Duck Amuck 1.2
1953 directed by Chuck Jones
Features Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny

Awards

• #1 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time as chosen by members of the animation field.
  
• US Library of Congress deems it culturally significant and selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry. Chuck Jones is the only animator to have three films selected.

Daffy is tormented by a sadistic animator who constantly changes Daffy's location, clothing, voice, physical appearance, and even shape. Pandemonium reigns throughout the cartoon as Daffy attempts to steer the action back to some kind of normality, only for the animator to either ignore him or, more frequently, to over-literally interpret his increasingly frantic demands.

According to director Chuck Jones, this film demonstrated for the first time that animation can create characters with a recognizable personality, independent of their appearance, milieu, or voice. The director is speaking to the audience directly, asking who is Daffy Duck anyway? Would you recognize him if I did this to him? What if he didn't live in the woods? Didn't live anywhere? What if he had no voice? No face? What if he wasn't even a duck anymore? In all cases, it is obvious that Daffy is still Daffy; not all cartoon characters can claim such distinctive personality.

Trivia

• The 1955 Chuck Jones’ short Rabbit Rampage was an alternate version of Duck Amuck, which cast Bugs into the role of beleaguered cartoon character, with Elmer Fudd as the animator.
  
• The concept was used in the Babylon 5 episode Conflicts of Interest, where Michael Garibaldi was listening to the short itself, paralleling the fact that Garibaldi himself was unknowingly being manipulated by a seemingly omnipotent force at the time.