Downhearted Duckling

Downhearted Duckling
Tom and Jerry series
The title card of Downhearted Duckling
Directed by	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Produced by	Fred Quimby
Story by	William Hanna Joseph Barbera
Voices by	Red Coffee - Quacker and Female Duckling (unc.)
Music by	Scott Bradley
Animation by	Irven Spence Ray Patterson Kenneth Muse Ed Barge
Backgrounds by	Robert Gentle
Distributed by	Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Release date(s)	November 13, 1954
Color process	Technicolor
Running time	6' 42"
Language	English
Preceded by	Neapolitan Mouse
Followed by	Pet Peeve

Downhearted Duckling is the 87th one reel animated Tom and Jerry short. It was created in 1953, directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera, and produced by Fred Quimby, with music by Scott Bradley. The cartoon was animated by Irven Spence, Ray Patterson, Kenneth Muse and Ed Barge with backgrounds by Robert Gentle. It was released on November 13, 1954 by Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.

Plot

Quacker is deeply distraught after reading The Ugly Duckling. The duckling in the illustrated book looks just like Quacker, and convinced that he too is ugly, has thoughts of suicide. Jerry hears him crying loudly and tries to help Quacker look better, but Quacker attempts to kill himself by releasing an axe onto himself. Jerry removes him from the death trap and the axe falls on his tail.

Jerry dresses Quacker up in a tie and hat, but Quacker, looking at himself in a broken mirror, still thinks he is ugly, and starts to cry again. Before Jerry runs inside his house and returns with another mirror, Quacker walks off, wishing he was dead.

He approaches a sleeping Tom and wakes him up, asking to be eaten. A puzzled Tom is only too happy to oblige, but is prevented from successfully eating the duckling, owing to Jerry's intervention. Jerry grabs Quacker out of Tom's mouth and flees. Tom searches for the duck and Quacker calls out to Tom while lying in a sandwich. Quacker jumps out of the sandwich as Tom tries to eat it and Tom eats a branch. Quacker apologizes and asks for Tom's tongue. Tom puts it out and Quacker jumps on it, but is saved again by Jerry before falling down Tom's throat.

Jerry and Quacker hide next to a hen, but instead of taking Quacker, Jerry grabs the hen and gets pecked into the ground. Quacker pokes his head out of a pie and asks if Tom wants to eat it. Tom refuses, but Quacker convinces him to eat him. Before Tom managed to grab the pie, Jerry suddenly comes, grabs Quacker before throwing the pie onto Tom's face.

Jerry tries to raise Quacker's spirits by giving him a beauty make-over inside Jerry's mousehole. Tom later approaches the mousehole after hearing Quacker's voice, and he blindly manages to grab Quacker from the mousehole, puts him in a bag before running off elsewhere. However, when Tom finally takes Quacker out of the bag, he becomes horrified at the duckling's appearance, as Quacker had mud on his face, was wearing a girdle, and had four big perm curlers on his head (this is from Jerry's work-in-progress make-over earlier) and Quacker even began walking like a Frankenstein's monster. Quacker asks if Tom wants to eat him but Tom runs off as quickly as he can, clawing straight through a brick wall in order to escape.

This convinced Quacker once and for all "Oh, boy, am I ugly...", and Quacker is at his lowest ebb, curbing his suicidal tendencies and reducing himself to hiding under a paper bag (angrily yelling at Jerry for lifting it up), and saying that he'll never show his face again. A female duckling , who happened to pass by, saw Quacker sitting in despair on a rock. In curiosity she tried to look at his face, and giggled at his reaction before declaring he is cute. This stop the duck for thinking he is ugly. Quacker clicks his heels for joy and happily takes her arm. Jerry quickly looks on, the two ducklings waddle off together into the sunset, stopping along the way to share a kiss and continue to walk to the sunset.