The Chocolate Chase (Looney Tunes)
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| "The Chocolate Chase" | ||||||||||||||
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"This is no bunny, but it is surely unfunny."
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The Chocolate Chase is a 1980 Looney Tunes short directed by Friz Freleng. In this short, Speedy Gonzales must get past factory guard Daffy Duck, who is denying starving villager mice from obtaining chocolate bunnies for Easter. It is the last pairing of Daffy Duck and Speedy Gonzales and aired as part of the second part of the TV special Daffy Duck's Easter Egg-citement. It is also the last Looney Tunes short directed by Friz Freleng before his retirement in 1986 and later his death in 1995.
Not-So Chocolately Qualities
- The short is a ripoff of both the 1955 Speedy Gonzales debut short and the 1963 "Chili Weather" short, recycling the plot of Speedy having to try to get past a factory guard to bring back delicacies to the mice.
- Daffy's flanderization has hit rock bottom, as he actively antagonizes Speedy and the village mice, going as far as to steal all the pesos from the city mayor who wants to feed the village mice chocolate bunnies for Easter! Thankfully, he does reform at the end and learn his lesson.
- The animation, while nowhere near as bad as the Looney Tunes shorts from the late 1964-1969 era, is rather subpar looking for 1980 TV standards. Speedy, Daffy, and the villager mice are also all prone to being off-model throughout the cartoon.
- The pacing is slow and most of the predictable gags drag out for too long.
- Even though Mel Blanc does excellent voicing most of the characters, the mayor sounds notably off, and loses his Mexican accent throughout the cartoon.
- Rather stale and stock-like music from Harper MacKay, which tries too hard to emulate the music of the late William Lava, which is especially a crying shame, since "The Yolks on You" and "Daffy Flies North" had better music from him unlike over here.
- Laughable and cheesy dialogue, such as "He's no bunny, but he's funny".
- Even though Daffy comes to his senses and reforms in the end, it comes out of nowhere and is completely forced, as the only reason he remains supportive of Speedy is "because it is Easter". Compare to "Snow Excuse" or "Swing Ding Amigo", where in the earlier Daffy is freezing due to destroying his own cabin and in the latter due to Daffy realizing he can indirectly join Speedy's nightclub band.
- It was a rather sad and mediocre way to end both the Daffy and Speedy pairings, Speedy Gonzales' overall shorts cartoon career (given that Speedy has not appeared in any further Looney Tunes shorts after this, at least until when New Looney Tunes came out) and Friz Freleng's career on the Looney Tunes series.
Chocolately Qualities
- Mel Blanc does a good job voicing the characters outside of the city mayor.
- Daffy reforms and becomes more appreciative in the end after he got his comeuppance.
- Being that this short is the second part of the TV special Daffy Duck's Easter Egg-citement (the first part being "The Yolk's on You"), in the third part of the special "Daffy Flies North", Daffy is recast as a more sympathetic character rather than a full-blown villain as in this short.
- Although this was a poor short to end Friz Freleng's time with the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies shorts, he still continued to work on the franchise until 1983 after Daffy Duck's Fantastic Island.
- This short can be considered a major improvement over "See Ya Later Gladiator", which ended the classic-era Looney Tunes characters' careers on a horrendous note.
- As stale and stock-like the music from Harper MacKay is in this short, the title card music playing over the opening credits sounds way better than the music score heard throughout the rest of the short, due to it being reused from the ending credits sequence of the TV special Daffy Duck's Easter Egg-citement.
Trivia
- Although this was the last Looney Tunes short directed by Friz Freleng, Friz continued working on Looney Tunes through compilation movies from 1981-1983. Three years later in 1986, he officially stepped down from working at Warner Bros. and gave his position to his then-secretary, Kathleen Helppie-Shipley, who ended up being the second-longest producer of the Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies franchise, behind only Leon Schlesinger.
- It is the last short that Daffy as an evil antagonist due to being the last Daffy and Speedy pairing, and so far this is the only short from the 1980's that followed this chemistry. Years after 1980, the pairing chemistry between Speedy and Daffy would be ignored in later years. Though it was used again in Daffy Duck's Fantastic Island (1983) and The Looney Tunes Show (2011), except Daffy doesn't antagonize Speedy, significantly improving their chemistry.
- Unlike other TV Looney Tunes shorts, this one didn't receive any title cards or credits.
- MeTV eventually aired a restored version of this short on July 31st, 2021, with new title cards and credits.
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