Happy Birthday, Daffy!

Daffy_duckDaffy Duck made his first appearance April 17, 1937 in the short "Porky’s Duck Hunt" and was an instant success.

Audiences couldn’t stop talking about the screwball duck and he quickly supplanted Porky Pig in popularity.

Porky gracefully recovered, eventually accepting the role of straightman for the daffy duck.

As a prima donna, though, Daffy never recovered when he himself was supplanted by Bugs Bunny and has become obsessed with reclaiming the spotlight he lost to Bugs.

That’s no reason not to pay tribute to a true comic genius, though.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, DAFFY!

Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

7 thoughts on “Happy Birthday, Daffy!”

  1. I love the old whacked-out Daffy. At some point he went from being manically insane to being a jerk. I guess the studio changed his meds or something.

  2. I prefer the newer, grumpier model. The Warner crew got the balance just right by pairing the vain, scheming and irritable duck with Porky (who could be pretty durned acerbic, for a sidekick) and doing send-ups like “Dripalong Daffy” or “The Scarlet Pumpernickel”. Daffy as Robin Hood is also a favorite.
    My favorite Disney character also happens to be an angry duck. What up wit dat?

  3. I am surprised Jimmy that you didn’t mention the Babylon 5 tie in to Daffy. Security Chief Michael Aifredo Garibaldi had a love of Daffy who he quoted at least once and had a poster of in his stateroom.

  4. Believe me, I *almost* titled this post “The Egyptian God Of Confusion” but decided that too few would get the reference.

  6. The early Daffy was such a good character. They ruined him when they changed the character to be unfavorably compared to Bugs.
    But for that matter, I don’t like Bugs Bunny anymore anyway. He changed from being a trickster who outwitted his foes to an insufferable know-it-all.
    Honestly, have ANY of the Warner characters changed for the better since, say, 1960? Perhaps even as far back as 1950? They went from being true characters with personalities to stock types whose stories were controlled by marketing.

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