The Impatient Patient
The Impatient Patient
The Impatient Patient is a short Looney Tunes cartoon from 1942 directed by Norman McCabe. It stars Daffy Duck and takes place in a mad scientist’s laboratory. The opening credits look like a doctor signing a prescription.
In the story, Daffy wanders through the Ookaboochie Swamps trying to deliver a telegram to someone named Chloe. He gets a terrible case of hiccups and ends up at Dr. Jerkyl’s house. The doctor hopes to cure the hiccups and traps Daffy in a chair. To scare him, Dr. Jerkyl drinks a potion that turns him into Chloe, a grotesque ogre. Daffy, now in Chloe’s presence, reads the telegram to her: it’s a spoken version of “Happy Birthday To You,” sent by Mr. Frank N. Stein. Chloe falls for Daffy, and the two chase around the lab until a radio starts playing and Daffy dances.
After the dance, the chase resumes. Daffy escapes to the lab table and makes a potion that turns Chloe into an infant. The two grab hammers and imitate Red Skelton’s “Mean Widdle Kid” as the action moves offscreen, ending with a big thud. A cuckoo clock bird then shows a sign reading “He Dood It!” and the baby Dr. Jerkyl screams in faux distress.
Color versions: The cartoon was originally black-and-white. It was colorized in 1968 by tracing over frames, which lowered the animation quality. A 1992 computer colorization recreated color from the original print and preserved better quality.
Running time: 8 minutes. Country: United States. Language: English.
This page was last edited on 3 February 2026, at 05:07 (CET).