A Coy Decoy
Encyclopedia
A Coy Decoy is a 1941 Warner Bros.
cartoon
, directed by Bob Clampett
and featuring Porky Pig
and Daffy Duck
. The film is set in a closed bookstore at night, when the many characters and elements featured within the books come to life.
.
A wolf emerges from The Wolf of Wall Street and lures Daffy to him using a female duck decoy
. Daffy follows and grabs what he thinks is the decoy but is actually the wolf's nose. Once he realizes he is in danger, Daffy tells the wolf that he is not worth eating and runs away.
Daffy uses the books to defeat the wolf. He opens a copy of The Hurricane to blow the wolf away, and lightning from the book Lightning strikes the wolf.
Daffy returns to the decoy. Porky berates him, saying they could never "mean anything to each other." Daffy sticks up his nose and swims away with the decoy, followed by four tiny decoys that look like Daffy.
Warner Bros.
Warner Bros. Entertainment, Inc., also known as Warner Bros. Pictures or simply Warner Bros. , is an American producer of film and television entertainment.One of the major film studios, it is a subsidiary of Time Warner, with its headquarters in Burbank,...
cartoon
Cartoon
A cartoon is a form of two-dimensional illustrated visual art. While the specific definition has changed over time, modern usage refers to a typically non-realistic or semi-realistic drawing or painting intended for satire, caricature, or humor, or to the artistic style of such works...
, directed by Bob Clampett
Bob Clampett
Robert Emerson "Bob" Clampett was an American animator, producer, director, and puppeteer best known for his work on the Looney Tunes animated series from Warner Bros., and the television shows Time for Beany and Beany and Cecil...
and featuring Porky Pig
Porky Pig
Porky Pig is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons. He was the first character created by the studio to draw audiences based on his star power, and the animators created many critically acclaimed shorts using the fat little pig...
and Daffy Duck
Daffy Duck
Daffy Duck is an animated cartoon character in the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of cartoons, often running the gamut between being the best friend and sometimes arch-rival of Bugs Bunny...
. The film is set in a closed bookstore at night, when the many characters and elements featured within the books come to life.
Plot
Porky Pig, featured on the cover of The Westerner, comes to life and sings Ride, Tenderfoot, Ride. Across the way, Daffy Duck, featured on the cover of The Ugly Duckling, comes to life and sings Git Along, Little DogiesGit Along, Little Dogies
"Git Along, Little Dogies" is a traditional cowboy ballad, also performed under the title "Whoopie Ti Yi Yo". Artists who have played the song include Roy Rogers, the Sons of the Pioneers, The Kingston Trio, Charlie Daniels, David Bromberg, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Holly Golightly, and Nickel Creek...
.
A wolf emerges from The Wolf of Wall Street and lures Daffy to him using a female duck decoy
Decoy
A decoy is usually a person, device or event meant as a distraction, to conceal what an individual or a group might be looking for. Decoys have been used for centuries most notably in game hunting, but also in wartime and in the committing or resolving of crimes.-Duck decoy:The term duck decoy may...
. Daffy follows and grabs what he thinks is the decoy but is actually the wolf's nose. Once he realizes he is in danger, Daffy tells the wolf that he is not worth eating and runs away.
Daffy uses the books to defeat the wolf. He opens a copy of The Hurricane to blow the wolf away, and lightning from the book Lightning strikes the wolf.
Daffy returns to the decoy. Porky berates him, saying they could never "mean anything to each other." Daffy sticks up his nose and swims away with the decoy, followed by four tiny decoys that look like Daffy.
Cultural references
- Many well-known books can be seen in the book store, including: The YearlingThe YearlingThe Yearling is a 1946 Technicolor family film drama made by MGM. It was directed by Clarence Brown and produced by Sidney Franklin. The screenplay was by Paul Osborn and John Lee Mahin , adapted from the novel of the same name by Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings...
by Marjorie Kinnan RawlingsMarjorie Kinnan RawlingsMarjorie Kinnan Rawlings was an American author who lived in rural Florida and wrote novels with rural themes and settings. Her best known work, The Yearling, about a boy who adopts an orphaned fawn, won a Pulitzer Prize for fiction in 1939 and was later made into a movie, also known as The...
, Oliver Wiswell by Kenneth RobertsKenneth RobertsRoberts graduated from Cornell University in 1908, where he wrote the lyrics for two Cornell fight songs, including Fight for Cornell. He was also a member of the Quill and Dagger society...
, Uncle Tom's CabinUncle Tom's CabinUncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman....
by Harriet Beecher StoweHarriet Beecher StoweHarriet Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was a depiction of life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom...
, One Foot in HeavenOne Foot in HeavenOne Foot in Heaven is a 1941 American biographical film starring Fredric March, Martha Scott, Beulah Bondi, Gene Lockhart and Elisabeth Fraser.The movie was adapted by Casey Robinson from the autobiography by Hartzell Spence...
by Hartzell SpenceHartzell SpenceJohn Hartzell Spence was an American writer and founding editor of Yank, the Army Weekly, a weekly magazine published by the United States military during World War II. He is credited with coining the term "pinup"....
, Black BeautyBlack BeautyBlack Beauty is an 1877 novel by English author Anna Sewell. It was composed in the last years of her life, during which she remained in her house as an invalid. The novel became an immediate bestseller, with Sewell dying just five months after its publication, long enough to see her first and only...
by Anna SewellAnna SewellAnna Sewell was an English novelist, best known as the author of the classic novel Black Beauty.-Biography:Anna Mary Sewell was born in Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, England into a devoutly Quaker family...
, The Green Bay Tree by Louis BromfieldLouis BromfieldLouis Bromfield was an American author and conservationist who gained international recognition winning the Pulitzer Prize and pioneering innovative scientific farming concepts.-Biography:...
, The Bridge of San Luis ReyThe Bridge of San Luis ReyThe Bridge of San Luis Rey is American author Thornton Wilder's second novel, first published in 1927 to worldwide acclaim. It tells the story of several interrelated people who die in the collapse of an Inca rope-fiber suspension bridge in Peru, and the events that lead up to their being on the...
by Thornton WilderThornton WilderThornton Niven Wilder was an American playwright and novelist. He received three Pulitzer Prizes, one for his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey and two for his plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth, and a National Book Award for his novel The Eighth Day.-Early years:Wilder was born in Madison,...
, and For Whom the Bell TollsFor Whom the Bell TollsFor Whom the Bell Tolls is a novel by Ernest Hemingway published in 1940. It tells the story of Robert Jordan, a young American in the International Brigades attached to a republican guerrilla unit during the Spanish Civil War. As an expert in the use of explosives, he is assigned to blow up a...
by Ernest HemingwayErnest HemingwayErnest Miller Hemingway was an American author and journalist. His economic and understated style had a strong influence on 20th-century fiction, while his life of adventure and his public image influenced later generations. Hemingway produced most of his work between the mid-1920s and the...
.
- Ride Tenderfoot Ride, a film starring Gene AutryGene AutryOrvon Grover Autry , better known as Gene Autry, was an American performer who gained fame as The Singing Cowboy on the radio, in movies and on television for more than three decades beginning in the 1930s...
, was released in theatres one year prior to A Coy Decoy. Here, Porky Pig is a caricature of Gene Autry. He sings Ride, Tenderfoot, Ride, which was the title song of the earlier film.
- Git Along, Little DogiesGit Along, Little Dogies"Git Along, Little Dogies" is a traditional cowboy ballad, also performed under the title "Whoopie Ti Yi Yo". Artists who have played the song include Roy Rogers, the Sons of the Pioneers, The Kingston Trio, Charlie Daniels, David Bromberg, Alvin and the Chipmunks, Holly Golightly, and Nickel Creek...
is a staple cowboy song. In Daffy's version of the song, the lyrics are: I can't get a long, little doggie / I can't even get one that's small.
- While singing this song, Daffy enters the book Black Beauty and rides out on a large black womanMammy archetypeThe mammy archetype is perhaps one of the best-known archetypes of African American women. She is often portrayed within a narrative framework or other imagery as a domestic servant of African descent, generally good-natured, often overweight, very dark skinned, middle aged, and loud...
. This is one of the many instances when racial caricatures were used in the early Warner Bros. cartoons (see "Censorship" note).
- The Ugly DucklingThe Ugly Duckling"The Ugly Duckling" is a literary fairy tale by Danish poet and author Hans Christian Andersen . The story tells of a homely little bird born in a barnyard who suffers abuse from his neighbors until, much to his delight , he matures into a beautiful swan, the most beautiful bird of all...
is a fairy taleFairy taleA fairy tale is a type of short story that typically features such folkloric characters, such as fairies, goblins, elves, trolls, dwarves, giants or gnomes, and usually magic or enchantments. However, only a small number of the stories refer to fairies...
by Hans Christian AndersenHans Christian AndersenHans Christian Andersen was a Danish author, fairy tale writer, and poet noted for his children's stories. These include "The Steadfast Tin Soldier," "The Snow Queen," "The Little Mermaid," "Thumbelina," "The Little Match Girl," and "The Ugly Duckling."...
.
- While being chased, Daffy turns to the wolf and says, "You're a hard man, McGee." This was a catch phraseCatch phraseA catchphrase is a phrase or expression recognized by its repeated utterance. Such phrases often originate in popular culture and in the arts, and typically spread through a variety of mass media , as well as word of mouth...
for The Great GildersleeveThe Great GildersleeveThe Great Gildersleeve , initially written by Leonard Lewis Levinson, was one of broadcast history's earliest spin-off programs. Built around Throckmorton Philharmonic Gildersleeve, a character who had been a staple on the classic radio situation comedy Fibber McGee and Molly, first Introduced to...
, a recurring character on the classic radioOld-time radioOld-Time Radio and the Golden Age of Radio refer to a period of radio programming in the United States lasting from the proliferation of radio broadcasting in the early 1920s until television's replacement of radio as the primary home entertainment medium in the 1950s...
show Fibber McGee and MollyFibber McGee and MollyFibber McGee and Molly was an American radio comedy series which maintained its popularity over decades. It premiered on NBC in 1935 and continued until its demise in 1959, long after radio had ceased to be the dominant form of entertainment in American popular culture.-Husband and wife in real...
.
- At the beginning of the cartoon, the opening bars of Ludwig van BeethovenLudwig van BeethovenLudwig van Beethoven was a German composer and pianist. A crucial figure in the transition between the Classical and Romantic eras in Western art music, he remains one of the most famous and influential composers of all time.Born in Bonn, then the capital of the Electorate of Cologne and part of...
's Moonlight SonataPiano Sonata No. 14 (Beethoven)The Piano Sonata No. 14 in C minor "Quasi una fantasia", Op. 27, No. 2, by Ludwig van Beethoven, popularly known as the Moonlight Sonata , was completed in 1801...
can be heard in the score. This music is used to imply that the time is Night.
Censorship
- The syndicated "Merrie Melodies Show", NickelodeonNickelodeon (TV channel)Nickelodeon, often simply called Nick and originally named Pinwheel, is an American children's channel owned by MTV Networks, a subsidiary of Viacom International. The channel is primarily aimed at children ages 7–17, with the exception of their weekday morning program block aimed at preschoolers...
, and Cartoon NetworkCartoon Network (United States)Cartoon Network is an American cable television network owned by Turner Broadcasting which primarily airs animated programming. The channel was launched on October 1, 1992 after Turner purchased the animation studio Hanna-Barbera Productions in 1991...
(with the exception of The Bob Clampett ShowThe Bob Clampett ShowThe Bob Clampett Show was an animation anthology television program which ran from 2000 to 2001. Produced by the Cartoon Network, it featured animated theatrical shorts from the Warner Bros. library that were animated or directed by Bob Clampett, as well as a selection of shorts from the Beany and...
) edited this cartoon to remove the part where after Daffy sings, "Get Along, Little Doggie", he leaps into a copy of Black BeautyBlack BeautyBlack Beauty is an 1877 novel by English author Anna Sewell. It was composed in the last years of her life, during which she remained in her house as an invalid. The novel became an immediate bestseller, with Sewell dying just five months after its publication, long enough to see her first and only...
and comes out riding on the shoulders of a black mammy-looking woman (though Cartoon Network cut the entire "Get along, Little Doggie" sequence while "The Merrie Melodies Show" and Nickelodeon left in the "Get Along, Little Doggie" part and cut out just before Daffy gets into Black Beauty) http://looney.goldenagecartoons.com/ltcuts/ltcutsc.html.