Daffy Duck (1964-1968; 1980)

"Having Daffy try to chase Speedy, and him going from an screwball egoist to Yosemite Sam basically? That doesn't work."

- Media Mementos, when describing the atrocious flanderization of Daffy Duck during the DePatie-Freleng, Format Films and Seven-Arts eras

Daffy Duck is a fictional character from the popular Warner Brothers Cartoon Looney Tunes and is one of the series' major characters. He is voiced by Mel Blanc and was created by Tex Avery.

Before and after the 1964-1969 Looney Tunes shorts (Depatie-Freleng, Format Films, Seven-Arts), he was a mischievous screwball prankster. But sadly during "The Iceman Ducketh" and these eras, his character was badly butchered.

Why He Was Dethpicable
Note: This only applies to his character in the DePatie-Freleng (1965-1967), Format Films (1967) and Seven-Arts (1967-1969) eras, as well as "The Chocolate Chase" and "The Iceman Ducketh" (1964).
 * 1) He has been flanderized badly in this era, and as a result, he got a drastic change in personality as well. He became a grouchy, humorless sadist who tries to kill Speedy Gonzales for his own sake.
 * 2) *In this era, he was partnered with Speedy Gonzales. While this is not a bad thing, it is still an awkwardly mismatched character pairing due to very poor chemistry between the duo.
 * 3) **In addition, in the cartoon "Tease For Two", Daffy is also horribly mismatched as an antagonist to the Goofy Gophers, as there is very poor chemistry between the duo.
 * 4) ***In another addition, in the cartoons "The Iceman Ducketh", "Suppressed Duck" and "Quacker Tracker", Daffy is also mismatched as a hunter, a role which should've rightfully been taken by Elmer Fudd or Yosemite Sam instead of him, which also doesn't make any logical sense as well, even by Looney Tunes standards, since ducks are not predatory animals by nature nor do they prey on animals of the same size or larger than them.
 * 5) *To be fair, this awkward mismatching between Daffy and Speedy is because of both DePatie-Freleng, Format and Seven-Arts studios only allowing a very limited number of classic Looney Tunes characters to be used (most notably Daffy Duck, Speedy Gonzales, Wile E. Coyote and Road Runner), but still it doesn't excuse why Daffy should be paired with Speedy during these eras.
 * 6) *Despite his unlikable nature in this era, he in general is overused in these cartoons (specifically the Speedy Gonzales cartoons), regardless of how unneeded he actually is in each cartoons Speedy appears in such as "The Spy Swatter" for example, to the point where it gets old.
 * 7) * He may have originally been greedy, selfish and grouchy, but, never diabolical, making this out of character for him.
 * 8) Sometimes, his design would go off-model, mainly due to how low budget the cartoons became, with the later Seven-Arts era being the worst offender of this. This is especially apparent in "See Ya Later Gladiator".
 * 9) Due to his flanderization, he was also miscast as a greedy, selfish villain. This characterization would go on until the final short produced in this era.
 * 10) *Recasting an iconic cartoon character who was originally portrayed in protagonist and/or anti-heroic roles with sympathetic qualities like Daffy Duck as a flat-out evil villain with zero sympathetic and redeeming traits is an extremely abysmal idea that was bad from the start, which was why it upset and angered so many fans of Looney Tunes and the Daffy Duck character in general. Most importantly, the idea of Daffy being the villain of the Speedy Gonzales cartoons took a step way too far for Daffy in a more mean-spirited and violent direction.
 * 11) *He has a very foul temper and is always grouchy to the point of being unlikable. Overall, his flanderization made him come off more like literally a duck version of Yosemite Sam, except with none of Yosemite Sam's humor, likability and charm. At least the other major Looney Tunes villains/antagonists such as Yosemite Sam, Sylvester and Wile E. Coyote are hilarious and have some charm to their actions.
 * 12) **Even the most unlikable of minor antagonists throughout the Looney Tunes franchise such as Claude Cat and Henery Hawk at least got some minor charm to their actions and can provide a good laugh or two unlike Daffy during this era, and that is saying something.
 * 13) He is willing to go so far as to break the law in order to abuse Speedy Gonzales and his mice friends and/or even get what he wants. For example;
 * 14) *In "Go Go Amigo" he actually threatens the local radio station XYZ Radio at gunpoint to play "dumb music" just so that Speedy and his friends couldn't even listen to music at Daffy's electronics store.
 * 15) *In "Suppressed Duck", he heavily disregards the rule stated by the park ranger to stay out of the bear boundary line just so that he could shoot down one of the bears.
 * 16) *In "Corn on the Cop", he (along with police lackey Porky Pig) abuses his power as a policeman and goes after Granny, thinking that she is the bank robber in disguise, and still proceeds to persistently chase her down around the entire city, failing to realize the fact that Granny isn't the crook, which is considered police brutality.
 * 17) * In "Go Away Stowaway", when he finds out that Speedy stows away on the ship, he tries to kill him or get him locked away to the point of sinking an entire cruise ship.
 * 18) *In many cartoons such as "Well Worn Daffy", "Chili Con Corny" and "Snow Excuse" for example, he is often almost always inflicting gunfire violence on Speedy Gonzales and his mice friends by chasing them while shooting them with a hunting rifle to express his hatred on them.
 * 19) His maliciousness and jerkiness has been raised up to eleven. On top of that, all the abuse and antagonisms he inflicts on his victims are cruel and hurtful rather than lighthearted and funny.
 * 20) *Speaking of which, he is barely a funny cartoon character during this era, which is ironic, since "Daffy" in his name means "crazy". When he was first created in 1937, he was mainly responsible for putting the "Looney" in Looney Tunes, which means it's a shame that the zaniest and wackiest Looney Tunes character of the 1930s-1950 is heavily reduced into the exact opposite of what he was during these eras.
 * 21) *A good example of how hurtful his antagonisms are in this era is in "Assault and Peppered" where he whips these poor Mexican mice for starving on his property, especially considering the small size of the poor Mexican mice in comparison to Daffy himself, which can potentially be deadly to these mice, an act which goes into domestic abuse territory. This is clearly evident when he whips one of the poor Mexican mice for the second time, the impact of the whip was so strong that his sombrero disintegrates, leaving him with a bald head!
 * 22) *During this eras, he is extremely selfish, greedy and heartless as he only cares for himself and has absolutely zero empathy for anyone else. Some good examples of this is in both "Well Worn Daffy" and "Snow Excuse", he heavily disregards Speedy and his mouse friends and their risk of dying from being deprived of water (in the case of "Well Worn Daffy") or warmth (in the case of "Snow Excuse") to survive in favor of only getting what he wants, and doesn't care if they die while attempting to even murder them with gun violence in the slightest.
 * 23) * His sadism has reached to extremely cruel and beyond-sickening levels in "Well Worn Daffy", as in that cartoon after depriving water from Speedy and his mouse friends whom are dying of thirst, he even taunts the mice by taking a shower with the water in front of them, chases them away with a shotgun for coming near the well, and later attempts to blow up his own well just so that Speedy and his friends won't even achieve any despite them dying of thirst.
 * 24) His gags had gone from funny, wildly hilarious and entertaining in the classic era to mostly flat, stale, unfunny, and for the most part, extremely cruel, mean-spirited, offensive and tasteless during these eras.
 * 25) He is also very insensitive and racist, evidenced in how he always abuses Speedy Gonzales and his fellow Mexican mice in almost every episode he appears in, once making fun of their accents and saying they should learn to speak English properly in one cartoon.
 * 26) *In "Tease For Two" he even made fun of the Goofy Gophers' British accents by cruelly mocking their lines "So nice seeing you guys. Drop along again sometime" before violently kicking the gophers away while they're stuffed in an empty can.
 * 27) *He is also a classist who hates poor people for no reason, as one of the poor mice said in "Assault and Peppered". On that topic, in the same cartoon, despite that the poor Mexican mice apologize to him for offending him and "starving" on his property, he refuses to forgive them and instead proceeds to whip them and shuts them up twice, and declare war on them without any further second thoughts.
 * 28) *In "See Ya Later Gladiator", he seems to have such a huge hatred over Mexican music that he even throws his broom outside to express his hatred.
 * 29) Before his official flanderization kicked in in the DePatie-Freleng era, he already had a more villainous role towards Bugs Bunny in his final pairing with Bugs in the classic era "The Iceman Ducketh", where he attempts to kill Bugs for his fur just for the money.
 * 30) *His villainous characterization got even worse during his final pairings with Speedy in the Seven-Arts era beginning with "Speedy Ghost To Town" (with the notable exceptions of "Fiesta Fiasco" and "Skyscraper Caper") as in these later cartoons Daffy is completely aware of Speedy's presence and only commits evil and selfish acts towards Speedy and his mouse friends out of pure malice.
 * 31) *It hit rock bottom in his last pairing with Speedy in "The Chocolate Chase" as he goes way too far to steal all the pesos from the city mayor who wants to feed the poor village mice chocolate bunnies for Easter!
 * 32) Mel Blanc's voice as Daffy can get annoying and obnoxious at times due to yelling the majority of his lines, not helping is the fact that Daffy, being a character whom is always grouchy, often yells angrily at almost every single character he appears with, especially towards Speedy Gonzales and his friends.

Redeeming Qualities

 * 1) He was a much better character before 1964 and has massively redeemed himself once after "See Ya Later Gladiator". (though he got flanderized again only once in "The Chocolate Chase").
 * 2) At least he got his comeuppances for his actions at the end of almost every single episode of this era.
 * 3) There are some rare instances during this era where Daffy is likable and not mean-spirited, such as "Corn on the Cop", "A Taste of Catnip", "Fiesta Fiasco" and "Skyscraper Caper".
 * 4) *He knew why he was chasing Speedy Gonzales, so he went into therapy as shown in "A Taste of Catnip". On a belated note, that episode pokes fun at how his pairings with Speedy Gonzales are a horrible mismatch by depicting his obsessions to chase Speedy as abnormal.
 * 5) The idea of Speedy Gonzales having a more threatening and evil foe instead of always facing the incompetent and sympathetic Sylvester is an interesting idea, even if Daffy is an odd choice.
 * 6) *Although Daffy is miscast as a loathsome villain, he's actually surprisingly an effective and threatening villain.
 * 7) Mel Blanc still did a good job voicing him, as always, at least whenever there is no angry yelling from him.
 * 8) His design is still nice to look at, but only when it’s not looking off-model.

Reception
While the Daffy Duck character as a whole is a huge fan favorite among critics, audiences, and Looney Tunes fans alike and is also one of the best and most iconic Looney Tunes characters just next to Bugs Bunny and Porky Pig, regardless whether he is the crazy, hyperactive mischievous screwball prankster of the 1930s-1940s cartoons or the greedy, self-preserving, spotlight-hungry, egoistic anti-hero of the 1950s and early-1960s cartoons, or both all at the same time, the same can't be said for his later incarnation during the Looney Tunes series' dark age from 1964-1969, which received intense negative reception from both critics, audiences, and Looney Tunes fans alike, with many criticisms being targeted at his more villainous roles he often took during these eras. Many critics and fans agreed that this more villainous incarnation of Daffy Duck is one of the many factors that is responsible for the Looney Tunes ' downfall during the 1964-1969 eras.

Warner Bros. themselves are even aware of the negative reception the Daffy Duck character had during the DePatie-Freleng, Format Films, and Seven-Arts eras in the mid-to-late-1960s, and therefore following negative reception of that more villainous incarnation of Daffy Duck in that era from both fans and critics alike, the 1964-1969 cartoons starring Daffy Duck have since become rare and fairly hard to find (especially on home media releases), and Daffy is no longer cast into such extremely villainous roles since the end of the Seven-Arts era, with "The Chocolate Chase" being the only exception since then, and therefore had reverted Daffy back to his old likable self in future Looney Tunes revivals since the 1980s.

Since then, Daffy rarely, if ever, paired with Speedy Gonzales, with the only times being the aforementioned cartoon "The Chocolate Chase" from the TV special Daffy Duck's Easter Egg-citement, the movie Daffy Duck's Fantastic Island (1983), the direct-to-video film ''Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas (2006) and the TV series The Looney Tunes Show (2011)'', though by then his relationship with Speedy became far less hostile compared to that of the 1964-1969 era.

But however, after the cartoon "Suppressed Duck" was released, Daffy Duck wouldn't make anymore solo appearances on a regular basis until the Looney Tunes Cartoons episode "Bubble Dum", with "Daffy Flies North" (1980) and "Duck Dodgers in Attack of the Drones" (2004) being the only Daffy Duck solo shorts produced in the revived Looney Tunes series since then.