The Duck Doctor

Infobox Hollywood cartoon
cartoon_name = The Duck Doctor
series = Tom and Jerry


caption = The title card of "The Duck Doctor"
director = William Hanna
Joseph Barbera
story_artist = William Hanna
Joseph Barbera
animator = Irven Spence Ray Patterson
Ed Barge
Kenneth Muse
voice_actor = Red Coffee as the duckling
musician = Scott Bradley
producer = Fred Quimby
distributor = Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
release_date = February 16, 1952
color_process = Technicolor
runtime = 7 minutes 3 seconds
movie_language = English
imdb_id = 0044571
preceded_by = The Flying Cat
followed_by = The Two Mouseketeers

"The Duck Doctor" is a 1952 one-reel animated cartoon and is the 64th "Tom and Jerry" cartoon directed by William Hanna and Joseph Barbera and produced by Fred Quimby. It stars a little wild duck, rather than the yellow duckling, Quacker.

Plot

A flock of wild ducks is flying south, and Tom sees them. He fires several shots at them and shoots a duckling (who is green and gray in this cartoon) in the arm. The duckling cries out in pain and tries to catch up with his family on one wing, but this does not succeed. The duckling slowly falls to earth as Tom prepares to catch him. The duckling ends up sliding across the ground, hits a rock, and bounces down, where he is knocked out.

Jerry hears the racket, opens his door, and is terrified to discover the cat chasing after the duck. Jerry just manages to hide the duckling in a tree before Tom shows up; then the cat runs away. Jerry listens for a pulse and discovers that the duckling is alive. Jerry splashes the duck with a bucket of water and the duckling wakes up with a start. He begs not to be shot, but when he sees that Jerry has saved him, he explains his situation and clutches his arm. Jerry straightens out the duckling's arm and makes a makeshift sling for it. The duckling cries out in excruciating pain for a few seconds, but soon sees the sling and compliments the mouse on his abilities as a doctor.

Jerry shushes the duck because he sees Tom outside of the tree. The ducks are then heard quacking; Tom perks up when he sees the opportunity to eat duck. This sound also attracts the duckling, who bids Jerry goodbye and tries to join his flock, knocking over Tom in the process. The duckling cannot get off the ground and soon Tom starts to shoot at him. Tom corners the duck, and just before he plants a bullet in his feathers, Jerry sticks a reed up Tom's gun such that it backfires and leaves Tom in blackface.

Jerry carries the duckling back to his hole, but soon the duckling hears the ducks again and runs out, only to meet Tom's gun again. Tom's shots barely graze the duckling's rear and Jerry is forced to patch it up after hearing the duck's explanation. Tom imitates a duck sound by blowing through a thin tube. The duckling mows over the door and Jerry in order to get out of the hole, but then doesn't see anything. Tom puts the gun to the duckling's head and the duckling barely dodges the point-blank bullet. After a few more shots, Tom follows the duck into a tree stump, and he fires a shot into the stump, hitting the duck again. Tom then pursues the duckling with the gun again, but accidentally shoots a pig's bottom. Tom looks up, and before he can react, the massive swine has flattened him into the shape of her butt.

The duckling passes by Jerry's hole and Jerry pulls him in in order to patch up the duck even more. Less than a third of the duck's body is now visible. Jerry ties the duck to a large anvil to keep him from running away.

Tom stealthily crawls on his belly over to Jerry's hole and uses his caller again. The duckling obligingly comes out, taking the anvil with him. When the duck runs past Tom, the anvil flattens him. Tom fires shots at the duckling as the anvil drags across the ground. the duckling grips onto a tree and the anvil swings around and hits Tom, molding him into a stool shape. The duckling suddenly stops when the anvil gets stuck between two small trees, and Tom is ready to kill the duck when the anvil bursts free and knocks Tom backwards into a water pump.

The duckling then succeeds in getting in the air, but is held down by the weight of the anvil. Since the duckling cannot go anywhere, Tom shoots at the duck, but instead breaks the rope. The anvil plummets down directly where Tom is standing; Tom panics and runs back and forth (but strangely not away) before deciding death is inevitable. He digs his grave and smokes his last cigarette before the anvil hits his head and apparently kills him, knocking him into the hole he dug. The anvil becomes Tom's tombstone.

The duckling shakes off his bandages and flies away with the rest of the ducks, bidding farewell to Jerry.

Trivia

*This is only one of the three cartoons (the others are "Mouse Trouble" and "The Two Mouseketeers") in which Tom actually dies (apparently) on-screen.