Underplayed Gems

His Bitter Half (1950)

His Bitter Half poster
Directed by
Friz Freleng
Genre
animation, comedy
Country
United States
Runtime
8 min
Rating
8.2 of 10 from 10 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

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How it feels

Daffy Duck marries a wealthy woman hoping for an easy life. After the wedding he discovers his new wife is mean and he is forced to do hard chores and take care of her bratty son.

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What happens

His Bitter Half is a 1950 Warner Bros. Merrie Melodies short, directed by Friz Freleng with a story by Tedd Pierce. The cartoon was released on May 20, 1950, and stars Daffy Duck. The voices are performed by Mel Blanc and Martha Wentworth. Both His Bitter Half and Freleng's 1962 Yosemite Sam short Honey's Money have a similar plot: a fortune-seeking bachelor marrying an ugly mean widow, whose true personality is revealed only after the wedding, and, after forced to do backbreaking housechores, being made to care for her child, introduced (to both the main protagonist and the audience) only after the marriage is legalized. The child in both shorts is named Wentworth; here, Wentworth is a normal sized brat who causes trouble, with Daffy suffering the consequences of his son's actions. (In Honey's Money, Wentworth is a giant 3-year-old whose heavy weight is a problem for Sam, but his attitude is friendly to Sam, who tries to bump him off to keep the money for himself.) The differing personalities of the two Wentworths results in different executions for each cartoon. His Bitter Half was reused as a clip in a 1980 TV special where Daffy tells his life's struggles in an attempt to produce a movie about Duck Dodgers. The latter part of the title is a pun on the phrase "better half", meaning someone's romantic partner. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

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