Golden Yeggs

Golden Yeggs
Merrie Melodies (Daffy Duck, Porky Pig) series
The title card of Golden Yeggs.
Directed by	I. Freleng
Produced by	Eddie Selzer
Story by	Tedd Pierce
Voices by	Mel Blanc Stan Freberg (brief appearance, as Goose)
Music by	Carl Stalling
Animation by	Arthur Davis Gerry Chiniquy Ken Champin Virgil Ross Emery Hawkins
Distributed by	Warner Bros. Pictures The Vitaphone Corporation
Release date(s)	August 5, 1950 (USA)
Color process	Technicolor
Running time	6' 51"
Language	English

Golden Yeggs is a 1950 Merrie Melodies short animated film, released on August 5, 1950 by Warner Bros. Cartoons, Inc. and directed by Friz Freleng. It features Daffy Duck and Porky Pig in a forerunner of the Rocky and Mugsy cartoons, with Rocky already in his present-day form.

The story was written by Tedd Pierce and animated by Arthur Davis, Gerry Chiniquy, Ken Champin, Virgil Ross and Emery Hawkins. Paul Julian painted the backgrounds and Hawley Pratt designed the layouts. Mel Blanc provided all the voices and Carl Stalling the music.

"Yegg" is a slang term for a burglar or safecracker. The same play-on-words was used in the title of the 1947 Bugs Bunny cartoon, Easter Yeggs.

Plot

When Porky finds a golden egg in his henhouse, it was revealed that one of the geese laid it. But, knowing well about what happened to the goose that laid the golden egg (a reference to Aesop's Fables), he lies to Porky that Daffy laid it. After finding out about the fame Daffy got for laying the egg, Rocky and his gang hustle him back to their den and demand more output. Daffy tries to stall for time, at one point asking for surroundings that would make him more comfortable. Rocky and his henchmen oblige, but then demand the egg.

Daffy tries to stall for time, but is given five minutes to lay his egg or else. The duck tries various ways to escape his predicament, but is stopped at every turn. When time runs out, the gangsters stalk Daffy...only to find he really has laid a golden egg!

Daffy is relieved that he met Rocky's demand and will be allowed to go free...until Rocky escorts the duck into a room containing dozens of egg crates and orders him to lay enough to fill them, much to Daffy's despair.

Censorship

• On the ABC airing of this cartoon, the part where Daffy is shot in the head by Rocky after confessing that he hasn't laid any eggs is replaced with a repeat shot of the mob members playing cards and reading magazines (from earlier in the cartoon). This is also how the scene was shown in the compilation film The Looney, Looney, Looney Bugs Bunny Movie in which Bugs and the police suddenly bust in and arrest Rocky's troop, but only after Daffy, exhausted, has filled all the egg cartons.
• The Disney xd version also edited the scene that was cut on ABC, but the scene was edited with a fake iris-out just as Rocky says: "So long, pal" and a fake iris-in after Daffy is shot.
• The CBS airing of this cartoon leaves in the gun gag at the end, but cuts an early scene where after Porky tells the mobsters he doesn't want to sell Daffy, Daffy is then shown being carried out and the scene cuts to Daffy in the mobsters' apartment. What was cut was a short scene of Porky in a trough with a shovel broken over his head, burnt matches in his hooves, and money shoved in his hands, looking beaten up, and uttering: "T-t-they talked me into it."

External links

• Golden Yeggs at the Internet Movie Database
• Golden Yeggs at The Big Cartoon Database