Daffy Duck (1964-1968; 1980)

PLEASE have massive respect for Friz Freleng, as he is one of the most beloved directors in the Golden Age of Animation and also created one of the most beloved cartoon characters (Porky and Yosemite Sam as examples)

Daffy Duck (1964-1980) "You're despicable!" -Daffy’s reaction to his flanderized self. Gender: Male Type: The Extremely Dark & Psychopathic Side Of Daffy Species: Duck Portrayed by: Mel Blanc Status: Alive Media of origin: Looney Tunes First appearance: Porky's Duck Hunt

"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 Bros. Looney Tunes franchise and is one of the franchises' major characters. He is voiced by Mel Blanc and was created by Tex Avery.

In general, he is one of the most beloved cartoon characters, But during "The Iceman Ducketh", "The Chocolate Chase", and these eras, his character was badly flanderized.

Why He Was Despicable

Note: This only applies to his character in the DePatie-Freleng (1965-1967), Format Films (1967) and Seven-Arts (1967 & 1968) eras, but "The Chocolate Chase" and "The Iceman Ducketh" (1964) as well.

1. He has been horribly flanderized beyond recognition, even worse than that of Claude Cat, the Road Runner or any other Looney Tunes character in general, as he has gone from a hilarious screwball to a grouchy, humorless sadist who tries to kill Speedy Gonzales for his own sake.
   • In this era, he is often paired up with Speedy Gonzales. While not necessarily a bad thing, it is still an awkwardly mismatched character pairing due to very poor chemistry between the duo.
     • In addition, in "Tease for Two", Daffy is also horribly miscast as an antagonist to the Goofy Gophers, as there is very poor chemistry between the duo.
       • In another addition, in "The Iceman Ducketh", "Suppressed Duck" and "Quacker Tracker", he is also miscast as a crazy, sneaky, duck-turned-wrathful hunter, which is a much better role for Elmer Fudd and/or Yosemite Sam instead of him. This 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.
   • To be fair, this awkward mismatching between Daffy and Speedy is due to the DePatie-Freleng, Format and Seven-Arts studios only being allowed to use a limited number of classic Looney Tunes characters due to how tight the budget was at the time (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.
   • 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 cartoon Speedy appears in, such as "The Spy Swatter" for example, to the point where it gets old.
   • Recasting an iconic cartoon character who was originally a wacky protagonist and/or anti-hero with sympathetic qualities like Daffy Duck, as a flat-out evil villain with zero empathy 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 the Looney Tunes franchise and Daffy Duck’s character in general. Most importantly, the idea of Daffy Duck being the antagonist took a step way too far for Daffy in a more mean-spirited and violent direction.
   • While he may have been greedy, selfish and grouchy in his earlier years, he was never diabolical, making this extremely out of character for him.
2. 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.
   • He is much angrier and short-tempered than before, to the point that it becomes exaggerated and unfunny. Overall, his flanderization made him come off more like literally a duck version knock-off 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 Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam, Sylvester and Wile E. Coyote are hilarious and have some charm to them.
     • Even the most unlikable of minor antagonists throughout the Looney Tunes franchise such as the 1952-1962 version of Claude Cat and Henery Hawk at least got some minor charm and can provide a good laugh or two unlike Daffy during this era, and that is saying something.
3. His maliciousness and jerkiness have been raised up to eleven. On top of that, all the abuse, antagonisms, villainous and underhanded actions he inflicts on his victims are cruel, hurtful and mean-spirited rather than lighthearted and funny, since he always just goes way too far with his ruthless actions, with "Well Worn Daffy", "Assault And Peppered", and "Snow Excuse" being the absolute worst offenders of such, where his treatment of Speedy and his friends were the most malicious and cruel than ever.
   • 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 from the 1930s-1950s is heavily reduced to the exact opposite of what he was before. And to add salt to the wound, all traces of his original screwball personality from the 1930s-1950s cartoons are completely nonexistent by that point.
   • 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!
   • During these eras, he is extremely selfish, greedy and heartless as he only cares about 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. He even outright denies Speedy and/or his friends just a measly little crumb of food to feed themselves despite them on the brink of starvation in both "Moby Duck" and "Chili Con Corny".
   • His sadism has reached 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 can’t get any of his water, despite them dying of thirst.
4. 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, so much to the point that within Speedy Gonzales' universe he can already be considered a wanted criminal. For example;
   • 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 can’t listen to music at Daffy's electronics store.
   • 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.
   • 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.
   • 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.
   • 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 for them.
5. His gags have gone from hilarious and entertaining to mostly flat, stale, unfunny, and for the most part, extremely cruel, mean-spirited, offensive and tasteless during these eras.
6. He is also very insensitive and intentionally 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 Mexican accents and saying they should learn to speak English properly in "Moby Duck" when he insulted Speedy with his line "Company? Hmph! You can't even speak good English!".
   • 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.
   • 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.
   • 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.
7. Sometimes, his design goes off-model, mainly due to the low budget of the cartoons at the time, with the later Seven-Arts era being the worst offender of this. This is especially apparent in "See Ya Later Gladiator".
8. His flanderization is one of the main reasons why the DePatie-Freleng, Format Films and Seven-Arts eras of Looney Tunes are hated by critics and fans.
9. Before his official flanderization started in the DePatie-Freleng era, he already had a more villainous role towards Bugs Bunny in his final pairing with him in the classic era in "The Iceman Ducketh", where he attempts to kill Bugs for his fur just for the money.
   • 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.
   • 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!
10. Like Claude Cat, his bumbling antics often cause him to destroy property like his own home or accidentally get himself end up into so many painful situations that are played for comedy even when it gets old, making him a predictable and destructive if well-deserved Butt-Monkey.
11. Mel Blanc's voice as Daffy can get annoying and obnoxious at times due to him yelling the majority of his lines, not helping is the fact that Daffy, being a character who is always grouchy, often yells angrily at almost every single character he’s with, especially Speedy Gonzales and his friends.

Redeeming Qualities

1. He was a much better character before 1964 and has massively redeemed himself 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, so he's not too much of a Karma Houdini.
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".
   • 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.
4. 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 not the best choice since Yosemite Sam would already better befit the role.
   • Although Daffy is miscast as a loathsome villain, he's actually surprisingly an effective and threatening villain.
5. Mel Blanc still did a legendary job voicing him, as always, at least whenever there is no angry yelling from him.
6. His design is still nice to look at, but only when it’s not looking off-model.
7. "Look we're you're going you fathead!"

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