Review of The Scarlet Pumpernickel

. . . Warner Bros. animated short THE SCARLET PUMPERNICKEL is one of America's first flicks to draw a correlation between tobacco usage and suicide-by-gun. Powder proves to be Daffy Duck's downfall. First, his title character suffers uncontrollable spasms and fits from ingesting the Demon Snuff. Then, gun powder powers a bullet into Daffy's skull. Daffy's motivation toward self-destruction here seems to be his strong desire to be a chain-smoking movie star like Errol Flynn. Big Tobacco paid billions in bribes to put the Wicked Weed in the mouths of stars such as Humphrey Bogart, Bette Davis, John Wayne, and Flynn in a successful effort to get 1900s America smoking like a rusty muffler. (These tobacco shills also introduced the illogical concept of the post-coital cigarette, realizing that the American Race would peter out and die from the effects of their product--hurting sales growth and year-end bonuses--unless smokers started to reproduce at rabbit-like rates). So what if kissing a smoker is akin to licking an ashtray? With Humphrey, Errol, Bette, and Daffy pushing coffin nails, why NOT succumb and then shoot yourself in the head to avoid a lingering Death by Cancer?