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George Lucas wanted Duck Dodgers in Star Wars
The force was strong with Duck Dodgers!
When Star Wars: A New Hope premiered in 1977, filmmaker George Lucas wanted to include a special cartoon before the screening. He actually wanted to include it at the beginning of every screening in every theater across the country.
That cartoon was the 1953 Merrie Melodies classic "Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2th Century" directed by Chuck Jones.
"Duck Dodgers" is a parody of Buck Rogers, a science fiction hero from a 1930s comic book series, where Daffy Duck is a hapless space hero accompanied by eager space cadet Porky Pig. The cartoon is not only considered one of Chuck Jones's best cartoons, but one of the best cartoons ever, ranking fourth in The 50 Greatest Cartoons of All Time.
George Lucas was eight years old when "Duck Dodgers" premiered and, according to Chuck Jones, the cartoon changed his life. In an interview with cartoon historian Jim Korkis, Jones recalled, "Well, Lucas said that he saw 'Duck Dodgers' the year it came out, when he was eight years old, and he said that it impressed him so much that he decided he wanted to make movies."
So, when the time came for George Lucas to premiere his space magnum opus, he wanted to connect it back to the classic cartoon that inspired him as a child. While his wish for a nationwide "Duck Dodgers" cold open didn't come to pass, it did air at the beginning of the San Francisco 70mm presentation in 1977.
Mark Hamill, Luke Skywalker himself, discussed the cartoon connection on his social media. "George really did want this classic Daffy Duck cartoon shown before every screening of #SW," he tweeted, "It would've been an icebreaker to let the audience know what was coming was less than dead serious. I was disappointed when we couldn't get the rights to it & it didn't happen."
Lucas still held on to his Duck Dodgers dreams and requested that a sequel to the classic cartoon premiere with the sequel to Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, in 1980. Chuck Jones was game, but getting the Looney Tunes band back together was tricky.
"That was a problem because Warners had been closed for years...I had to work to reassemble some of my old team," Jones recalled in the same interview with Jim Korkis. Writer Michael Maltese, animators Phil Monroe and Ben Washam, and the king of layouts, Maurice Noble, all returned for one last cartoon, but production got off to a slower start.
"It wasn't ready for the release of 'The Empire Strikes Back', but an attempt was made to release it theatrically." Jones admitted, "It was the centerpiece for the NBC television special Daffy Duck's Thanks-For-Giving Special in 1980, where Daffy is trying to convince the studio to produce a sequel to 'Duck Dodgers'".
While we never got a Looney Tunes and Star Wars double feature, we can all appreciate George Lucas as a fellow cartoon fan because his influence led to the creation of "Duck Dodgers and the Return of the 24 1/2th Century."
