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Opinion about Daffy Duck

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Now it's pretty much universally accepted that the Looney tunes are nothing more than a form of art! An achievment & ...
Well let's keep this short , because we all know about their awesomeness by now.

Here I'm talking about My absolute favourite one: DAFFY DUMAS DUCK ! In many ways, he's my hero ! And if you think I'm gonna cry about how Jones ruined this duck by making him selfish ... Nope. Bacause I LOVE JERKASS DAFFY ! Yep You HEARD RIGHT! I like him ,Hell, I love him As a neurotic self-interested, selfish, bastard facing situations that are too big for him to handle while he'll never recognise it ! That , if you think about it , is a form of craziness even madder than being just a screwball.
But let's talk about the 2 different takes that seem to apparently separate people so much while for me : THIS IS THE SAME GUY! He just handles different situations.

Screwball take (Clampett/Avery)

The Good: What can we say other than pure fun. After all a toon is supposed to be cuckoo for cocoa puffs & bouncing around while actually running the show. This is just a riot to watch !But what people overlook, is that he already in mid_late 40's somewhat self-preserving selfish & had a method to his madness. Don't think for a second that he was innocent & kind...& God bless him for that

The Bad: Well here's the thing... with much thinking I can say that if he stayed ONLY that way, he would not be unique. He 'd be interchangeable with ANY screwball, just a screwy squirrel in feathered form, while not necessarily a bad thing, it would not be that memorable.

Greedy take (Jones / Freleng)

The Good Yes Folks ... I said it earlier, this version actually gave Daffy his own unique flavor. Some folks think that the Jones Daffy was too much of a digression from the character's earlier personality, but it was actually a quite logical progression. In fact , if you watched the excellent "Back In action" You 'll see that the advantage this version has is that it can do everything the earlier one does + its own schtick ! Besides Jones was right when he said that this is humanity. I tend to think people who don't like this take don't want to recagnise HE IS US !

The Bad Now I agree with whoever said that Mean Daffy can be truly unfunny. In fact it goes with the quality of the character & the cartoon. Freleng 's Daffy can be good ( stork naked f.e.) but here's my advice Jerkassery is like salt, if you put too much of it it ruins the plate. However none of the Jones shorts had much of that problem since he had a subtle touch that Freleng & DePatie didn't really have later...

So what 's my favourite Daffy ? The 5O/ 5O one! The one that was brought by Rob McKimson.(Used later by Joe Dante)
The beauty of his Daffy is that the writers could throw intellectual wisecracks left and right in stream-of-consciousness ramblings, and then go straight into slapstick gags without compromising himself. In some ways he gets the best of both worlds- the lunacy of the early Tex Avery and Bob Clampett Daffy as well as the sarcastic, bombastic, insecure wit of the Chuck Jones Daffy as seen in "Duck Dodgers," "Robin Hood Daffy" and of course the 'hunting trilogy.' The Avery/Clampett Daffy could never lament about "pronoun trouble," and Chuck Jones' Daffy wouldn't stop thinking about his craving for the spotlight but McKimson's Daffy could do both.

My favourite Daffy cartoons (can be updated)

Duck Amuck
Robin hood
Ali baba bunny
Show biz Bugs
Piggy bank robbery
Book Revue
Deduce you say
Duck Dodgers
Nasty Quacks
Draftee Daffy
Stork Naked
Boobs in the woods
Scarlet Pumpernickel
Stupor Duck


& Please remember , whatever Daffy you're talking about, selfishness is always somehow present !
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I think Mckimson did a great job balancing both Daffys. Dime to Reitre is a great example of Daffy being greedy ans a screwball.


I also loved Mckimson's Daffy the scheming salesman shorts like The High and the Flight.