Daffy Duck: I want that Crazy Duck back!

[Waylaid]

It's been too long since Chuck Jones turn Daffy Duck into a greedy, jealous creature he is today. I just wish would turn back to his crazy, psycho mode that he was pre-Chuck Jones. Well not exactly turn back, more like make him more psychotic and mischievious....

[J. B. Warner]

Seems like "Space Jam" and "Looney Tunes: Back in Action" tried to bring back the old 1940s Daffy, though they didn't really pull it off too well. "Space Jam" suffered from all the characters being hollow caricatures of themselves with no personality, just running around pulling pranks on a basketball court. And "Back in Action" couldn't decide which Daffy it wanted - for most of the movie he's under the Clampett influence, but he's still got his underlying rivalry with Bugs, which is Jones-influenced, and whenever the Blue Monkey Diamond is mentioned, he suddenly goes into "Ali Baba Bunny" mode ("I'm rich! I'm affluent! My liquidity is assured!").

I dunno, this is why I like the Golden Collection DVDs so much - especially Volume 2 coming out in a few weeks, which contains some great Clampett Daffy cartoons ("Book Revue", "Baby Bottleneck", and "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery"). It's really hard for newer people to get a bead on the classic personalities of the old Looney Tunes; new recruits haven't done it right since Greg Ford and Terry Lennon back in the late 80s/early 90s. Maybe Warner should just stop trying to bring the characters back and instead just put the classic cartoons back into heavy rotation.

[Nick]

Maybe Warner should just stop trying to bring the characters back and instead just put the classic cartoons back into heavy rotation. What is the point of trying to get the characters back anyway when WB is too scared to advertise that they're doing it? :ack:

About Daffy, I don't really see why WB thinks that the 'later version' is so marketable anyway. The Daffy we see in "Boobs In The Woods", "Ain't That Ducky", the hunting trilogy, "Duck Amuck" and "The Great Piggy Bank Robbery" (to name but a few) can be crazy, arragant, selfish, mischeivious, kind, silly, lazy, greedy and annoying (to his antagonists) in the same picture. Why can't WB use that Daffy, instead of the simplified character we see now?

It's not just Daffy, it's also the same with Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig, Sylvester, Elmer Fudd, Tweety, Pepe le Pew, Yosemite Sam, Speedy Gonzales and the rest. WB has dumbed down the character's personalities so they become either more acceptiable to today's audiences (Tweety, Speedy Gonzales, Pepe le Pew) or easier for them to work with (Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvester, Elmer Fudd, Yosemite Sam).

[angelidollinda]

*Sighs* I kinda liked the older Daffy than the greedy one...

[Steve Carras]

Yeah, I feel TOTALLY the same that everybody here does.

My main theories as why the later version appeared.

1.Chuck Jones and the media/critic preference of his work.

2.The ownership Warner Bros.had always over the post-Sept.1,1947-copyrighted shorts (alluding here to the old "aap/Sunset" era, and
greeddy Daffy was in most of these, though the library starts in 1948,in the EARLIER Daffy era.

3.Technology by the 50s had become more sophiciated (akin to why among big banders 78 rpm got usupred by LPs and 45s then tapes and CDs).That's just a stab in the dark in a way.

4.With Warners's rebel James Dean gone in 1955,thanks to his joining the great car race in the sky, and with Buigs toned down, Warner Bros.NEEDED a new duck,to paraphrase AL Yankovick's paraphrase of Hewey Lewis (that first name and the whole "duck" parody reminding me of that Freberg-narrated DOWN AND OUT WITH DOANLD DUCK that DIsney did backn 1987).Daffy was his 1948 self in 1955,sao the newer duck appeared.

5.They could've used SYlvetser or Elmer but :daffy: was a bigger drawing card, the reason that he was the adversary of Speedy:eek: :ack:

Those may well be the reason that Daffy, who would have been a good CASABLANCA hero, became the viillian IIRC in the 1990s spoof. (I noted the children's flick NEVERENDING STORY that had the first "neo"-Bugs short, BOX OFFICE BUNNY, had a kingdom called FANTASIA..I can just imagine Di$ney suing over that name as they would over that AMERICAN IDOL diva of that name,never m,insd that it is probaly what she was BORN with).

In short, (and getting back on topic!) WB HIJACKED :evil: the Duck.:mad:

[J. B. Warner]

THose may well bethe reason that Daffy, who woul;d have been a good CASABLANCA hero, became the viillian IIRC in the 1990s spoof.
Daffy wasn't the villain in "Carrotblanca", Yosemite Sam was. Daffy was just the piano player at Cafe Au Lait American (and he did have a goodly portion of his 1940s personality in that cartoon, too).

[Johnny Cakes]

I could not agree more. I love the old cartoons where Daffy lived to make Porky Pig miserable and jumped around a lot shouting "woohoo". My favorite is the one where Porky is a cop (which is already funny) and Daffy is drawing mustaches on all the pictures in town.

[David64]

Well, I loved both Daffy's, so it doesn't matter which one they use... Ok, maybe I like the greedy Daffy more.

[Batman91]

About the Loony Tunes changing over the years, thats when Clampett stopped working and Chuck started directing more.Now thats when the Loony Tunes started to change and I think thats the best about the Looney Tunes is that theres varieties of personality.

[Classic Speedy]

About Daffy changing to his current state: I bet they gradually went the jerk route because Bugs was ALREADY the outfoil-the-baddies wacky character, and perhaps they felt the characters were too similar. Think about it: Daffy notices Bugs can do anything he can do, and starts to worry about losing his thunder. So then his TRUE, jealous colors come out.

I dunno, just theorizing. But yeah, I like the wacky daffy better. He's made me laugh more than the jealous Daffy (though he still gets laughs from his subtle expressions in the Jones cartoons), and Clampett's expressive animation for some of them certainly helped matters. Actually, my favorite wacky Daffy cartoon (aside from "Piggy Bank Robbery", of course) is "Daffy Duck Hunt". Great McKimison animation and it was the perfect blend of Daffy zaniness and Daffy cleverness, without just going "Woohoowoohoowoohoowoohoowoohoowoohoo!"

[Waylaid]

About Daffy changing to his current state: I bet they gradually went the jerk route because Bugs was ALREADY the outfoil-the-baddies wacky character, and perhaps they felt the characters were too similar. Think about it: Daffy notices Bugs can do anything he can do, and starts to worry about losing his thunder. So then his TRUE, jealous colors come out.
Thinking about it, there's a lot of potential of having smartass characters going against each other. Bugs being that subtle, suave kind of smartass against Daffy's psycho Joker-level of smartass. It's been done quite well with Brian & Stewie of Family Guy or Sam & Max: Freelance Police. But this is of different era, and perhaps, and I'm theorising here, that the creators don't know how to write that so they have to "dumb" down (any better word?) Daffy for him to go against Bugs Bunny.

The only reason I want Daffy Duck to become his old crazy is to see how Daffy's crazy personality would fare against Bugs. No two smartasses are always alike....