Scalp Trouble (Cannonball Blast from the Past, or "I Will Celebrate Meaningless Milestones")

🥳🥳Happy 100th blog post! 🥳🥳

After a month off to reflect and deal with outside obligations, I’m back. Yeah, the cartoon we’re going over today kinda stinks, but it’s great to reach 100.

Director(s): Bob Clampett (credited as “Robert Clampett”)

Summary: Commander of an incompetent troop, Daffy rallies his sorriest member (Porky Pig) to help him fight back against a savage Native American tribe attacking their fort.

Fun Facts: 

• Friz Freleng (ever the environmentally-conscious director by recycling jokes, animation, and story premises — sometimes from his own shorts) remade this short three times: once in 1944 (“Slightly Daffy”), again in 1953 (“Tom Tom Tomcat”) and for a third time in 1960 (“Horse Hare”). The last two aren’t direct copies of this, but they do have some of the same scenes and gags in it.

• Porky has a picture of Petunia Pig above his bunk in the scene of Daffy trying to wake him up.

Letterboxd Says The Darndest Things: The cartoon itself isn’t all that impressive (even with the fact that it’s one of the many that doesn’t air much these days due to outdated racial and ethnic stereotyping played for comedy), and the reviews on Letterboxd reflect that. You can read them all here, but, if you don’t have time for that, I’ll pick the three that stand out to me:

Tim Brayton (whom I’ve covered before when I first started this segment) gave this two-and-a-half stars and said:

Tragic to see that Bob Clampett’s boredom with Porky is severe enough to extend to Daffy, though in defense of this one, the gags are a bit more creatively weird and mildly surreal than they have been in a while. This is counterbalanced by somewhat lifeless animation of some awfully unappealing character designs: one expects a certain portion of racism in a film with a title like Scalp Trouble, but the sullen, sour dislike of people present in this one and its ugly-as-fuck humans still surprised me. It’s trying to be at least enjoyable in its silliness, but this still has a kind of perfunctory feeling that the generic-as-hell Western setting isn’t helping with, and Daffy’s just not the jolting alien force that he needs to be to freshen it up, no matter how it seems at first when he parades around with his massive, unambiguously phallic scabbard.

Also, it hurts this film more than a little bit that by far its best joke was basically stolen intact from an extremely memorable bit in Disney's generationally popular and beloved Three Little Pigs.

I...really don’t have a counterpoint to it, since he pretty much hit the nail on the head as to why most WB cartoon fans don’t like this one. The part at the end about a gag being stolen wholesale from a Disney cartoon is a surprise, only because I don’t normally watch Disney shorts (yeah, I did watch the one where Donald Duck dreams he’s in Nazi Germany [“Der Fuerher’s Face”] and that really tragic one about a sweet German boy being indoctrinated into Nazism’s ideals and beliefs [“Education for Death,” though, in hindsight, that sounds like that movie Jojo Rabbit if it were played for drama instead of dark comedy with drama sprinkled in], but not much beyond that) and wouldn’t know what he’s talking about.

Scrade Cottontail adds why this cartoon wasn’t as good as it should have been with this:

Daffy as a hard-knock general is a dreadful miscasting.

Agreed. It would have been better if Porky was the hard-knock general and Daffy was the incompetent troop member who ends up saving the day. It’s a bit predictable, but sometimes, predictability helps.

And finally, Lowbacca gives this three stars, identifies the stolen joke that I couldn’t find, and does give his honest take on the short:

Not for nothing, but the “Here’s my porcine uncle, he’s a football” background gag was done at least 6 years earlier by Disney in Three Little Pigs.

Well, with this one’s title, you certainly know part of what you’re getting, so there’s a lot that comes with that. Beyond that, though, I’m particularly concerned (about either me or it, I’m not sure which) that there’s an entire line of dialogue here that I got right verbatim before it even started and I’m not sure what to take away from that. This also did what I think is key in a cartoon, and it manage to find a take I wasn't expecting on something and do it in a funny enough way that even on repetition I couldn't help but laugh. This thing earns itself half a star, easy, just on what Daffy goes through after swallowing ammunition.

The Channel(s): Nickelodeon

Part(s) Edited: Despite this being one of those WB shorts that doesn’t air much on television or get released on physical media or streaming due to outdated racial and ethnic caricatures that can’t easily be edited out, Nickelodeon did air this with a minor cut. When Daffy is being used as a rifle to shoot down the American Indians (after Daffy swallows bullets from the boxes he looted from the powder house), one of the gags, where a tall American Indian gets cut down to a short American Indian as he’s running from the gunfire, was cut.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): Take your pick:

• The fact that “Bosko the Doughboy” had a similar scene and was never edited for it on the same network that aired “Scalp Trouble”.

• The fact that the other scenes of the American Indians getting shot in comical ways weren’t edited.

• The fact that it doesn’t really matter in the end since, as I’ve said before, this is one of those WB cartoons that doesn’t air on American TV or get released on home media much due to outdated racial and ethnic stereotyping. It’s like how the Cow and Chicken episode “Buffalo Gals” originally had a line from Mom (voiced by Candi Milo) telling Dad (voiced by Dee Bradley Baker) that he shouldn’t worry about Cow (voiced by Charlie Adler) that she’s riding with The Buffalo Gals because Mom did the same thing when she was in college, but was cut as the censors felt it was too sexually suggestive (the way it was worded, it was an innuendo on the old “experimenting in college” trope, where an otherwise heterosexual person has a one-time same-sex affair with someone), but, in the end, the entire episode was banned because of one viewer complaint about the sexually suggestive content that managed to slip by regardless.

Video Comparison: 

Availability Uncut: As of this writing, the only legal way you can find this is on the Porky Pig 101 DVD. Yes, it’s unrestored, but if you’re that much of a completist for WB cartoon collecting (or actually like the short), then you won’t care that it’s not restored and remastered.

For comparison, “Slightly Daffy” (which wasn’t edited on any American or international TV channel that I know of, but is one of those WB cartoons that didn’t air often because airing a version where most, if not all, of the scenes with the Native Americans are cut would make it a choppy, incoherent mess) is only available on two VHSes (Cartoon Moviestars: Daffy! from 1988 and 1996’s Further Adventures of Daffy Duck, the latter of which was available in the United Kingdom) and a laser disc (1992’s The Golden Age of Looney Tunes, volume 3, side 9). As of this writing, there haven’t been any DVD or Blu-ray releases, and, like “Scalp Trouble,” it’s not on streaming or digital download.

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: Nope (for either “Scalp Trouble” and “Slightly Daffy”). No Boomerang, No WarnerMedia RIDE, no Apple iTunes, no Amazon Prime Video, no HBO Max (domestic and international), and especially no Tubi, which is a shame, because I can picture either one of those shorts being on there.

‘Til next time, Stay Looney, Be Merrie, and Here’s to Another 100 of These!

Lost Companions: A P.W. Fontaine Piece

“Scalp Trouble” still won’t be shown today, because the head lice have colonized said scalp in a bloody and scabby coup and are ready to move south and lay waste to the glorious nation of Genitalia on the top of Pubis Mound. While we valiantly fight back with medicated soaps and shampoo, please enjoy this two-part lost episode of Drawn and Quartered Does Valentine’s Day, focusing on the Tom and Jerry and MGM-era Tex Avery shorts.

Hey, guess who? It’s me, Penelope Whitaker Fontaine (a.k.a “P.W. Fontaine”), “Drawn and Quartered”’s resident Pepe Le Pew expert (but I am branching out under the tutelage of my flaky, but wise mentor, C.L. Young), back from the long hiatus.

See, over at “Drawn and Quartered,” we’re doing whatever we can to build a better Censored Cartoons Page, but sometimes, that can weigh heavily on C.L. (she takes this seriously) and this, coupled with real-world obligations and emergencies, can leave our precious blog without an update for weeks to months (but not years). As the first video explains, there was a lot of back-and-forth with how future “Drawn and Quartered” blog posts were going to be: C.L. wanted to continue with posts that explain the cartoon and detail the edits. Others wanted the same thing, but with “Letterboxd Says the Darndest Things” as a semi-regular feature while I (and others) wanted to do a full video series. We have come to an agreement to keep it as is, but this might change with future reviews, especially the post-1964 Warner Bros cartoons, where you can just summarize what’s cut in one video, maybe two.

For this one, originally supposed to be the final episode of the Drawn and Quartered Does Valentine’s Day episodes, a two-part video was created that explains what was cut and why. A remake with all the details and summaries about the shorts will be coming, but that won’t be for a while (target date: Valentine’s Day 2027 or thereabouts). For now, please enjoy these videos and we will be back soon to our regularly-scheduled posts:

'Til next time, Stay Looney and Be Merrie...even if your bag is MGM shorts.

Drawn and Quartered Does Valentine's Day -- Bonus Episode -- The Stupid Cupid (Lost Lives and Missing Episodes)

 

Director(s): Frank Tashlin

Summary: Love is in the air at a barnyard when Cupid (Elmer Fudd wearing his Egghead derby and a diaper and only chuckling his trademark chuckle. I think Eddie Fitzgerald on the DVD commentary said it best when he said that Arthur Q. Bryan had an easy job this go-around, even though Frank Graham did the Elmer chuckles here) goes around making birds fall in love, horses fall in love, and a dog confess his deep desires to the cat he’s beating up. Now, Cupid Elmer faces his latest challenge: Daffy Duck, whom he already targeted years before, which led to a shotgun wedding and an unhappy marriage with multiple ducklings. Can Cupid Elmer try again with better results?

Fun Facts: 

• Cupid Elmer actually has had some appearances in later Looney Tunes media. He was on the 1979 CBS TV special Bugs Bunny’s Valentine (or Bugs Bunny’s Cupid Capers, according to that video I once bought at a flea market while spending the day with my father back in the late 1990s), the New Looney Tunes episode “Valentine’s Dayffy” has Cupid Elmer vs. Daffy, but Daffy ends up becoming the new Cupid after putting Cupid Elmer out of commission, and Looney Tunes World of Mayhem has Cupid Elmer as a playable character.

• The 1995 comic book movie (yes, those existed before the era of Marvel movies) Batman Forever (that was the one that had Jim Carrey as The Riddler and Tommy Lee Jones as Harvey Dent/Two-Face. The one from 1989 had Jack Nicholson as The Joker, Batman Returns had Danny DeVito as The Penguin as Michelle Pfeiffer as Catwoman, and Batman and Robin [the one everyone rags on for being bad — with good cause] had Arnold Schwarzenegger as Mr. Freeze and Uma Thurman as Poison Ivy) had a reanimated version of this as seen on the Bugs Bunny’s Valentine TV special and a clip from 1954’s “Satan’s Waitin’”.

• The current version airing (both edited and uncut) has an abrupt ending where after Daffy gets hit with Cupid’s arrow again, he flies in between the rooster and the hen as they kiss. The cartoon ends with the hen alerting her husband that Daffy is back and kissing her. Greg Ford (whom P.W. Fontaine mentioned earlier in her Pepe Le Pew post) has gone on record to say that the original ending had Daffy say, “If you haven't tried it, don’t knock it,” but there’s no word on what happened after that or if it ends on that note.

P.W. Fontaine: Yes, and I’d like to add that, in this short, you can clearly see where Chuck Jones borrowed gags for his Pepé Le Pew cartoons (though “I Got Plenty of Mutton” is still a major inspiration. Can’t believe I didn’t mention that in my post, but, what can ya do? I was on a deadline). The hen hiding in a barrel where Daffy is cooling a bottle of champagne in a bucket of ice was used in “Little Beau Pepe” while the cut ending line is a variation of the line that ended “Wild Over You.” 

C.L. Young: Thanks, Penny. 

P.W. Fontaine: Any time. Let me know when the 1000 Looney Tunes blog is out...and when Sarthurva U and Andrea Hicks are going to release the “Jumpin’ Jupiter” podcast.

Letterboxd Says The Darndest Things: Mostly positive in this installment, and, once again, we have weird turns of phrase, grammatical mistakes galore, and head-scratching implications. Let’s start off with Hal, who gave this four and a half stars and practically gushed over it:

I can’t believe I witnessed a better “now I’ve seen everything proceeds to shoot oneself” joke than the Peter Lorre fish committing it in Horton hatches the egg. What’s even more amazing is Frank Tashlin did this cartoon and not Bob Clampett. Tash you mad lad, you rule!

Daffy has some standout moments in this one too (one of his kids has two heads, weirdly in character for him). And lastly I gotta shout out Elmer being Cupid but never actually speaking, just slightly evilly laughing. Incredible.

I always thought the best “Seen It All Suicide” gag (its proper name, according to TVTropes) was the cat at the end of “An Itch in Time,” but that was pretty average. Maybe Hal is on to something. And more appreciation does need to be given to Frank Tashlin, especially when he started doing color cartoons like “Brother Brat,” “Swooner Crooner,” and “I’ve Got Plenty of Mutton,” which Ms. Fontaine above as a proto-Pepe Le Pew cartoon...almost like this one.

Speaking of which, J_J_King, as part of the 589th installment of “Reviewing Every Looney Tune,” started off his review with this:

If this is the short that got Chuck Jones to go all in on the concept for Pepe Le Pew, then maybe this was a mistake...

P.W. Fontaine: What exactly does he mean by that? Does he mean “The Stupid Cupid” was a mistake or Chuck Jones’ decision for the concept of Pepe Le Pew?

C.L. Young: I’m pretty sure he means the latter. Also, I thought you left.

P.W. Fontaine: My ride won't be here for another ten minutes. As I was saying about this, I keep telling people: “I’ve Got Plenty of Mutton” is the clear inspiration, even if “The Stupid Cupid” has the amorous chase and that barrel/champagne bottle cooling gag that would later be used in “Little Beau Pepe.”

C.L. Young: You’re preaching to the choir and the converted, P.W. If Letterboxd has a reply section, I say you set him straight there. Otherwise, just forget it and use the blog as your counterpoint platform.

P.W. Fontaine: Oh, all right. I don’t know how you do it. You’re into the Pepe cartoons like I am, and you don’t want to tear people’s throats out for their views on it?

C.L. Young: It’s called “maturity” and “trying to see things from others’ perspective.”

P.W. Fontaine: Still, it’s all kinda sketch to me.

C.L. Young: At least he praised the rest of it, as seen here:

Otherwise, it's a really solid cartoon. It has a really lively energy to it, which can be seen in its slapstick and overall character animation. The opening where Cupid is gracefully floating along the background accompanying the score is really fluid, the part where Daffy gets shot with the comically large arrow is exaggerated to perfection, and the way daffy tries to get out of getting the snot kicked out of him was a great bit as well. Daffy would be the type to simultaneously deny love and be completely overtaken by it when forces dictate he should, so I feel he was the perfect lead for this. Personally though, I feel there should've been a bit more back and forth between him and Cupid here, and the actual sequence where Daffy peruses the hen could be seen as a little insensitive by modern sensibilities. They acknowledge that Daffy is in the wrong, and that Cupid is kind of a jerk for making him do this, but there's no repercussions for either of them. The way it's edited to makes it feel unfinished, and from what I've read, there was a portion of the ending that was cut, which makes sense. If it ended with some catharsis, I think I would've liked this one quite a bit more. Still good though, with a strong lead performance and a nice little bit of screwball, magical antics from Cupid.

Happy Valentines Day, everyone.

P.W. Fontaine: Oh, look at that. “The actual sequence where Daffy peruses the hen could be seen as a little insensitive by modern sensibilities...” I think he meant to say “pursues,” and “a little insensitive to modern sensibilities?” After he mentioned this being the inspiration for the Pepe cartoons? Do these reviewers hear themselves when they talk...or talk-type? And who cares about “repercussions”? I’m here to laugh at cartoon antics, not a morality play? What’s wrong with people these days?

C.L. Young: Obviously, this is getting to be too much for you, P.W. Take the rest of the review off and I’ll call you when I need you.

P.W. Fontaine: Thanks. It’s getting late, anyway, and my ride is coming soon. [leaves]

As you can see, over at “Drawn and Quartered,” people can get a little intense over differing opinions. P.W. is just learning the ropes. While I do appreciate her knowledge of the Pepe Le Pew cartoons and how strongly she feels about them, I hope I can teach her to be so much more than that, like knowing a lot about artistic intention and how to deal with conflicting views from others.

Finally, we have Carlos Valladares’ four-and-a-half star review:

Frank Tashlin's Looney Tunes shorts were always the most schizophrenic, and this frenetically-paced wacko entry (one of Tashlin's last before he left the Termite Terrace for Hollywood) may be the most unstable of all. Daffy literally makes a cuckold out of a cock. Elmer Fudd is Cupid. Tashlin's oddly geometric play-doh playthings transcend their vulgarity and become Art Deco beauty. It moves so fast you'd swear this cartoon would need some Adderall before it could calm down and you could properly enjoy it. As such, it's a bonkers masterpiece in its own right.

I wouldn’t know anything about using Adderall just to keep up with a six-minute, 41-second cartoon (maybe a little longer than that if a version with the original titles and ending, as well as some parts during the “Daffy chasing the hen” sequence that feel like they’ve been edited due to the frenetic editing). Maybe I have a better attention span than I thought.

The Channel(s): Cartoon Network, TBS, TNT, Boomerang, and Tooncast (both the a.a.p version made before 1995 and the Turner dubbed version made after 1995).

Part(s) Edited: Two different censored versions of this cartoon exist, both of which cut the scene of the cat shooting himself in the head after the dog gets hit by Cupid's arrow and declares his love for the hapless feline:

• If you watched the a.a.p (Associated Artists Productions) version that aired on TBS, TNT, Cartoon Network before 1995, and Tooncast, then the entire scene of the dog getting hit with Cupid Elmer’s arrow, professing his love for the cat, and the cat shooting himself in the head (followed by his numbered ghosts in the ongoing joke of cats having nine lives) was cut, going from the horse being one of Cupid Elmer’s targets to the scene of Daffy bathing in the trough and Cupid Elmer making him his next target.

• If you watched the Turner dubbed version that aired on post-1995 TBS, TNT, and Cartoon Network (and is now the current version that airs on Boomerang), then you’ve seen the version where the scene is reinstated up until the part where the cat shrugs his shoulders as the dog makes Charles Boyer-esque declarations of love to him. From there, there’s a quick dissolve to the next scene that starts with Daffy bathing in the trough.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): You’d think I would prefer the post-1995 edit to the pre-1995 edit out of being used to seeing it often in my childhood, right? Eh, not this time. Outright deleting the scene may look obvious to those who are used to uncut versions, but to the young and naïve, they’ll just think it’s part of the cartoon (until they get older and see otherwise). While I applaud the post-1995 version for only cutting what’s considered problematic while leaving in the safe content, the quick dissolve to the next scene makes it obvious that something’s missing. So, I guess my ground gear for this is, “If you have to edit something for TV, it’s better to cut the entire scene rather than part of it.” Yeah, it’s not the most ideal solution all the time, but, in this case, it is, because the scene in question is part of a sequence showing how Cupid Elmer’s arrows of love is affecting the barnyard animals. Showing the songbirds and the horse falling in love, then going to Daffy (who was targeted before with terrible results) helps more with the rule of three than showing the songbirds, the horses, the dog loving the cat, and then Daffy.

Video Comparison:

Availability Uncut: Since there’s currently no version that has the lost ending restored and reinstated (as well as some of the gags during the “Daffy goes after a barnyard hen” sequence), you’re going to have to settle for the versions where, at least, the cat shooting himself in the head sequence is left in. Here are their physical home media releases:

Viddy-Oh! For Kids Cartoon Festivals: Daffy Duck Cartoon Festival Featuring “Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur” (1986, VHS)

The Golden Age of Looney Tunes: vol. 2: The Art of Daffy (1992, laser disc, side 8)

Looney Tunes Golden Collection: volume 4 (2006, DVD, disc 2)

Looney Tunes Platinum Collection: volume 3 (2012, DVD and Blu-ray, disc 2 for both releases)

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: HBO Max had it for two years (2020-2022) while Tubi has had it since 2025. It’s currently not on digital download or on any other streaming platform.

‘Til next time: Stay Looney and Be Merrie!