Editing Daffy Duck (section)

===Golden Age Years===
[[Image:Porkysduckhunt.jpg|thumb|right|Daffy as he first appeared in ''[[Porky's Duck Hunt]]'' (1937)]]

====Daffy's early years, 1937–1940====
Tex Avery and Bob Clampett created the original version of Daffy in 1937. Daffy established his status by jumping into the water, hopping around, and yelling, "Woo-hoo!" Animator Bob Clampett immediately seized upon the Daffy Duck character and cast him in a series of cartoons in the 1930s and 1940s. The early Daffy is a wild and zany screwball, perpetually bouncing around the screen with cries of "Hoo-hoo! Hoo-hoo!" (In his autobiography, Mel Blanc stated that the zany demeanor was inspired by [[Hugh Herbert]]'s catchphrase, which was taken to a wild extreme for Daffy.)

====World War II Daffy, 1941–1945====
[[File:600th Bombardment Squadron - Emblem.png|right|thumb|600 Bomb Squadron emblem Daffy Duck]]
Daffy would also feature in several war-themed shorts during [[World War II]], remaining true to his unbridled nature. He battles a [[Nazism|Nazi]] goat intent on eating Daffy's scrap metal in ''[[Scrap Happy Daffy]]'' (1943), hits [[Adolf Hitler]]'s head with a giant mallet in ''[[Daffy – The Commando|Daffy the Commando]]'' (1943) and outwits Hitler, Goebbels and Goering in ''[[Plane Daffy]]'' (1944). Oddly enough, it was only after these wartime escapades that Daffy is actually subject to [[conscription]] into military service, in the form of "the little man from the draft board", whom he tries to dodge in ''[[Draftee Daffy]]'' (1945).

====Evolving "Earlier" Daffy 1946–1950====
For ''[[Daffy Doodles]]'' (his first ''Looney Tunes'' cartoon as a director), [[Robert McKimson]] tamed Daffy a bit, redesigning him yet again to be rounder and less elastic.<ref>[https://cartoonresearch.com/index.php/robert-mckimsons-daffy-doodles-1946/ Robert McKimson’s “Daffy Doodles” (1946)]</ref> The studio also instilled some of [[Bugs Bunny]]'s savvy into the duck, making him as brilliant with his mouth as he was with his battiness. Daffy was teamed up with Porky Pig; the duck's one-time rival became his [[double act|straight man]]. [[Arthur Davis (animator)|Arthur Davis]], who directed Warner Bros. cartoon shorts for a few years in the late 1940s until upper management decreed there should be only three units (McKimson, [[Friz Freleng]], and Jones), presented a Daffy similar to McKimson's. McKimson is noted as the last of the three units to make his Daffy uniform with Jones's, with even late shorts, such as ''[[Don't Axe Me]]'' (1958), featuring traits of the "screwball" Daffy. Starting in ''[[You Were Never Duckier]]'', Daffy's personality evolved to be less loony and more greedy.

====Experimenting with Daffy 1951–1964====
While Daffy's looney days were over, McKimson continued to make him as bad or good as his various roles required him to be. Mckimson would often have Daffy play the role of a salesman who pushes a potential customer into buying something such as ''[[Fool Coverage]]'' (1952) where Daffy actually succeeds into selling Porky Pig a $1,000,000 accident policy which only works under impossible conditions which unfortunately for Daffy, all the conditions happen and ''[[The High and the Flighty]]'' (1956) where Daffy intervines with [[Foghorn Leghorn]] and the [[Barnyard Dawg]]'s usual antics by selling them novelty joke items to get back at each other, which the latter catch on and  team up against Daffy to trap him in one of the prank kits he sold to them. McKimson would use this version of Daffy from 1946 to 1961. Although, even McKimson would follow in Jones' footsteps in many aspects with cartoons like ''[[People Are Bunny]]'' (1959) and ''[[Ducking the Devil]]'' (1957). Friz Freleng's version took a hint from Chuck Jones to make the duck more sympathetic, as in ''[[Show Biz Bugs]]'' (1957). Here, Daffy is overemotional and jealous of Bugs, yet he has real talent that is ignored by the theater manager and the crowd. This cartoon finishes with a sequence in which Daffy attempts to wow the Bugs-besotted audience with an act in which he drinks gasoline and swallows [[nitroglycerine]], [[gunpowder]], and [[uranium]]-238 (in a greenish solution), jumps up and down to "shake well" and finally swallows a lit match that detonates the whole improbable mixture. When Bugs tells Daffy that the audience loves the act and wants more, Daffy, now a [[ghost]] floating upward (presumably to Heaven), says that he can only do the act once. Some TV stations, and in the 1990s the cable network [[Turner Network Television|TNT]], edited out the dangerous act, afraid of imitation by young children.

====Pairing of Daffy and Porky in parodies of popular movies, 1951–1965====
While [[Bugs Bunny]] became [[Warner Bros.]]' most popular character, the directors still found ample use for Daffy. Several cartoons place him in parodies of popular movies and radio serials; Porky Pig was usually a [[comic relief]] sidekick. For example, Daffy in ''[[The Great Piggy Bank Robbery]]'' (1946) as "Duck Twacy" ([[Dick Tracy]]) by Bob Clampett; in ''[[The Scarlet Pumpernickel]]'' (1950), Daffy was the hero and Porky Pig was the villain. In ''[[Drip-Along Daffy]]'' (1951), named after the [[Hopalong Cassidy]] character, throws Daffy into a [[Western film|Western]] with him labeled "Western-Type Hero" and Porky Pig labeled "Comedy Relief". In ''[[Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century]]'' (1953), a parody of ''[[Buck Rogers]]'', Daffy trades barbs (and bullets) with [[Marvin the Martian]], with Porky Pig retaining the role of Daffy's sidekick. In ''[[Rocket Squad]]'' (1956), a parody of ''[[Dragnet (franchise)|Dragnet]]'' and ''[[Racket Squad]]'', Daffy and Porky Pig pair up once again. Daffy also played ''[[Stupor Duck]]'', a parody of the ''[[Adventures of Superman (TV series)|Adventures of Superman]]'' television series. ''[[Robin Hood Daffy]]'' (1958) casts the duck in the role of the legendary outlaw [[Robin Hood]] with Porky Pig as [[Friar Tuck]]. [[China Jones]] (1959) named after [[China Smith]], has Daffy in [[Hong Kong]] playing the role of a private investigator. 

====Pairing of Bugs and Daffy, 1951–1964====
Bugs's ascension to stardom also prompted the Warner Bros. animators to recast Daffy as the rabbit's rival, intensely jealous, insecure and determined to steal back the spotlight, while Bugs either remained cool headed but mildly amused and/or indifferent to the duck's jealousy, sometimes using it to his advantage. Daffy's desire to achieve stardom at almost any cost was explored as early as 1940 in Freleng's ''[[You Ought to Be in Pictures]]'', but the idea was most successfully used by [[Chuck Jones]], who redesigned the duck once again, making him scrawnier and scruffier. In Jones' "Hunting Trilogy" (or "Duck Season/Rabbit Season Trilogy") of ''[[Rabbit Fire]]'', ''[[Rabbit Seasoning]]'' and ''[[Duck! Rabbit, Duck!]]'' (each respectively launched in 1951, 1952, and 1953), Daffy's attention-grabbing ways and excitability provide Bugs Bunny the perfect opportunity to fool the hapless [[Elmer Fudd]] into repeatedly shooting the duck's bill off. Also, these cartoons reveal Daffy's catchphrase, "Youuu're deththpicable!". Jones' Daffy sees himself as self-preservationist, not selfish. However, this Daffy can do nothing that does not backfire on him, more likely to singe his tail feathers as well as his ego and pride than anything.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Schneider|pages=159–60|title=That's All Folks!: The Art of Warner Bros. Animation}}</ref> It is thought that Chuck Jones based Daffy Duck's new personality on his fellow animator [[Bob Clampett]], who, like Daffy, was known as a loud self-promoter. In ''[[Beanstalk Bunny]]'' Daffy, Bugs and Elmer are once again teamed up in a parody of ''[[Jack and the Beanstalk]]'' (with Elmer as the giant); in ''[[A Star Is Bored]]'' Daffy tries to upstage Bugs Bunny. In the spoofs of the TV shows ''[[The Millionaire (TV series)|The Millionaire]]'' and ''[[This Is Your Life (American franchise)|This Is Your Life]]'', Daffy tries to defeat his arch-rival Bugs Bunny for a $1,000,000.00 prize given out by his favorite TV show in ''[[The Million Hare]]'' and in ''[[This Is a Life?]]'', Daffy tries to upstage Bugs Bunny in order to be the guest of honor on the show; in all four of these cartoons Daffy ends up a loser because of his own overemotional personality (which impairs Daffy's common sense and reasoning ability) and his craving for attention.

====Solo Daffy====
Film critic Steve Schneider calls Jones' version of Daffy "a kind of unleashed [[Id, ego, and super-ego|id]]."<ref name="Schneider161">{{Cite book|last=Schneider|page=161|title=That's All Folks!: The Art of Warner Bros. Animation}}</ref> Jones said that his version of the character "expresses all of the things we're afraid to express."<ref name="Schneider161"/> This is evident in Jones' ''[[Duck Amuck]]'' (1953), "one of the few unarguable masterpieces of American animation" according to Schneider.<ref name="Schneider 112">{{Cite book|last=Schneider|page=112|title=That's All Folks!: The Art of Warner Bros. Animation}}</ref> In the episode, Daffy is plagued by a godlike animator whose malicious paintbrush alters the setting, soundtrack, and even Daffy. When Daffy demands to know who is responsible for the changes, the camera pulls back to reveal none other than Bugs Bunny. ''Duck Amuck'' is widely heralded as a classic of filmmaking for its illustration that a character's personality can be recognized independently of appearance, setting, voice, and plot.<ref name="Schneider 112"/> In 1999, the short was selected for preservation in the United States [[National Film Registry]].

====Daffy's pairing with Speedy in 1965–1968====
When the Warner Bros. animation studio briefly outsourced cartoon production to [[DePatie-Freleng Enterprises]] (DFE) in the 1960s, Daffy Duck became an antagonist in several cartoons opposite [[Speedy Gonzales]], who refers to Daffy as "the loco duck." In ''[[Well Worn Daffy]]'' (1965), Daffy is determined to keep the mice away from a desperately needed well seemingly for no other motive than pure maliciousness. Furthermore, when he draws all the water he wants, Daffy then attempts to destroy the well in spite of the vicious pointlessness of the act, forcing Speedy to stop him. The Warner Bros. studio was entering its twilight years, and even Daffy had to stretch for humor in the period. In many of the later DFE cartoons, such as ''[[Feather Finger]]'' and ''[[Daffy's Diner]]'', Daffy is portrayed as a more sympathetic character (often forced to turn against Speedy at the behest of a common enemy) rather than the full-blown villain he is in cartoons like ''[[Assault and Peppered]]''. The last cartoon featuring Daffy and Speedy is ''[[See Ya Later Gladiator]]'', in what animation fans call the worst cartoon made by Warner Bros.<ref name="hreporter-29may2008">{{cite web | last = Hunter | first = Matthew | url = http://toolooney.goldenagecartoons.com/daffy.htm | title = A Complete History Of Daffy Duck | publisher = Matthew Hunter's Unofficial Looney Tunes Page | date = 2000-01-01 | access-date = 2010-04-08 | url-status = dead | archive-url = https://web.archive.org/web/20110608212719/http://toolooney.goldenagecartoons.com/daffy.htm | archive-date = 2011-06-08 }}</ref>