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keira-incognita · 6 days ago

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The Many Faces of Daffy Duck

Daffy Duck is arguably one of the most versatile cartoon characters ever created. He has played a myriad of roles over the course of his long career and shown many distinct personality traits. Each director that has worked on Daffy has brought something to the character and has helped define and develop him. The transition Daffy has made over the years has been startling and quite hilarious. From his humble beginnings as an uncontrollable screwball to the greedy egomaniac we all know and love, Daffy Duck has shown more range than most of today’s live-action actors.

It all began in 1937 with Tex Avery’s cartoon "Porky’s Duck Hunt." At this point in time, Porky Pig was, surprisingly enough, the most popular Looney Tunes character and its main star. This cartoon begins much like any other Porky cartoon, but takes a definitively wacky turn that would change the course of animation forever. The first appearance of the as yet unnamed Daffy introduced a new kind of cartoon character: the screwball. Daffy was unlike anything audiences had seen before. He was manic and uncontrollable, insane for no discernable reason. He defiantly stood up to the gun-toting Porky and bounced and laughed his way all over the place, including the end titles. His frantic energy and loony personality were just what cartoons needed.

Daffy, the "crazy, darn fool duck," continued to be an unbridled ball of hilarious lunacy throughout his early pictures in the 1930s and '40s. He received his name in his second appearance, Tex Avery’s 1938 picture "Daffy and Egghead" — which also featured the man who would be Elmer Fudd. However, it was director Bob Clampett, not Avery, who truly developed Daffy’s madcap character. Clampett’s Daffy was a bit taller and leaner than the original squat and pudgy design used by Avery. Clampett’s Daffy was a gleefully wild screwball, who was content to "Woo-hoo" his way throughout life, an almost ever-present thorn in the side of Porky Pig. In fact, Daffy’s popularity began to eclipse Porky’s. Based on 1940’s "You Ought To Be in Pictures" by director Friz Freleng, one might imagine this is exactly what the crafty duck had in mind from the start. Here, Daffy tries to trick Porky into leaving cartoons for live-action features so that he can become the new star of Looney Tunes. While Daffy’s efforts on-screen are not so successful — Porky returns and soundly thrashes the duck — in real life audiences could not get enough of Daffy, and he soon became Warner’s new king of the cartoon hill.

Clampett and the other animators would continue to develop Daffy’s personality and visual design throughout the 1940s. Most notably was the work of Robert McKimson. McKimson made Daffy a little bit leaner, a little less crazy, and a bit wittier. The once great Porky Pig now found himself reduced to being the straight man for Daffy’s wacky antics. Daffy also found himself involved in World War II, much to his chagrin, as evidenced in the 1945 short "Draftee Daffy," where he is constantly evading the "little man from the draft board."

The Daffy of the 1940s was a good-natured goofball who was zany but a little more in control. And just as "You Ought To Be in Pictures" foreshadowed the duck’s rise to stardom, so did "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery" give a glimpse of the next stage in the duck’s evolution. This 1946 gem by Bob Clampett features Daffy as gumshoe Duck Twacy, hot on the trail of a piggy bank thief. This parody of comic strip detective Dick Tracy is complete with a ludicrous rogues gallery featuring such oddballs as Rubber Head and Neon Noodle. Daffy was still a crazy darn fool duck but showed that he could do more than just comedy.

The next director to leave his mark on Daffy was the great Chuck Jones. Jones, I feel, contributed the most to Daffy’s evolution. While he still displayed occasional fits of lunacy, Jones’ Daffy was much more defined by his large ego, his lust for fame & fortune, his greediness, and his uninhibited jealousy of Bugs Bunny. Jones also altered the duck’s design yet again, and it is his taller, lankier and scruffier Daffy that is most recognized today.

The first contribution that Jones made to Daffy’s character was a continuation of what Clampett began in "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery." This is what I like to refer to as Daffy as the hapless adventurer. The 1950 film "The Scarlet Pumpernickel" was the first of many Jones cartoons placing Daffy in the role of an adventure hero parodying popular movies and literature. Harkening back to "You Ought To Be in Pictures," this cartoon features Daffy pitching his masterpiece script to the head of Warner Brothers and proclaiming that he is tired of being typecast in comedy and wants to try his hand as a dramatic leading man. What follows is an all-star Looney Tunes extravaganza that sets up the formula for following cartoons: Daffy relentlessly tries to be a dramatic leading man & hero and proceeds to fail miserably at both. Try as he might, he can’t shake his comedy roots, and time and time again winds up with the short end of the stick.

Daffy’s wacky adventures continued in such classic Jones shorts as the western farce "Dripalong Daffy" in 1951, the sci-fi spoof "Duck Dodgers in the 24th and a ½ Century" in 1953, and "Robin Hood Daffy" in 1958. Not so surprisingly, and in a brilliant bit of revenge, Porky Pig is often featured in these stories as Daffy’s sidekick who ends up overshadowing his mentor and saving the day. While Daffy’s ego and bad luck get the best of him, it’s Porky who is competent and resourceful. Porky defeats the outlaw in "Dripalong Duffy," outwits Marvin the Martian in "Duck Dodgers," and subdues the Shropshire Slasher in the Sherlock Holmes parody "Deduce, You Say." An almost fitting turn of events given what Daffy had put him through over the years.

The final stage of Daffy’s development was as the spotlight craving, greedy, upstaging, egomaniacal foil to Bugs Bunny. Indeed, the pairing of Warner’s two biggest stars was a stroke of pure genius. For just as Daffy had eclipsed Porky in popularity, so had Bugs overtaken Daffy. Daffy was none too happy about it and was determined to get the spotlight back.

The Bugs-Daffy dynamic began with Chuck Jones’ 1951 masterpiece "Rabbit Fire," where the two toons square off against each other in a continued effort to convince Elmer Fudd that the other is the animal currently "in season." Daffy proves to be no match for the superior wit of Bugs and is perpetually on the receiving end of Elmer Fudd’s gun. The debate over whether it was Duck Season or Rabbit Season would continue in "Rabbit Seasoning" in 1952 and "Duck! Rabbit! Duck!" in 1953, the latter were it is ultimately revealed to be Baseball Season!

The Bugs and Daffy rivalry does not stop there, not by a long shot. The animators realized they had a successful formula on their hands and continued to pair the rabbit and the duck in many more films throughout the 1950s and early '60s. Two shorts in particular stand out. The first is the definitive Daffy Duck cartoon and one of the finest animated films ever made. The second is the best example of the Bugs-Daffy one-upping each other relationship, which was surprisingly directed not by Jones but by Friz Freleng.

The first cartoon is the 1953 classic "Duck Amuck" where Daffy is continually plagued by an unseen animator who rearranges the duck’s world and appearance and effortlessly torments our star into a frenetic rage. The animator is finally revealed to be none other than Bugs himself, showing that he has, and always will have, the upper hand. This cartoon exemplifies everything that Daffy is: a wild, loony character, an actor capable of playing any role, an egotist in constant need of attention, and a loveable rogue who is at his funniest when he is losing.

This point is further driven home in the second cartoon, Friz Freleng’s "Showbiz Bugs" in 1957. The rivalry between the stars to see who is funnier, more talented and more popular comes to a head on the Vaudeville stage. Daffy tries and tries to win the audience over and garner applause, but to no avail. He is constantly overshadowed by the effortless performance of Bugs, whose simple dance step gains more appreciation than any one of the duck’s acts, save perhaps for the last one, in which Daffy blows himself up. Unfortunately, as Daffy himself states, "he can only do it once." Daffy finally receives the admiration he seeks and winds up losing anyway. This film proves a simple truth of cartoons. Bugs Bunny is funniest when he wins; Daffy Duck is funniest when he loses.

By the 1960s, Daffy’s journey from unstoppable madman to greedy SOB was complete. While cartoons after this period were of significantly less quality and misused Daffy as the mean-spirited tormenter of Speedy Gonzales, they could not tarnish the memory and reputation of one of the world’s most beloved characters.

Daffy Duck continues to delight audiences to this day in movies and on television. Films like Space Jam and Looney Tunes: Back in Action, and cartoon series like Duck Dodgers continue to show Daffy as the multifaceted comedic genius that he is. He is and always will remain: the greatest foil of Bugs Bunny, the least successful adventure hero ever born, and a crazy, darn-fool duck. And I for one wouldn’t have him any other way.

Selected Filmography

"Porky’s Duck Hunt" (1937) – Tex Avery

"Daffy Duck and Egghead" (1938) – Tex Avery

"You Ought To Be in Pictures" (1940) – Friz Freleng

"Draftee Daffy" (1945) – Bob Clampett

"The Great Piggy Bank Robbery" (1946) – Bob Clampett

"The Scarlet Pumpernickel" (1950) – Chuck Jones

"Rabbit Fire" (1951) – Chuck Jones

"Drip-Along Daffy" (1951) – Chuck Jones

"Rabbit Seasoning" (1952) – Chuck Jones

"Duck Amuck" (1953) – Chuck Jones

"Duck Dodgers in the 24th and ½ Century" (1953) – Chuck Jones

"Duck! Rabbit, Duck!" (1953) – Chuck Jones

"Beanstalk Bunny" (1955) – Chuck Jones

"Deduce, You Say" (1956) – Chuck Jones

"Showbiz Bugs" (1957) – Friz Freleng

"Robin Hood Daffy" (1958) – Chuck Jones

This essay was written in 2005 for the History of Animation course at Columbia College Chicago. It has not been updated to include more recent film & television series featuring Daffy Duck.

#keira posts #essays #animation history #looney tunes #daffy duck #porky pig #bugs bunny #elmer fudd #tex avery #bob clampett #friz freleng #chuck jones

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