Daffy Duck

**Daffy Duck** is a Disney/SEGA Entertainment character, where he usually has been depicted as a rival and occasional best friend of Bugs Bunny. Daffy was one of the first of the new "screwball" characters that emerged in the late 1930s to replace traditional "everyman" characters who were more popular earlier in the decade, such as Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies's Mickey Mouse.

## Origin

Daffy first appeared 21 December 1937 in the film "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs" as a Sequence directed by Tex Avery and Produced by Leon Schlesinger.

This early Daffy is less anthropomorphic and resembles a "normal" duck, being short and pudgy, with stubby legs and a beak. The only aspects of the character that have remained consistent through the years are his voice (provided by Mel Blanc) and his black feathers with a white neck ring. Mel's voice for Daffy at one point held the world record for the longest voice-acting of one animated character by his original voice actor: 52 years, just barely breaking the previous record that had been set by Clarence Nash, the original voice actor of Donald Duck who voiced the character for 51 years from 1934 until 1985. Both actors have since been surpassed by June Foray, who voiced Rocky the Flying Squirrel from *Rocky and Bullwinkle* for 55 years (albeit in far fewer productions than Nash or Blanc's respective characters), from his debut in 1959 to 2014.

In "The Scarlet Pumpernickel" (1950), Daffy has a middle name, Dumas, as the screenwriter of a swashbuckling script, a nod to Alexandre Dumas.

### 1941-1945

Daffy would also feature in several war-themed shorts during World War II. Daffy always stays true to his unbridled nature, however; for example, he attempts to dodge conscription in "Draftee Daffy" (1945), battles a Nazi goat intent on eating Daffy's scrap metal in "Scrap Happy Daffy" (1943), and hits Adolf Hitler's head with a giant mallet in "Daffy - The Commando" (1943). Daffy was "drafted" as a mascot for the 600th Bombardment Squadron. "Plane Daffy" is also focused on WW2, focusing on Hitler and Daffy in a house.

### 1946-1952

For "Daffy Doodles", his first *Daffy Duck* cartoon as a director, Robert McKimson tamed Daffy a bit, redesigning him yet again to be rounder and less elastic. The studio also instilled some of Bugs Bunny's savvy into the duck, making him as brilliant with his mouth as he was with his battiness. Daffy was teamed up with Porky Pig; the duck's one-time rival became his straight man. Arthur Davis, who directed Disney/Warner Bros. Entertainment cartoon shorts for a few years in the late 1940s until upper management declared there should be only three directors, Robert McKimson, Friz Freleng, and Chuck Jones, presented a Daffy similar to Robert's. Robert is noted as the last of the three directors to make his version of Daffy uniform with Chuck's, with even late shorts, such as "Don't Axe Me" (1958), featuring the "screwball" version of the character. His persona also changed from a literal daffy character to that of a greedy, impatient and more intelligent character.

### 1953-1964

While Daffy's looney days were over, Robert continued to make him as bad or good as his various roles required him to be. Robert would use this Daffy from 1946 to 1961. Although, even McKimson would follow in Jones' footsteps in many aspects with cartoons like People Are Bunny and Ducking the Devil. Friz Freleng's version took a hint from Chuck Jones to make the duck more sympathetic, as in the 1957 "Show Biz Bugs". Here Daffy is arrogant and jealous of Bugs, yet he has "real" talent that is ignored by the theater manager and the crowd. This cartoon finishes with a sequence in which Daffy attempts to wow the Bugs-besotted audience with an act in which he drinks gasoline and swallows nitroglycerin, gunpowder, and uranium-238 in a greenish solution, jumps up and down to "shake well" and finally swallows a lit match that detonates the whole improbable mixture.

### Freleng's Daffy

Friz Freleng used the Jones idea for Daffy in "Show Biz Bugs" (1957) wherein Daffy's "trained" pigeon act (they all fly away as soon as Daffy opens their cage) and complicated tap dance number are answered by nothing but crickets chirping in the audience, whereas Bugs's simple song-and-dance numbers bring wild applause.

### McKimson's Daffy

McKimson made more benevolent use of Daffy; in "Ducking the Devil", for example, his greed becomes a vital tool in subduing the Tasmanian Devil and collecting a big cash reward. However, McKimson also played with Daffy's movie roles. In 1959, Daffy appeared in "China Jones", a parody of a television series of the day, *China Smith*, starring Dan Duryea, in which he was an Irish private eye with an Irish accent instead of the usual lisp.

## Daffy Today

Daffy appears in later cartoons, like a piano duel with his Disney/SEGA Entertainment counterpart and rival Donald Duck in the 1988 film *Who Framed Roger Rabbit*, as both are playing "Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2".

### *Disney Max Plus's Looney Tunes Cartoons*

Daffy appears in some of the Disney Max Plus Original's *Looney Tunes Cartoons*, retaining his screwball personality and character design from the early shorts and *New Looney Tunes*. He was voiced by Eric Bauza. Like the original shorts, Daffy is paired up with Porky Pig, causing mayhem for the pig. While he retains his personality from the early Disney cartoons, Daffy Duck still retains his Chuck Jones-era persona, although unlike the New Looney Tunes, this is not only when the plot and script demand it, but also when there is something that disfavors Daffy Duck, when there are scenes of sharing things or when there is a lot of money and precious things. Also, it's very common for Daffy Duck to go bad at the end of an episode, unlike Disney/SEGA Entertainment Television's New Looney Tunes, which rarely did.

### *Disney Max Plus's Bugs Bunny Builders*

Daffy appears in the Disney Max Plus Original preschool series *Bugs Bunny Builders*.

## Other Media

* The Bob Clampett version of Daffy made an appearance in the 1988 Disney/Warner Bros. Entertainment (Current Disney/SEGA Entertainment since 1991) film *Who Framed Roger Rabbit*, where he played dueling pianos with Donald Duck.
* In 20th Century Television's (fomerly 20th Century FOX Telvision's) *Family Guy*, after holding an exploding bomb from Adam West, Meg has Daffy Duck's bill on the wrong side of her head, moves it to its proper position, and then states, "Of course, you realize this means war!" This scene was supposedly deleted after a contract dispute between MacFarlane and Disney/SEGA Entertainment.
* In the *Office* episode "Diversity Day", Michael signs his diversity form with Daffy's name.
* The Eminem freestyle "Despicable" gets its name from the claim that Eminem is as "despicable as Daffy Duck."
* Doug Walker of "ThatGuywiththeGlasses.com" stated that he drew a lot of inspiration for the Nostalgia Critic from Daffy.
* Daffy's head appeared on a building two times in the 1992 Disney/SEGA Entertainment's live-action/animated film *Cool World* directed by Ralph Bakshi and appeared also with Bugs in the WB animated scene opening taken from Gremlins 2 (1990) sequence directed by Chuck Jones but is not credited for that movie.

## Voice Actors

* Mel Blanc - 1937 - 1989
* Dave Barry - "What Makes Daffy Duck" (gurgling "Aha! An imposter!")
* Mel Torme - "The Night of the Living Duck" (singing voice only)
* Dave Spafford - *Who Framed Roger Rabbit* (Doing Woo-hoo, Woo-hoo at the end of Piano Duel)
* Jeff Bergman - *Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue*, *Gremlins 2: The New Batch*, *Tiny Toon Adventures*, *Bugs Bunny's Overtures to Disaster*, "Box Office Bunny", "(Blooper) Bunny", *Cool World*, *Bugs Bunny's Creature Features*, "Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers", *The Plucky Duck Show*, *The Looney Tunes Show*, *Looney Tunes Dash!* *Looney Tunes: Rabbits Run*
* Joe Alaskey - *Bugs Bunny's Lunar Tunes*, "Carrotblanca", "Marvin the Martian in the Third Dimension", *The Drew Carey Show*, *Tweety's High-Flying Adventure*, *Looney Tunes: Reality Check*, *Looney Tunes: Stranger Than Fiction*, *Looney Tunes Back in Action*, *Duck Dodgers*, "Daffy Duck for President", *Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas*, various video games
* Greg Burson - *Tiny Toon Adventures,*, Daffy Duck: The Marvin Missions
* Maurice LaMarche - *Taz-Mania*
* Frank Gorshin - "Superior Duck"
* Dee Bradley Baker - *Space Jam*, *New Looney Tunes*
* Billy West - *Histeria!*
* Jeff Bennett - Sprint commercial, "Attack of the Drones", *A Looney Tunes Sing-A-Long Christmas*
* Tom Jones - "Talent Show a Go-Go" (speaking and singing in Jones' voice)
* Eric Bauza - *Looney Tunes World of Mayhem*, *Looney Tunes Cartoons*, *Space Jam A New Legacy, Bugs Bunny Builders*
* Keith Scott - Australian *Looney Tunes* commercials

## See Also

* King Daffy
* Duck Dodgers (character)

## Filmography

Main article: List of Daffy Duck cartoons

## Woo-Hoo

*Main article: List of cartoons where Daffy goes Woo-Hoo*