Daffy Duck, my favorite cartoon character, underwent quite an evolution through his career — from a small duck swimming on a pond in 1937 to the witty, wisecracker of my childhood, the Daffy we know today.
The earliest Daffy Duck was basically an out-of-control nitwit. During the 1940s, when he starred in more than 40 films, Daffy’s personality changed “from uncontrollable maniac to maniac with brains, who was insane but in control of the situations he found himself in,” according to Matthew Hunter’s “What Makes Daffy Duck?”
During the 1950s, developer Chuck Jones experimented with Daffy’s greed for money. Jones made him “skinnier, beakier and scruffier-lookier,” as Hunter described him.
Daffy was often paired up with Bugs Bunny through the 1950s and ‘60s, and he joined with Speedy Gonzalez in some adventures. The 1970s and ‘80s brought television specials featuring up-to-date animation and a host of Looney Tunes characters all featured in cartoons together.
