Name: Daffy Duck
Birth date: April,17; 1937
Birthplace: Warner studio's
History
Creator: Tex Avery
Voices: Mel Blanc
First Appearance: "Porky's Duck Hunt."
Interesting Info: Daffy seemed to be the agent through which the strongest of
the Warner cartoon directors most expressedtheir filmmaking personalities; each
director would find aspects of the duck that would articulate their own
individual temperament. In each of their hands Daffy would become a different
entity, and with each he would become more complex by the accretion of
influences from past performances, whitmanesque in his own way, Daffy contained
multitoons.
Daffy's first appearance was in Tex Avery's 1937 Porky's Duck Hunt which brings
Porky to a marshland with his loyal Hound hunting for ducks, but among the many
ducks one would refuse to play by the rules. Squat and rounded, Daffy quickly
lets himself be shot; but when Porky's dog brings the carcass back to his
master. Daffy turns the table by tossing the dogs exhausted corpus at Porky's
feet. Daffy then breaks into a giddy laugh, and goads Porky.
For being only a bit player Daffy would go on to steal the hearts of the
audience " At that time, audiences weren't accustomed to seeing a cartoon
character do these things " Clampett told Mike Barrier and so, after Porky's
Duck Hunt people left the theaters talking about Daffy Duck. Tex Avery would go
on to direct two more cartoons with the screw loose duck, 1938's Daffy Duck and
Egghead and 1938's Daffy Duck in Hollywood, both of which were in color.
Bob Clampett the WB Studio's most passionate advocate of unmotivated lunacy
started casting Daffy as an oddball goofball, always out of control. Clampett
would bring change to Daffy's appearance, making him taller, skinnier and more
thin limbed, crossing his eyes and his movements would become staccato and
erratic and his getaways were proceeded by little leg-swinging hops of no
apparent purpose and under these conditions Daffy would execute some of his most
outrageous gags.
By the early 1940's Robert McKimson would again change Daffy, he would become
more rounder, weightier, and more solid, drawn with tailored, graceful lines
that brightened his smile and made him handsome. Daffy would also grow more
intellectual, an example of this transmutation can be seen in Friz Freleng's
1944's Duck Soup to Nuts.
In the 1950's Daffy would again be transformed, his psychobiography was being
rewritten by Chuck Jones. Daffy would appear taller, beakier, scrawnier, and
more angular, and also more of a creature of the mind abandoning his penchant
for speedgags. Jones made Daffy what he described as a "self-preservationist,"
fighting furiously to preserve his skin or his dignity against a world that
would rob them from him. Yet in Jones' work it is usually Daffy himself who
triggers the processes that flay him. For Daffy's self-interest invariably
becomes self-destruction; still impulsive, Daffy acts before he thinks.
Chuck Jones once said "Daffy has courage that most of us just don't have, he
will continue to try and try again where we would have given up, because
failure is unknown to him. No matter how badly things have worked out, he's
always going to come back."
As the 1950's unrolled Daffy would play some of his most famous rolls, being
teamed with Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd in classics shorts such as 1951's Rabbit
Fire, 1952's Rabbit Seasoning and 1953's Duck! Rabbit, Duck! He would also star
with a little unknown Martian in 1953's Duck Dodgers and the 24 1/2 Century.
Daffy's career has spanned more than 60 years with some of the finest cartoons
to come out of Termite Terrace, Daffy embodied such qualities as malicious evil,
shameless self promotion, pure hate ("You're Dethpicable!") and , most of all,
insatiable greed.
Site: Daffy's Bio