The Scarlet Pumpernickel The Scarlet Pumpernickel The Scarlet Pumpernickel is an animated Warner Bros. "Looney Tunes" theatrical cartoon short released in 1950, directed by Chuck Jones and written by Michael Maltese. The title is a play on "The Scarlet Pimpernel". In 1994 it was voted #31 of the 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field. The cartoon is a story within a story. Daffy Duck is fed up with comedy and wants to try a dramatic act instead. He offers a script to Warner Bros.' chief Jack L. Warner - whom he addresses, as most people did, as
The League of the Scarlet Pimpernel he was supposed to have concealed. Esther is now living in one of the poorer parts of Paris while a number of astute jailbirds are plotting to obtain her money and wealth by forcing her to choose between marrying one of their gang, Citizen Merri, or face death. The Pimpernel takes on the guise of Citizen Rateau, a tall, cadaverous-looking creature, with sunken eyes and broad, hunched up shoulders and a dry rasping cough that proclaimed the ravages of some mortal disease. Can he rescue Esther and her English lover Jack Kennard from the evil plot? Lucile Clamette and her