BCDB's

Animated Word

No other cartoon star in history is as volatile as Daffy Duck. Is that a strange claim to make? You're probably already thinking of dozens of other cartoon characters with longer lists of property damage, anger management troubles, and general malevolence. You're probably also thinking of the many, many times that Daffy has come out on bottom, especially having been shot, exploded, crushed, or otherwise the victim of other people's volatility. But volatility is not the same as violence. It is the quality of discontent, of failing to be at rest. All of these other characters, as violent and wild as they are, know what their places are. Daffy, on the other hand, has made his career on defying his place. While one's first immediate thought may be to try and apply this to the image of Daffy as we best remember him - the avarice-ridden coward of the 50s - the real challenge is to see how this applies to Daffy's humble (or not) origins. Porky's Duck Hunt, Daffy's premiere to the world, established Daffy as a role-destroyer from the get-go. Animal cartoons had existed long before Daffy came, to the point where it was already old hat to anthropomorphize animals to the point where some animals were "human" as compared to others. There had even been cartoons in which the human and animal places had been juxtaposed. But before Daffy, no animal had ever fought for the status that the "human" character had held. The switching of the places of prey and predator was so significant after Daffy did it that the near-entirety of the most famous Looney Tunes use that exact conflict. Indeed, Daffy can be considered a trail-blazer; if not for Daffy, the greatest of greats (a certain wabbit) might never have come to pass. Even in his beginnings, Daffy was unsatisfied with merely being the target for a hunter. He had far bigger ambitions. And these ambitions are more and more visible the higher he rose. The Henpecked Duck shows Daffy as a family man whose attentions are not nearly so much on the family as on self-entertainment (and magic tricks). Yankee Doodle Daffy is a nobody talent agent whose attempts to sell Sleepy LaGoon are transparently based upon promoting himself. The arrival of the Little Man from the Draft Board makes Draftee Daffy desire to change his position from hunted to....well, ignored, really. From criminal to artist (Daffy Doodles). From comic book character to hero of all the novels (Book Revue). From Duck Twacy fan to actually being Duck Twacy (The Great Piggy Bank Robbery). He even tried to trick Porky out of his place as WB's top star in You Ought To Be In Pictures. It is true that cartoon characters' situations and positions change frequently; it's often the only way to keep them fresh. But the characters themselves do not change, their surroundings do. Daffy Duck is the only cartoon character who changes via his own self-motivation. He's currently in one place, and he's eyeing the other with great passion.