Sticky Fingers Duck

So let's take a look at a couple episodes today. One is called Sticky Fingers Duck from Best O' Plucky Duck Day, and one is called Two Tone Town, which is probably my favorite Buster and Babs centered episode.

ooh... candy...

First off, Sticky Fingers Duck. It starts off with Plucky playing a rather odd space game at the Arcade, only to lose and to be lead out by Shirley the Loon (oh god why?) and Hamton. Hamton talks about how hungry is so the gang decides to head across the street to the candy store. After peering through the window, it's obvious what they want. The Acme Super Duper Munch and Crunch Bar (With Almonds). But there's a problem, they spent all their money at the arcade, so how are they going to get the chocolate now? Plucky says it's no problem at all. He turns red, growing devil horns and a tail suggesting that they steal. This display of devil horns reminds me of another episode where Buster suggested that the gang drink beer. In that episode Hamton noticed how out of character it is for Buster to say such a thing. So one can assume that characters only display themselves as devils when they're at their absolute worst or acting out of character.

Shirley leaves once she hears the suggestion about stealing (thank goodness, no one wanted her there anyway) and Hamton and Plucky head inside to steal the candy bar. While the two have a hard time doing so (and a rather hilarious one at that), they eventually manage to tuck the candy bar inside Hamton's overalls, and sneak out the store being undetected.

One would think that if Plucky was truly bad or evil, he'd have been happy for his victory, but this isn't the case. Both Hamton and Plucky feel absolutely terrible about what they did. So much so, that they imagine the candy bar coming to life as a monster to eat them. The candy bar torments them about the "dark side," chasing them around and eventually drowning them in chocolate. This bothers Plucky and Hamton so that they rush to the candy store with the intent of returning the bar that they stole.

When they arrive, they approach the clerk and explain to him that they stole the candy bar and that they never felt so bad about anything they've ever done before. "It was a nightmare!" they scream. The clerk agrees that what they did was wrong but is glad they did the right thing. Plucky hopes that because of their honesty they'll be rewarded with the candy bar. But things don't quite go as well as the clerk angrily yells at them, and says if he sees them in his store again he'll call the police. Not that I can blame the guy.

So here we have an episode that shows Plucky when he's at his worst and obviously acting a bit out of character. We see him steal but we see him feel remorseful for what he's done, and he tries to set the matter straight. It's a good lesson for kids too. Don't steal. Even though Plucky should have never taken the bar in the first place, it's nice to know that he has a conscious and will do the right thing when it comes down to it. One things' for sure, Plucky won't be stealing again any time soon.

Next, we'll take a brief look at the episode "Two Tone Town." This episode begins with Buster watching a commercial on a TV in a store. There's auditions for the upcoming TV show "Acme Oop!" Babs then stops by and reminds Buster that he promised to take her to the Two Tone Cinema. Buster isn't sure about the movie anymore though. He'd rather skip it and audition for the new show, but Babs insists that they don't need to because they have their own show. Funny, I thought the show was called "Tiny Toons" not "Buster and Babs' Show." It's interesting to see how Babs views the show as only belonging to her and Buster.

Buster and Babs to block...

Buster still isn't sure though for according to him, Tiny Toons could get the axe at any time, or they could lose their time slot, become has beens and end up on Toony Wood Squares. Babs tells Buster that he's a star and their careers are safe. Enter Plucky, who comes in swinging on a rope attached to... uh... well hey it's a cartoon. He informs Buster and Babs that he's showing the Network Executives his new movie, Hudson Duck. He's convinced it'll be so good that Acme Oop won't even see the light of day. He then heads out telling the rabbits that there'll welcome to wait outside for him while he auditions and beg for their autograph. Buster and Babs find this hilarious, and decide nothing could possibly go wrong for Tiny Toons and head for the Two Tone Cinema after all.

Two Tone Town turns out to be an old fashioned Black and White cartoon town. Buster and Babs view a movie staring old fashioned foxes named Foxy and Roxy along with a dog named Goopy Geer. All of which are actual old cartoon stars from the 1930's. It's almost kind of a shame Tiny Toons made new footage of the old cartoons. Seeing the originals would have been kind of neat.

Darn, I gotta steal...

Anyway, long story short, Buster and Babs loved the old cartoon so much that they decide to help Foxy, Roxy and Goopy get back on their feet. While Babs gets the group ready to audition for Acme Oop, Buster heads out to find music and sound effects to help out. How does Buster do this? By turning himself into Robin Hood and stealing from other cartoons. He stole music from Daffy at a concert and then stole sound effects from Yosemite Sam.

He even prefaces it with "Darn, I gotta steal." when asking for free stuff didn't work. Babs said it herself, Buster is a star. He should have no problem getting access to things like sound effects and music. So why would he steal? Why not ask Bugs for help or something? If that's not weird enough for Buster, he actually leaves his full name behind at the store where Yosemite Sam where he stole the sound effects. Maybe it's just me, but I think it's bad practice to steal things and leave your full name behind.

Buster ends up being late for everything anyway, and the Two Tones are kicked out of their audition for not being marketable (never mind Animaniacs) and in the meantime Plucky is showing his movie idea to the executives. Buster eventually catches up with the group, and despite hearing the bad news, hands out the stolen sound effects and music anyway. This allows Foxy, Roxy and Goopy (and there's some bee named Zippy too) to get their confidence back and start an act right there on the sidewalk. It's such a great act there there's laughter all around, causing the executives to ignore Plucky, and pay attention to the Two Tones instead. It's just as well, his audition wasn't going very well.

The executives are so impressed that they decide to do away with the Acme Oop! idea and give the Two Tones a show instead. I find it interesting that Plucky was the one who called the Acme Oop! show not happening. But what I find even more interesting is the ending to this cartoon. Here's the opening to the Two Tone Town show:



It's the same tune as the Tiny Toon's because apparently, this show has actually overridden Tiny Toons. Buster and Babs can do nothing but watch the ones they tried to help prance around and enjoy the success they brought to them. Kind of cold, eh? Also notice the inclusion of Plucky on the show. He's not a Two Tone, so what is he doing there? Why wouldn't the Two Tones take Buster and Babs onto the show? One might think they were maybe offered and declined, but this can't be the case as we find out they actually took a job on Toony Wood Squares which is what they were trying to avoid. The idea the makes the most sense is that either the Two Tones or the Executives saw talent in Plucky and wanted to take him aboard. What truly makes this funny for Plucky fans, is that Buster and Babs initially laughed at the idea of Plucky doing better than them with his movie. In the end, Plucky may not have gotten his movie deal, but he certainly got a better deal than Buster and Babs. Perhaps this is the karma Buster and Babs get for thinking the show only belongs to them and running around stealing things they probably could have gotten some other way.

So I always thought the ending to this episode was a very fitting end to Buster and Babs reign. Granted they were trying to be helpful with the Two Tones, their way of going about it was questionable. And instead of getting praised for what they did, they get tossed out and forgotten by the very people they were trying to help, and Plucky ends up much higher on the food chain.

The morals are, don't steal, don't be selfish and if you do something wrong, always try to do the right thing to make it better.

Thanks for reading

Istanbul

I always remembered this. I especially like the camel singing, "People just liked it better that way." It's also funny that Plucky a duck is a private eye with his pig friend Hamton... really reminds me of Duckman. I wonder if there's a connection there.

Anyways good Plucky music vid, I prefer to this Particle Man for probably obvious reasons =P

The Acme Bowl

The next episode I'm going to look at is "The Acme Bowl." The title card would imply it's a Plucky centered episode despite Buster being the one to appear in the opening. Okay then...

Who is that guy?  Anyone?

This episode starts off by giving us a brief review of Acme Looniverty's Football Team. TL;DR, they suck. We're shown several scenes where Plucky, Hamton, Furball and... uh... ...er... random dude, I guess, get killed early on in the game.  So obviously, they need a new strategy, especially now that they're going up against Perfecto Prep, a team that has never lost a single game in the history of ever

So they decide the best course of action is to get a new Quarterback, and who else would they pick besides Buster Bunny? Plucky basically sums up my thoughts on this issue here. But there's another who would like to see Plucky in the spotlight and it's none other than Sneezer. What can I say, besides the kid being kind of annoying at times, he has good taste.

Buster promises a win because he has (get this) A BRAND SPANKING NEW PLAYBOOK. So there's no way they can fail now, right? I mean how could anyone possibly trump a new playbook? Well unfortunately, someone else has another plan as Plucky goes the wrong way home after a team meeting. We know it's the wrong way because Shirley says so. Considering she treats Plucky, who's supposed to be her BF, like utter shit, I'm amazed she knows where he lives. Anyway, Plucky then sneaks around on an empty street, looking for someone, to finally be greeted by a limo of one of the Perfecto Prep gang. Rodney Rat, who's sitting in the back of the limo, rolls down the window and ask Plucky if he has "it."

The "it" he's referring to is the playbook. It appears Plucky intends to hand over the playbook to Perfecto in exchange for him being let into the snobby school. Well, golly, gee that Plucky sure is a big dumb jerk. Betraying his friends, his team, his school and poor little Sneezer.

What?  This didn't work?  NO WAI!

The next day the team prepares for the "Acme Bowl" game. One has to wonder how they made it into the Acme Bowl without winning any games, but whatever. The game starts off bad, so Buster decides to bring out the playbook and use a play he calls the Statue of Liberty play. A play that consists of him getting a hold of the ball and backing up within an inch of the opposing team's End Zone. I'm not kidding, watch it for yourself. That's what the play is. I'll admit I'm not a fan of football, but I'm pretty sure trying to score for the other team is a bad idea. Rodney is waiting for Buster and is able to make an easy score by simply swiping the ball from him. Buster is in absolute shock that his "back up into the opposing team's scoring area without paying attention to where you're going" play didn't work. So why didn't this work? Aside from the play being utterly fucking stupid, especially seeing as how it's obvious that Buster would have ended up in Perfecto's End Zone even without Rodney stopping him, Plucky is also signaling the Perfecto team to let them know what play is going to be in motion. Geeze, he sure is a meanie.

Seeing that scoring for the other team isn't working (for some reason), Buster decides to bring in the secret weapon. Dizzy Devil. After putting a little mustard on the ball, Buster throws it long to Dizzy who charges into the Acme Looniverity End Zone, while the Perfecto Team... stands and watches? Agan, not kidding, watch it yourself. I know I don't know much about football, but I'd think at least making an attempt to stop him would be a good idea. Either way, Dizzy ends up scoring and Acme Loo is on the board with 7 points!...er... wait why is it 7 points? There was no field goal... Perfecto only got 6 and never even had a chance for a field goal. I just... okay... I guess... whatever...

Say it ain't so

Perfecto decides to get rid of Dizzy by tossing him a jet powered football. Apparently this is within the rules but that doesn't surprise me. It is then half time, but instead of going to the locker to meet with his team, Plucky heads into the boys bathroom to speak with Rodney. It turns out, Rodney is none too happy about Acme Loo having scored a touchdown. Not that I can blame him, those 7 point touchdowns can really piss one off when all your team can do is a regular old 6 pointer. After threatening Plucky that they better not get any more points, Rodney storms out. This is followed by a teary eyed Sneezer coming out from one of the stalls. He's heard everything and can't believe Plucky would do such a thing. He begs Plucky to "Say it ain't so..." but all Plucky can do is look down in shame. Man, don't you just wanna kick that duck's ass? What a piece of trash he is.

Sneezer asks Plucky to "say it ain't so" a few more times in this episode, but eventually things go so bad for Acme Loo, that they need more players. At this point, Babs and the other cheerleaders decide to join in. Buster isn't so sure about it but Babs excitedly exclaims "Let's hit a home run!" Take a note folks, thats one of the funniest things you'll ever hear the pink bunny say.

Babs soon has a temper tantrum due to her losing her contact lens on the field. Everyone, even the ones from Perfecto crawl around on the ground looking for it as she rubs her blue eye... which is then brown in the next scene for a joke where she can yell at Buster for pointing out her brown eyes. While everyone is distracted, Babs runs to the End Zone to score a touchdown. Unfortunately for them, it's only worth 6 points this time.

Plucky scores the winning touchdown

The girls then cause Perfecto to fumble the ball with 10 seconds left. Buster huddles with his team telling him to pass the ball to Shirley, but then Babs points out that Plucky has been signaling Perfecto the whole time. Buster is shocked and appalled to hear this news. Who wouldn't be? He storms up to Plucky, and throws him out of the game. As the play is about to commence, Sneezer tries one last time to reason with Plucky. "Say it ain't so, Plucky." This times Plucky responds with, "It ain't so, Sneezer." and runs onto the field to help his team. Buster realizes what's going on and passes the ball to Plucky instead of Shirley. The Perfecto Team is caught in a state of shock, and try as they might, they are unable to stop Plucky as he charges into the End Zone and scores the winning touchdown for Acme Loo!

It's a miracle! Acme wins the Acme Bowl, thanks to Plucky and a 7 point touchdown. The crowd goes wild and Buster heads to congratulate Plucky. They high five each other and Plucky remarks that Buster's "Play Book Scam" worked like a charm... wait what? It was a scam? .... Buster then notes that he can't believe that Perfecto thought Plucky would cheat his own team to get into Perfecto...

wait...


WAIT...

WHAT?


SO...


the whole thing?....


was Buster's idea?


I...


really?



Buster put Plucky into a potentially dangerous situation, and made his other class mates like Babs and Sneezer think Plucky was a low down jerk, all so he could win a football game? Are you kidding me? And all the while Plucky's the one out risking his neck so that Buster looks like a good Quarterback? Can you get more selfish than that? Buster, who's supposed to have all these great moves and ideas, can't come up with a way to win at football that doesn't involve making Plucky look bad?

And not once in the remainder of the episode does Buster say, "Hey guys don't be mad at Plucky, it was all my idea!" No, not even to Sneezer who hands Plucky a soda at the end.

Here's another question. Why couldn't Buster TELL anyone? Did he really think Babs or Sneezer or his other team mates were going to squeal on him? Obviously Buster doesn't have nearly as much faith in his team as it first seems. Not even when they're huddling and Babs points out Plucky signaling Perfecto does he say it's cool and part of the plan. So, Buster doesn't even trust Babs or what here?

Maybe I'm being too harsh. Maybe Buster really did tell his other team mates, but didn't have the chance to tell Babs or the other cheerleaders. It would make sense. But the fact that Buster selfishly put Plucky in that spot to make himself look like an amazing Quarterback really shows a lot of his true character and what's really important to him. At least Plucky will always have Sneezer to never lose faith in him. I'm sure he and Plucky can have a long talk and a good laugh about Buster's little plan someday.

Until Next Time

Plucky's Motivation

Sometimes it can be hard to see Plucky's motivation when he gets treated so poorly by the two main characters other characters on the show. Some people might just think he should give up and try something else. It's obvious he's not appreciated by his fellow rabbits comrades, but there's one big difference between why Plucky is on the show vs the others.

He does it all because he cares about his fans and knows how happy it makes them. Making them laugh is his main priority. If it makes his fans laugh he'll do anything. This makes him completely unselfish and thoughtful and it's one of the reasons why I think he's the best character on the show. It's no wonder Sneezer adores him either... speaking of Sneezer, we'll be taking a look at an episode with him in it in our next blog entry.

Duck in the Dark

The first episode I'm going to look at is, Duck in the Dark. The episode starts with Plucky watching horror movies staring Eddy Cougar, his favorite monster movie star. He's obviously enjoying himself despite being scared silly. The "camera" then moves backwards to focus on an obviously frustrated Buster Bunny lying in his bed. He puts a pillow over his head saying, "That's the last time I invite that duck over to spend the night." So obviously we have a sleepover going on.

Buster's Cordial Friendship Skills

Now, maybe I grew up in the wrong part of town, or maybe I'm just crazy, but I cannot recall a single sleep over I ever had where sleeping was actually a priority. I would play games, watch movies, tell scary stories, jokes, eat snacks and goof off until me and my friends couldn't take it any longer. Maybe we'd get a total of about three hours of sleep but it was always well worth it because of the fun we had. The simple fact that Buster actually wishes to sleep doing this sleep over proves to me that it's a bad idea for Buster to have anyone spend the night. Especially if they, god forbid, want to watch movies all night.

Another thing to point out about my childhood. In first grade, I was sent to a Christian school about 30 miles from my actual home. I made friends at school but the distance made it hard for them to visit. I was very much a loner early on. There was an incident where I had one of my friends over, and after a few hours of playing outside, I went inside and said to my mom, "Okay I'm done playing now, when is she going to go home?" Of course now that I'm grown up, I understand how incredibly rude I was being in this situation. In fact it was after this incident that my mom was hesitant to ever let me have a friend over. When you have a friend over, you spend time with them. You do things together, and more important than that, if they are a guest in your home, as Plucky was to Buster, you do what they want. They are the guest.

A nightmare?  Or the real Buster?  You decide.

Buster's lack of hospitality absolutely amazes me. This is Buster who's supposed to be the "good" character in the series, whining and moaning like I did when I was six. Buster should definitely know better. If that's not bad enough, he then gets angry because it's 3 AM and enough is enough. He forcefully turns the TV off and lectures Plucky for watching horror flicks for ten hours.

Here's my question, why was Plucky watching horror films for ten hours? Given Buster's complete and total lack of knowledge on how to take care of a guest, it was probably what Plucky was doing to pass the time. I highly doubt at any moment Buster would say to Plucky, "Hey Plucky, let's go for a walk." Or "Hey Plucky, let's play a video game." Or anything like that. And if he did say those things and Plucky said, "No I want to watch more movies," that's just tough nuggets for Buster. Plucky is the guest and he chooses the activities. If that means Buster has hang out in the same room but read a book or play a handheld during this time, so be it.

After literally throwing Plucky into his bed for the night, the episode focuses on the nightmares that Plucky has throughout the night. Buster ends up waking him up, and Plucky realizes something. He runs to the TV to start watching the movies again and says, "We still have twelve hours before we have to returns these tapes. [lol tapes] We can watch them all over again." Now I want to point something out about this sentence, Plucky doesn't say "I want to watch them again," he says "WE can watch them all over again." He's including Buster in his activity. He WANTS Buster to join because he's having fun and wants Buster to have fun with him. SO what does Buster do? In all his wonderful benevolence, he literally kicks Plucky out along with all the tapes.

Granted we don't know exactly what time he kicked Plucky out, when Plucky lands along with the tapes, it's clearly day time. The sun has all ready risen. Let's assume the earliest sunrise that we see once a year. It's around 5:30 AM unless you live in Alaska. Now the sun doesn't rise right away, usually it takes a couple hours for it to reach the point where it is in the cartoon. So let's say 7:30. That's about four and a half hours of sleep. As far as my sleepovers were concerned, I'd say Buster was lucky to get that much sleep. I know everyone does sleepovers differently but the ones I truly enjoyed, were the ones I got the least amount of sleep in and felt tired the next day.

So in this episode we've seen Buster show complete incompetence when it came to hospitality, act like a six year old and even have the gall to throw his guest out of his home for wanting to spend time with him. Yet, we are lead to believe that Plucky was the awful one for selfishly wanting to watch movies with his friend, and wanting to do the unthinkable of staying up all night during a sleepover. All I have to say is, if I acted like Buster did when I was his age, I would never have been able to have another sleepover again in my life.

Stay Tuned

Beginnings

Looney Tunes Plucky Duck - Cartoon Pictures - Pictures

Ahh Tiny Toons. Pretty much anyone my age grew up with this show and many consider it to be one of the last great cartoons out there with its slapstick comedy and occasional adult humor.  Who hasn't heard of it?  It was a great show for its time and is still considered a classic to this day.  The show had great jokes, awesome antics and colorful characters.  There have been many blogs and sites dedicated to this cartoon, so you may wonder why there needs to be another one.  Because this blog isn't about the cartoon in general or some generic information guide.  This blog is about one particular character from the show and how he is grossly misportrayed by the show's other characters and the majority of the fandom. 


I am, of course, talking about Plucky Duck.  Most sources and characters in the show will lead you to believe he is egotistical, stupid, rude and selfish among other things.  This actually isn't the case.  If you watch the show and really pay attention, you'll notice he is actually very honest (an endearing quality), extremely talented beyond what the main characters can come up with and willing to go the extra mile for his fans, but most of all, a victim of severe bullying, mostly by the two main characters Buster and Babs Bunny.


Plucky is actually an upstanding individual especially when compared to Buster and Babs.  He has a tendency to act first and think later, which is a major flaw for him, but he feels remorse when he does the wrong thing where as the two main bunnies do not.  For example, in an episode called "Sticky Fingers Duck," Plucky and Hamton do the wrong thing and steal a bar of candy from the store.  The entire episode is then devoted to how remorseful and terrible both feel about the situation and in the end, they give the candy bar back.  Yet in an episode called "Lifestyle of the Rich and Rotten" Buster and Babs steal money from Montana Max who carelessly drops it, on his own property, while chasing Arnold around.  They show no remorse for this and instead talk about buying an ice cream store with it.  Some might argue this was okay because Montana Max screwed them over by saying he would do an interview with them and then backing out at the last moment.  However the entire episode was about them tormenting Max endlessly so they could get their revenge on him.  Max is a rich selfish jerk, but the money is still his.  They had no right to steal money from him.


In another episode "Plucky's Dastardly Deed," Plucky cheats on a test, and once again, we're given an episode filled with him feeling awful about what he had done.  In the end, he decides to confess about cheating, but the class has to retake the test anyway and he takes the test honestly.  Yet on the flipside, in an episode entitled "Loon Lake" Babs helps Shirley cheat her way through a dance recital with some swans even laughing maniacally while she's doing so.  This was due to the swans mistreating Shirley.  The swans had no right to mistreat Shirley, but Shirley proving that she was the best by doing her best and out shining them would have been a much better out come. 


In this blog we'll look at several examples like those provided above and compare and contrast Plucky with the other characters, mainly Buster and Babs.  So stay tuned as we present the true story of Plucky Duck.


(and don't get all srs bsns on my ass, I'm just having fun here =P)