| The Spy Swatter (episode 977) | ||||||||||||
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If you thought "The Larriva Eleven" wasn't bad enough . . . then get ready for Larriva's Daffy-Speedy trilogy, of which "The Spy Swatter" is thankfully the last!
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The Spy Swatter is a 1967 Warner Brothers cartoon starring Speedy Gonzales and Daffy Duck from Warner Bros/Format Films.
Plot
Speedy Gonzales has been assigned to deliver a top secret formula to a mouse factory that can give ultra power against cats, having Sam Cat assigning Daffy Duck to stop him and retrieve the formula for themselves.
Bad Qualities
- While Daffy Duck has been miscast as an antagonistic villain (actually for this case, he is working for Sam Cat instead of being the aggressor himself) for Speedy Gonzales as with the other shorts from the DePatie-Freleng and Seven-Arts era due to bad flanderization, this short is one of the best examples of how off their pairing is, as Daffy himself is outright unneeded to be in this short. Considering this short having to involve a mouse vs. cat scenario, basically it wastes all potential that the short has.
- Not helping is for a mouse vs. cat scenario like this, Sylvester would've made a much better opponent match for Speedy in this short, but unfortunately since Format Films wasn't allowed to use any other Looney Tunes character other than Daffy Duck, Speedy Gonzales and, in this short's case, Sam Cat (not even Wile E. Coyote and the Road Runner which they previously used for "The Larriva Eleven" the previous year), they had no choice but to use Daffy to fill in the role of Speedy's antagonist.
- Obnoxious use of Hanna-Barbera and Jay Ward sound effects.
- The jokes are hardly funny and are easily predictable.
- Stock-like and uninteresting music by William Lava that also doesn't fit in the Looney Tunes franchise in the slightest.
- Slow pacing for a series that is normally fast paced on the jokes, which completely kills the series' comedic timing.
- The animation and art designs are awful compared to the previous shorts, as typical for the Format Films shorts.
Good Qualities
- Good voice work from Mel Blanc.
- One of the few Daffy-Speedy cartoons not set in Mexico, and the only one set in New York City. The soundtrack has a clip from "42nd Street."
- A moment of tension arises when Speedy doesn't eat the special cheese until after the robot cat grabs him. Speedy's scientist mentor has to yell, "Eat the cheese!"
- Sylvester's friend/rival, Sam Cat makes an appearance (probably Virgil Ross's idea) and would appear in one more short after this.
- While Daffy Duck is miscast as an antagonist in this short, his motives here are reasonable, as he just serves as the dragon to Sam Cat, rather than committing acts out of malice.
- Although background artist Walt Peregoy is hampered by Larriva's insistence on simplified designs, he at least tried his best.
Reception
Despite its poor reception, it has a 6.2/10 on IMDb.
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