially when he gets hurt from the stunts.
- Speedy Gonzales also shows no concern over the stunts Daffy performs and has very little character other than a stand-in character. Speedy also does not use his trademark speed in this short, unlike most of his previous shorts. He could easily be replaced with another character like Bugs Bunny or Porky Pig and no difference would be made.
- Limited Hanna-Barbera sound effects, much like any other Seven Arts cartoon.
- Cruel ending, as when Daffy finally gets close to kissing celebrity Ducky Lamour, his scene is cut short and stand-in Speedy manages to steal the kiss.
Redeeming Qualities
- Mel Blanc does an amazing job voicing the characters, as with any other short.
- Daffy Duck is the only likable character in this short, and unlike the previous short, the next short, and "See Ya Later Gladiator", he is back to his sympathetic characterization used in the late DePatie-Freleng era shorts.
- The scene where Daffy Duck runs all the way to the library to keep Speedy Gonzales away and goes all the way back to the movie stage was a very clever gag, to say the least.
- William Lava's music in this short, while still not very good, is a bit lively and is on the better end compared to the other Seven Arts shorts.
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