The Duck Doctor and Cartoon Mortality
Our little one (Willow) has become a hard-core Tom & Jerry addict. One who requires/demands her fix of cat-on-mouse ultra-violence every evening before bed. No complaints from me.
One of her current faves is The Duck Doctor (1952): featuring a cute (but reckless) duckling who Tom wants to shoot and Jerry tries to protect. She seems especially fond of duck-based Tom & Jerry cartoons, and there were quite a few (Just Ducky, Downhearted Duckling, Southbound Duckling). All voiced by Red Coffee – a guy who built his modest career on an ability to, um, sound like an adorable baby duck.
Anyway…what separates Duck Doctor from the pack is this: Tom dies at the end. Not, "cartoon dies" (as in, he's miraculously restored in the next scene), but dies dies. An anvil cracks him on the head, he falls into a grave he's dug for himself, the anvil becomes his headstone, and the cartoon ends. He's dead. DEAD! See for yourself.
Of course he was back (none the worse for wear) a month later in the next theatrical short (The Two Mouseketeers), but for that month he was, as far as any traumatised 1950s kid was concerned, dead.
There are a few other T&J 'toons that end without the normal restoration, but I think this is the only one that actually ends with a grave! It's pretty unsettling (although Willow doesn't seem remotely bothered by it).
November 9, 2012
One response to The Duck Doctor and Cartoon Mortality
Came across your blog through the blogroll along the side of the Irish Time online. I wonder if Willow has a love of the dramatic and tragic – my 4 year old certainly does and loves the part of Molly Malone where she dies of a fever…usually wants me to skip straight to that part if I am singing to her (though maybe it’s just a nice way of her getting me to stop singing sooner..).