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.
"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.
Summary[]
When Daffy takes credit for the golden egg Porky finds in his henhouse, 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 at first, 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 thinks that he is relieved that he met Rocky's demand and would be allowed to go free... until Rocky stops the duck from leaving and shows him a room containing dozens of egg crates and orders him to "Fill 'em up!" Daffy moans, "Aw, my achin' back!" and faints.
Beginning from this cartoon, Friz Freleng redesigned Rocky, making him a more generalized caricature of the "tough guy" gangster rather than Edward G. Robinson in particular. Freleng used several of the same techniques that would make Sam, his other Bugs villain, such a humorous character: Despite Rocky's tough-guy demeanor, everlasting cigar (or cigarette) and foppish gangster clothing, he really is little more than a dwarf in a much-too-large hat.
Unlike other cartoons, Rocky and his minions are not defeated in any way at the end of this cartoon (not counting The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie where the ending has been altered).
When this cartoon was used in The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie, a new ending was used. Instead of Daffy fainting, Bugs Bunny, alias Elegant Mess (a parody of Eliot Ness), arrived with the police to bust Rocky and his gang. At the same time, Daffy tiredly carried out Rocky's orders. Naturally, the evil gang was taken away and Daffy was taken to a hospital on a stretcher. Bugs asked Daffy if he needed anything and Daffy requested for a proctologist immediately.
Censorship[]
On ABC, the part where Rocky shoots Daffy in the head after Daffy fails to lay a golden egg had the actual gunshot replaced with an earlier shot of Rocky's men sitting around and looking off to the left. This edit was also seen on The Looney Looney Looney Bugs Bunny Movie. The Nickelodeon version edits the same part, but instead uses a fake iris-out to cover the offending scene, then irises back in to resume the cartoon.[1]
The CBS version cuts out the aftermath of Porky refusing to sell Daffy to the gangsters, where Porky is shown sprawled in a trough with a broken shovel over his head and many matches between his hooves, leaving Porky's fate unknown in the censored version and the implications of what could have happened to him at the hands of the gangsters darker than what the uncensored version showed.[1]
