Lucky Luke: Daisy Town, is a slapstick western
that finds our hero, Lucky Luke, and his trusty talking horse,
Jolly Jumper, residing as sheriff and sidekick in Daisy Town,
now a boring little town because Luke has cleaned it up so
well. But, as fate would have it, the four outlaw Dalton
brothers get out of prison only to seek revenge on the man who
put them there, Lucky Luke. The sheriff prevails and sends the
bumbling outlaws back to jail, saving Daisy Town and keeping
peace with the Indians as well.
There is a lot of animal action in this
western but it is primarily mild horse and horse and buggy
atmosphere. There is some hard riding, but done mostly by
Jolly Jumper who is a horse with a great many tricks to his
credit. Jolly Jumper is seen in many instances where he
appears to be making comments on the action taking place
around him. This is done with a close up of the horse and a
voice over actor speaking as the horse. The horse's mouth does
not move in sync with the voice over, however the illusion is
that he is speaking or merely thinking the comments to
himself. Jolly Jumper is seen kneeling when Lucky Luke tells
him to "duck", sitting on the bank of the river with
his back to us appearing to be fishing with Luke, lying on the
ground sleeping with Luke, head to head, and even dancing at
the square dance by prancing back and forth to the music.
Jolly Jumper also bends down by stretching out his front legs
and lowering his head to allow Luke to mount more easily. This
is a highly trained horse who responded to verbal commands by
his trainer.
In one scene Jolly Jumper encounters a
rattle snake. The snake is coiled and Jolly talks to Luke
letting him know to come over and deal with the snake. Luke
carefully uses a forked stick to isolate the head of the
snake, picking him up by the back of the neck and supporting
his body with the other hand and eventually heads him in
another direction away from Jolly Jumper. The scene was shot
in cuts and in reality it was the snake's handler who
manipulated the stick. For the safety of Jolly Jumper, there
was a 5' X 4' piece of Plexiglas between the horse and the
snake at all times.
In another scene Lucky Luke and Jolly Jumper
are riding hard to get back to Daisy Town to warn the settlers
of a possible Indian attack. They run right into the river,
hitting the water hard. The next scene is of Jolly on his back
with Luke sitting on his chest giving the horse CPR by moving
Jolly's legs up and down. The American Humane Association was
not on this production for this scene and we have no knowledge
of how this particular stunt was accomplished. Later, a
bloodhound runs up to one of the outlaws who is now back in
prison and sitting on a stool out in the prison yard. The
Dalton brother gives the dog a pat as if he were an old
friend.
This production was done by a foreign
production company. It was shot in the United States but
employed a foreign animal trainer. The American Humane
Association was not initially aware of the production, nor was
the production company aware of the American Humane Guidelines
for the Protection of All Animals in Film. By the time we were
aware of this production, the above scene with the horse fall
into the river and the scene using the dog had already been
shot. Once the American Humane Association became involved in
the production of these Lucky Luke episodic films, American
trainers replaced the original trainer and the guidelines were
followed from that point.
Originally this film was rated
"Unacceptable." Due to new information that has come
to light, we believe that no animal was actually harmed in the
making of this film. Further, the production company, upon
finding out about American standards, was very cooperative and
followed American Humane Guidelines throughout the remainder
of the shoot. Therefore, we are rating Lucky Luke: Daisy Town
"Questionable."
