"Dead Eye Duck"

 

Nothing to do with Bucky O'Hare by the way.

Season 3 Episode 8 (episode 53 overall)

Original broadcast date: 10th December 1990

Writer: Peter Richard Reeves
Additional voices: Quiet Earp/Nasty Colin/Old
                              Timer/various
                              townsfolk: Jimmy Hibbert
                               Barman: Jack May
                               Bad guy at bar/various 
                               townsfolk: Brian Trueman
                            Luscious Lullabelle: Ruby Wax
                               Townsman: David Jason

Joke credit: Dialogue Coach - Gabby Hayes, Stagecoach - Wells Fargo
Travel location: Colorado.

Castle transport visual used.

Peter Richard Reeves hasn't been seen (solely) in this series for a while and gives Jimmy Hibbert a bit of a break from scripting duties for this comic send-up of a Western ghost story. Spoiled the ending there didn't I? It's possible this was written early on in the series but wasn't finished until later in the game, since Reeves has been pretty scarce since season 2. His last solo effort was 'Prime Time Duck.'

Fed up with the wind and cold that's decimating his castle, Duckula decides to fly it away to somewhere sunny, sandy and scorching. The castle, being the castle, works to rule and takes him to the West, which, being that this is a cartoon, is still Wild. 

 After waiting for hours for the tide to come in (they still don't realise that this isn't a beach) the castle gets surrounded by 'pesky injuns.' I love how David Jason reads that phrase. It's almost as if he's being sarcastic about the Western trope of red Indians always being 'pesky.' He does it a few times. Thankfully for the PC brigade, the 'pesky injuns' are scared off by the arrival of Quiet Earp - the shyest cowboy in the West. ("Hate noise, hate crowds.") It's always amusing to combine two seemingly conflicting ideas, but as we'll discover later on, there's a reason why Earp is so Quiet. He pipes up enough to finally remove any lingering doubt there may be that this is a beach. It is in fact, the Colorado desert, not too far from Dodgey City. Quiet hires Duckula as a Marshall so they can clean up the lawless town. Nanny makes the obvious misunderstanding here. Earp's plan is that he will do all the shooting while Duckula can do all the talking. Seems perfect really as Duckula is certainly more of a showman, albeit with negligible bravery. Speaking of talking, Jimmy Hibbert is doing the talking for Q.E. and he does a great Clint Eastwood style voice for the coy cowpoke. He makes him sound really laid-back, but friendly.

The four of them then head into Dodgey City itself, which is full of gunsmoke and aggression. It's actually pretty startling how they managed to get away with this throughout the whole episode. I could've sworn TV standards for an apparent 'childrens' cartoon' would certainly have not allowed this. They used to be pretty strict about not showing actual guns and bullets, which is why so many 80s cartoon villains did their threatening with laser guns. This level of violence is prevalent throughout all the Cosgrove-Hall Westerns (the Victor and Hugo one even shows hand to face punching and a gunshot to the face!) so I'm guessing UK television laws were more relaxed about this than American cartoon censors. There's an irony there somewhere, which I'll leave you to figure out.

Next, they decide to visit a saloon - yes we get alcohol consumption in these cartoons too! - and we also get a fun little joke on how rough and tough (and petty!) the town is here.

Barkeeper: (throwing a man out of the bar) And stay out ya bum!
Duckula: What was the matter sir, couldn't he pay?
Barkeeper: Ah he could pay alright, just didn't have the right change!

At the bar, Duckula almost immediately riles up a tough guy who, not unreasonably, wants Duckula to show us a demonstration of his Marshall-ing prowess. Duckula tries to chicken out of it, but that other chicken, Nanny extols his virtues so much he has to go through with it. Thankfully Quiet Earp holds good to his promise of being right behind him and does the fancy gun-work for him, making the Count look good. 

It obviously works, because a soiled dove called Luscious Lullabelle (guns, booze, now sex - there's no stopping them!) descends from upstairs to make friends with Duckula. Any romantic intention is immediately blocked by a wacky old-timer alerting Duckula to the arrival of Nasty Colin - the main villain of the piece. He's not shooting, he's not tearing the place apart - he's doing something much worse - SINGING. Duckula steps out to confront him, unprofessionally forgetting to have his guns ready. Quiet Earp comes to the rescue again, shooting off Colin's clothes (and his horse's hair) in a comedy cloud of gunsmoke. Duckula is once again an (apparent) hero, although Lullabelle warns him that Colin's brothers could make things hot for him. She actually uses the word 'kill' a couple of times - another surprise for an 80s show! (the episode title even has the word dead in it now I come to think of it) All seems more or less well, but Igor knows how this show works - he's dismayed that 'things can only get nicer from now on.' We can't have that! He even cringes that all the townsfolk saying cheery greetings is 'just not natural!' Things do however, take another turn for the worse. According to the old-timer, the Nasty brothers are coming to town to break Colin out of jail.

Now it's high time to tick off another Western trope. In the jail, Duckula casually awaits the arrival of Colin's brothers at HIGH NOON™ though he's convinced there's nothing they can do.

Duckula: This jail is bullet-proof, bomb-proof and Nasty-proof and there's nothing they can do to get you out of here.

There follows a really well-timed and tense sequence where the clock strikes noon. A genuine old-school sound is used for the chimes which makes it sound really authentic.This part lasts 40 seconds and is filled with cuts to Colin looking increasingly worried, while Duckula gets increasingly more confident. The expressions are especially good throughout this scene and Duckula's over-confident little twirl just before things go wrong is great stuff. On the strike of 12, a perfectly timed explosion takes out the cell walls and Colin has now vanished. Those Nasty Bros. certainly are efficient. I love Duckula's defeatist 'Oh well, what do you know, wrong again!'. 

When the smoke clears, it turns out they've left a rather nicely written note for the 'Marshall' where they ask that he meets them at the Okay Kokay Coral so he can get shot. What a tempting offer! Quiet Earp makes another appearance and pretty much says Duckula has to go through with it, even if he's not happy about it. There's a little bit more buildup as they make their way there ('I'm right behind ya!) the only downside to the actual showdown is that it's over a little too soon, but I guess that's part of the joke. Earp does his usual stuff (more gunsmoke and nakedity) and Duckula is hailed as a hero by the townsfolk once again.

There's no way you can outshoot a ghost - or a vampire for that matter - so I guess Duckula was never in any real danger. 'Wait a minute!' you say! (or possibly you don't assuming you've seen the episode) 'Did you say ghost?' 'Yes, I did say', says I (OK I'll stop saying that now) for yes, in the final part it's revealed that Quiet Earp's been dead for many years - Duckula and co' were conversing with his ghost the whole time. The final shot shows Earp quietly fading away by his grave with a friendly, but spooky, 'So long, partner!' Duckula passes out from shock and we close the episode off with some whistley Western music. This makes a fair trade-off for the majority of episodes which end with the Count in a bad situation despite his best efforts. He may not be the real hero of this tale, but he did help and most times he gets shafted even when he doesn't deserve it, so this is a decent balance.

"So long, partner!"

Yesiree, bob. Some good clean, rootin'-tootin' and somewhat violent fun; full of self-aware clichés, but from the Western genre instead of the horror one, just for a change. Lively, angular animation by the Spanish team. An episode I tend to enjoy on sunny days.

Hope yawl enjoyed this review as much as the episode itself. Time for me to saddle up and ride off into the sunset now. And other old Western chestnuts.

 

Music
As with many Western-themed C-H episodes, 'Gunslinger' (Franco Micalizzi, Roberto Predagio) gets a fair few uses. 'Stranger In Town' (Tony Kinsey) gets used in this episode too - just try and ignore the deluge of SpongeBob comments.

'High Noon 1' (John Cameron - track 20) gets used when the old timer shares the bad news again. There's also a brief spooky cue just before Earp reveals himself to be a ghost that's also head in the Father Ted episode 'Good Luck, Father Ted' when Ted gets his fortune told. Not heard it elsewhere. It's 'Badlands 4' (John Cameron - track 36) Speaking of which, there's a cue used in 'The Passion of Saint Tibulus' (Jack approaching the cinema) that is used here when we first cut to Dodgey City ('Western Panorama' by Len Beadle - track 3) and 'The Old Grey Whistle Theft' uses a Western sounding cue that is heard here too. I'm assuming Duckula and Ted shared the same music library among other things. 'Badlands 1' (John Cameron) plays a when Duckula reads the note. 'Badlands 1' link (John Cameron - track 33) plays as we cut to the showdown. A lot of use from that album.

Backgrounds and pans 
Clicking on these, as with any image, will afford you a better view. Some beautiful wooden effects for the clap-board style town are much in evidence.

Minor running theme - left is the castle chandelier, right is the saloon one.

 

Trivia

• Another episode with the word duck in the title.
• Episode starts with Duckula screaming but does not end on a scream. 
• Another appearance of the magic coffin. Verse to make the castle move:
  'This castle's cold and dreary, freezing and no fun.
  So lets go where there's lots and lots and lots of sand and sun!'
• Duckula, Igor and Nanny are the only characters who can see and hear Quiet Earp. Only Duckula actually converses with him directly.
• The animation of the coachman and horses is partially re-used from 'Dear Diary.' It would be re-used again, in its entirety in the final episode, 'The Zombie Awakes.'
  
  
  

  

  Top "Dear Diary", middle "Dead Eye Duck", bottom "The Zombie Awakes."
  
  
  

• Duckula is not seen in his regular clothes for the majority of the episode.
• Quiet Earp is of course a spoofing on the famous Western figure, Wyatt Earp, right down to the moustache. Dodgey City is a pun on Dodge City and the Okay Kokay Corral is a simultaneous reference to the O.K. Corral and to the dance, the Hokey Cokey which, tellingly, is called the Hokey Pokey in the US. Shoe Hill, where Earp is buried, is a pun on Boot Hill, which is a generic term for where old Western gunslingers would often be buried.
• Hot sunlight doesn't seem to affect the Count, but we don't see his reflection in the bar-room mirror. 
• There's a running joke about Igor being pedantic about time-keeping. He also says 'I have a Nasty feeling' at one point - a sly reference to the villains.
• Duckula claims to have heard of Quiet Earp prior to meeting him and is a big fan. 
• Another instance of a character being baffled or amused by the term 'Duckyboos'. The tough guy at the bar mocks it.
• Duckula and Lulabelle do the 'Hello Miss (surname) or may I call you (first name)?' 'No.' gag  again here.
• Nasty Colin sings a butchered version of 'She'll Be Coming Round the Mountain' and also does the mocking laugh exchange with Duckula that Mrs Grab did with him in 'Rent a Butler.'
• Nasty Colin is the 1st of 2 Jimmy Hibbert characters in the series to be seen riding a horse, the other being the decidedly more heroic Geoffrey the mountie from 'A Mountie Always Gets His Duck.' He is also one of three Hibbert cowboy characters to be shown in a Western jail - Black Jake from the Victor & Hugo episode 'Cowboys and Indiscipline' and Big Jake from Avenger Penguins' 'High Doom' - he even uses the same voice for all three.
• Second time in the series Jimmy Hibbert plays a crazy old prospector type of character. The 1st was in 'Ghostly Gold' also written by Reeves. Rob Rackstraw would later play a similar, regular character, the Doc from Saskatoon, in 'Avenger Penguins.'
• Duckula gets a bullet hole through his hat when dealing with Colin which stays there up until the jail sequence. 
• One of the store-fronts is labelled 'DRUC'. This is actually a Romanian name! Maybe the Count has relatives in Colorado. 
• One of Colin's brothers seem to have a look-alike among the townsfolk - either that or he reformed (and redressed!) quickly. 
• Crosses are seen in the graveyard and what possibly amounts to a human skull in the Duckula'verse.
• A rare episode that actually ends on a relatively happy note for Duckula. He's hailed as a hero.
• The narrator gives us a Western variant on his traditional closing statement. He did the same at the end of 'A Fright At The Opera.'
• The joke credit is a reference to Western actor George 'Gabby' Hayes who was best known for playing colourful comedy relief type characters. WEEJUS WEEJUS! (OK, I'll stop that as well now). Also to Wells Fargo the joint stock company known for making sure 'the mail must get through!'


Goofs and Nitpicks 

• Just some minor colour errors: A bit of Quiet's moustache is coloured as his beak briefly near his first appearance, Duckula suddenly has white gloves when talking to Lullabelle after dealing with Nasty Colin and Nasty Colin's trouser crotch is coloured as his shirt near the end for a single shot.