Evolution of a Daffy Duck
Looney Tune's Daffy Was Certainly Daffy, But Also Amazingly Complex
It’s very rare that a cartoon character - no matter what the vintage – changes emotionally. During the golden age of animation, any deviations were for the purposes of softening a hard edge or cleaning up a questionable moral code. The classic case, of course, was the de-sexing of Betty Boop in the mid-thirties. Popeye, too, became somewhat of a milquetoast while the early raucousness of Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck was gradually toned down to a family friendly drone.
Certain members of the Warmer Brothers' Looney Tune stable were eventually muted as well, but for more creative reasons. After a few years of anarchic behavior, it was decided Bugs Bunny would be more effective as an innocent target of the militant likes of Elmer Fudd and Yosemite Sam. Around the same time, Porky Pig was quietly demoted from star to first-rate character actor and managed not to demonstrate event bit of ego. There was one character, however, whose psychological roller coaster was played out for all to see.
Bob Clampett and Isadore Freleng
Perhaps as an answer to Disney’s Donald, Daffy Duck was hatched in 1937’s Porky’s Duck Hunt. As directed by Tex Avery and animated by Bob Clampett, the duck was a particularly extreme creation. Warners specialized in brash humor, but it was clear that Daffy was coping (unsuccessfully) with a multitude of mental and societal issues that went beyond mere spunk. These major malfunctions were particularly apparent in the surreal The Daffy Doc (1938) where his spinning, hopping and woo-hooing reached a delirious zenith.
However, a scant five cartoons later, director Isadore Freleng (who used Daffy sparingly over the years) employed Daffy as sober and conniving in his You Ought To Be In Pictures (1940). This film set the tone for a later incarnation and also provided the beautiful evidence that Daffy was painfully aware that he was indeed a cartoon character and an indentured studio employee to boot.
Daffy spent the war years as an all-purpose toon with no really distinctive personality. He still managed to maintain some of his frenetic intensity in collaboration with the now directing Clampett who delighted in contorting his little black body like Silly Putty. Elsewhere he reverted to straight clowning, occasionally as a breezy go-getter, but more often as a loud mouth, destructive bore who invariably gets his comeuppance.
The Chuck Jones Era
In 1950, Daffy starred in Chuck Jones’ The Scarlet Pumpernickel in which he attempts to sell studio head Jack Warner on his increasingly ludicrous adaptation of the Orczy novel. Sporting a leaner, slightly frazzled look, he now came off as more wired than exuberantly energetic. Bitterness, egomania and paranoia were now among his good points. Bugs Bunny became the main target of his venom and in film after film, he attempts to rid himself of his perceived nemesis. In fact, the famed trilogy Rabbit Fire (1952), Rabbit Seasoning (1952) and Duck, Rabbit, Duck (1953) deals exclusively with that particular obsession. Naturally, it’s Daffy who receives the brunt of the bodily harm with a particular emphasis on beak damage.
Thus Daffy started life at a fever pitch, but like many of us, youthful gusto was eventually blunted by the grind of everyday survival. In his case, the grind included workplace politics, hunters and an all-too-clever rabbit. The reason Daffy evolved into one of the greatest of all cartoon characters – and indeed one of the great screen comedians - was that he reflected the true frustrations of the human experience as he traveled through his long – and very funny – evolution.
Daffy Duck
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