Muscle Tussle

Voices of: Mel Blanc, Gladys Holland
Directed by: Robert McKimson
Rating: Not rated
Genre: Animation, Short, Comedy
Length: 7 minutes
1953

Times Seen:
Tim: 1

Summary: Daffy Duck (Mel Blanc) takes Melissa Duck (Gladys Holland) to the beach, where she falls for a muscular duck.

Review:

Tim: I thought this short film featuring Daffy Duck was fairly entertaining. The story is simple and straightforward- Daffy's girl abandons him for a very muscular duck and he goes to increasingly extreme lengths to get her back. It pits the weaker underdog against the stronger antagonist. Watching this as an adult, you wonder why Daffy would be so intent on winning back such a vain, disloyal person, but it's easy enough to overlook that.

The short film features some solid gags, mostly around Daffy trying to figure out a quick way to increase his strength. He tries a beverage (which kind of felt like steroids), he tries to outsmart his rival, etc. None of this is especially brilliant, but it's mildly amusing and holds our attention. Daffy is the most relatable figure in the film, so it's not hard to root for him. I'm not sure I outright laughed at anything, but I smirked multiple times. There's definitely some entertainment to be had from this film.

In the end, Muscle Tussle is better than some of these shorts and is less effective than many. It exists in the middle. It's certainly not a bad way to spend 7 minutes, but I wouldn't go out of my way to track this down, either.

Rating 1-10
Tim's Rating- N/A



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