Yankee Doodle Daffy
Yankee Doodle Daffy is a Warner Bros. Looney Tunes theatrical cartoon short released on July 3, 1943, directed by Friz Freleng and written by Tedd Pierce. The short was the second Technicolor Looney Tunes entry to feature Porky Pig and Daffy Duck. It is also among the handful of Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies theatrical shorts that have entered the public domain.
None of the voice actors were credited on screen. Mel Blanc performed most of the voices, while Ken Bennett sang "In the Garden of My Heart" as Sleepy Lagoon. Richard Bickenbach received screen credit as animator, but other animators working on the film were Jack Bradbury, Gerry Chiniquy, Phil Monroe and Manuel Perez. Owen Fitzgerald was the layout artist, Paul Julian painted the backgrounds, and Lloyd Turner was the in-between artist.
The title and introductory music are inspired by the 1942 film Yankee Doodle Dandy, a major hit and a Warner release. Other than the fact of both films being about show business, they have no plot elements in common. It is one of the few Daffy Duck/Porky Pig cartoons to have entered into the public domain after United Artists failed to renew the copyright by 1971.
Plot
At Smeller's Productions, Porky Pig, a producer, loaded down with luggage and a golf bag, hangs a sign on his office door reading "No casting today" and leaves his office in a hurry to board an airplane to a golf course. However, Daffy Duck, a talent agent, stops Porky from leaving, wanting to secure an audition for his client, droopy-eyed child performer Sleepy Lagoon. The pitch, intended to demonstrate Sleepy's allegedly wide and varied repertoire, consists of Daffy himself performing an array of musical and stage acts in his usual, absurd and unoriginal fashion. Sleepy meanwhile stays seated, nonchalantly licking an enormous lollipop and silently commenting on Daffy's ludicrous behavior using signs bearing rebuses, such as "ham", "screwball", and "corn".The songs Daffy performs include "I'm Just Wild About Harry", "William Tell Overture", "Flight of the Bumblebee", "Chica Chica Boom Chic", "Laugh, Clown, Laugh", and "Angel in Disguise".
Porky, with mounting frustration, repeatedly tries to escape from the pitch. Daffy handily foils each attempt in increasingly improbable ways, including by turning out to be the pilot of Porky's plane and then turning out to be the parachute Porky uses to escape the plane. After Daffy finally takes it upon himself to harass Porky with an outrageous finale, Porky decides to just get it over with by allowing Sleepy to audition.
Sleepy calmly leaves his seat and begins to sing the song, "In the Garden of My Heart", in a strong, operatic baritone that is not only surprising given his small stature but also substantially more dramatic than any of the acts Daffy used in the pitch. However, during a high note near the end, he erupts into a long coughing fit before weakly croaking the rest of the line.