To Duck... or Not to Duck

To Duck... or Not to Duck
Lobby card.
Production company	Leon Schlesinger Productions
Distributor	Warner Bros. Pictures The Vitaphone Corporation
Release date	March 6, 1943
Starring	Mel Blanc Arthur Q. Bryan
Producer(s)	Leon Schlesinger
Music composed by	Carl W. Stalling
Story by	Tedd Pierce
Animation	Robert Cannon
Director(s)	Charles M. Jones
Series navigation
← Previous	Next →
Title card

To Duck... or Not to Duck is the one hundred and seventy-eighth Looney Tunes theatrical short. It was distributed Warner Bros. Pictures and The Vitaphone Corporation on March 6, 1943. It was written by Tedd Pierce, produced by Leon Schlesinger and directed by Chuck Jones.

After being shot clear out of the sky, Daffy Duck, insulted by his reason of "fair play," settles things with Elmer by pitting against him in a rigged boxing match.

Memorable Quotes

Elmer: I'm not the one compwain, Mr. Weferwee. But I thought you said no wough stuff.

Characters

Legend
Character debut	Speaking debut	Ep. debut	No lines	Mentioned

In order of appearance:

Character	Actor
Daffy Duck	Arthur Q. Bryan
Elmer Fudd	Arthur Q. Bryan
Referee duck	Mel Blanc
Laramore	Mel Blanc

Locations

• Earth
  • United States
    • Duck pond
    • Boxing arena

Objects

• Elmer's hunting rifle
• Boxing gloves

Vehicles

• None

Music

The music for this cartoon was composed by Carl W. Stalling.

The title music used for this cartoon is based on the song, "A Hunting We Will Go".

Release

Dates are in order of release:

• United States: March 6, 1943

Behind the scenes

• The title is a pun of a quote from William Shakespeare's play Hamlet, "To be or not to be." This quote would once again be used as another pun in the 1963 Merrie Melodies short, To Beep or Not to Beep.
• This is the first Looney Tunes cartoon to feature both Daffy Duck and Elmer Fudd.
  • This is also the first proper appearance of Elmer Fudd in a Looney Tunes short, not counting his voice being heard in Nutty News.
• The duck referee is intended to be the same plump and jovial referee from Count Me Out. In that short, the referee was voiced by Tex Avery, while here the referee is voiced by Mel Blanc, since Avery had already left Warner Bros. for MGM at the time the latter cartoon was made.
• The cartoon entered the public domain in 1971, as United Artists (successor-in-interest to Associated Artists Productions) failed to renew the copyright in time.

Legacy

• The referee would later appear in The Sylvester & Tweety Mysteries episode "Furgo," where he is named Ducky Wheeze.
• Daffy's boxing persona would be reused in the video game Looney Tunes: World of Mayhem.

Home availability

• Looney Tunes Golden Collection: Volume 6