Daffy Duck & Porky Pig: A Great Comedy Duo in 10 Cartoons
Daffy Duck & Porky Pig in The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie - in theaters 3/14!
The Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies series of short cartoons produced by Warner Bros. from 1930 through 1963 represent one of the most universally beloved collections of American pop culture that ever existed. Ever since they first began airing on television in the mid-to-late 50s, it seems every generation has grown up with the Looney Tunes characters in some form. But despite their timeless appeal, The Day The Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie (in theaters this Friday) is the first time any of these characters have had a entirely original feature-length animated film dedicated to their escapades.
When choosing to base The Day The Earth Blew Up entirely around Daffy Duck & Porky Pig, director Pete Browngardt determined they were the perfect duo because “they were the only two characters in the whole series that weren’t trying to kill each other.” While other characters showed some camaraderie over the years, nearly all Looney Tunes pair-ups are built around one character trying to kill and/or eat the other: Bugs vs. Elmer, Bugs vs. Yosemite Sam, Sylvester vs. Tweety, Wile E. Coyote vs. Road Runner. None of these characters would ever truly work as friends without abandoning what audiences loved about them, and expanding their simple chase stories to feature-length would be maddening for the audience.
But Porky and Daffy, starting from their second cartoon together, have always remained a perfect comedy duo, bouncing off each other with a yin-yang repertoire no matter how many changes in personality they underwent. They’ve been roommates, co-workers, and the blowhard superhero and his sidekick. No matter what, Daffy remains the agent of chaos and Porky the calmer straight man driven insane by Daffy’s antics. If The Day the Earth Blew Up got you reminiscing about this classic pairing, check out some of these great shorts from the golden age of Looney Tunes for more!
Porky’s Duck Hunt (1937)
Daffy Duck’s first appearance doesn’t give him a name, but the character is already fully formed from the go. Porky tries to have a normal hunting trip, and Daffy immediately comes in and causes such buffoonery that Porky pulls a paper out of his pocket and says, “That wasn’t in the script!” - an early breaking-the-fourth-wall gag from a studio that would soon become famous for them. Daffy’s just one of several ducks here, but when he bounces off in the water going, “Woohoo! Woohoo!” you already know he’s going to be a star.
Porky and Daffy (1938)
Director Bob Clampett realized the potential Daffy had after his first appearances with director Tex Avery and decided to use him in a number of B&W Porky Pig cartoons. He was contractually obligated to include Porky in these shorts, but he found the character too stifling and dull for his manic sensibilities. In this short, Porky is a boxing promoter with Daffy as his force-of-nature client/roommate. This would be the first short to showcase the two not as adversaries, but as pals, setting the course for The Day the Earth Blew Up 87 years later.
The Daffy Doc (1938)
In case it wasn’t already obvious in the previous short that Clampett was becoming bored with Porky Pig, he doesn’t show up until nearly 5 minutes into this 7-minute short. Instead, Clampett uses the time to focus on Daffy running amok through a hospital - throwing surgical instruments up in the air, punching an oxygen tank like it’s a speed bag, and getting stuck in an artificial lung. When Porky finally shows up, Daffy tries to perform unnecessary surgery on him (with the help of his concussion-induced hallucinations), before it ends with them BOTH getting stuck in the artificial lung. Possibly the looniest Daffy had ever been to this point, and one that paved the way for the next decade of the character.
You Ought To Be In Pictures (1940)
Chuck Jones received a lot of credit for turning Daffy into the egotistical, jealous blowhard he would become through the 1950s, but in 1940, Friz Freleng established the template with this groundbreaking cartoon combining live-action and animation. In the short, Daffy and Porky are mere drawings at the Looney Tunes studio, when one day, Daffy convinces Porky he can get a job in feature films “as Bette Davis’s leading man” if he just leaves the studio. While Porky tries in vain to get work elsewhere, Daffy sneaks in to Looney Tunes producer Leon Schlesinger’s office to try and convince him to get the lead roles Porky often did at the time. The technology is astounding for the time, and this cartoon showed that more could be done with this duck character beyond simply being “daffy”.
Yankee Doodle Daffy (1943)
But that doesn’t mean that Friz Freleng couldn’t also have fun with the manic Daffy that characterized him for much of his early career. In Yankee Doodle Daffy, Daffy plays a theatrical agent determined to get his client booked with talent scout Porky Pig. By this point, the formula between the two has solidified: Porky is the everyman who just wants to rest, while Daffy is a whirlwind of energy determined to bother him endlessly. This short in particular is an excellent “daffy” showcase as he constantly changes costumes and personas supposedly to show off what his client can do, and the lengths he’ll go to for Porky’s attention (even replacing his parachute after he jumps out of a plane) are riotous.
Porky Pig’s Feat (1943)
Future live-action filmmaker Frank Tashlin (Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?, The Girl Can’t Help It) only ever made one short featuring Porky & Daffy together, but it’s one of the greatest of them all. In one of the best displays of friendship between the two, Porky & Daffy spend the short trying to leave a hotel without paying their bill (since Daffy lost their money in a game of craps), while the hotel manager tries to keep them there until they pay. The animation in this one is particularly zany, filled with imaginative angles and characters contorting their bodies into all kinds of weird shapes. Also features the only B&W appearance of Bugs Bunny in Looney Tunes history!
Baby Bottleneck (1946)
After he upgraded to color filmmaking, Bob Clampett rarely ever made any cartoons teaming up Porky & Daffy, but he made one major exception in his last year at WB. This short is looney almost to the point of abstraction, with wildly expressionistic poses and drawings for each character (some of which barely last longer than a few frames) and the backgrounds at one point becoming solid colors. The jagged quality also comes through in the edit, with some rather dirty jokes for the time being clumsily edited out of all future release. Much like the bubble gum factory in The Day the Earth Blew Up, Daffy & Porky are co-workers at a baby factory here, leading to all kinds of chaos when the two come across an unhatched egg.
Drip-Along Daffy (1951)
Long after Porky had ceased to be a major star at the WB studio, the directors learned that he was great as a side character, and since Chuck Jones was already working on a new, more cocky version of Daffy Duck, he thought that Porky Pig would be an excellent sidekick to counteract the shenanigans of “hero” Daffy. This film, where the opening subtitles literally label Porky as the “comedy relief”, establishes their dynamic perfectly: Daffy spends the whole cartoon trying to intimidate wanted outlaw Nasty Canasta, only for Porky to actually defeat Canasta and save the town at the end of the day.
Fool Coverage (1952)
Around the time Jones was creating a number of masterpieces with Daffy Duck - Rabbit Fire, Duck Amuck, and the above cartoon to name a few - Robert McKimson was creating much more modest, gag-driven cartoons pairing Porky & Daffy up despite budgetary restrictions making them the lowest priority for the studio. There’s plenty of laughs to be had among them, though, especially in this one where Daffy plays a door-to-door insurance salesman determined to show Porky the type of accidents one can have around the home. Like the earliest shorts with the duo, Daffy is a harbinger of chaos brought down upon Porky, but this time, the universe seems to bend the laws of reality to punish Daffy with all the traps he sets for Porky.
Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century (1953)
Arguably the peak of Daffy and Porky in the hero/sidekick roles, Duck Dodgers takes the popular sci-fi serials of the era and imagines what it would be like to have the braggadocious goofball Daffy Duck in the Buck Rogers role. In the film, Porky occupies the role of Daffy’s “eager young space cadet,” and is there just as much to poke the wind out of Daffy’s sails than to provide any support, such as correcting him about how to find Planet X or the memorable final line. With a constant stream of genius gags, perfectly-timed animation, and gorgeous sci-fi backgrounds, this cartoon represents the pinnacle of what the original Looney Tunes creators were capable of, and why their cartoons have lasted in pop culture for nearly a full century.
10 Additional Cartoons for More Daffy & Porky Shenanigans:
Wise Quacks (1939, dir. Bob Clampett)
My Favorite Duck (1942, dir. Chuck Jones)
Duck Soup to Nuts (1944, dir. Friz Freleng)
Daffy Doodles (1946, dir. Robert McKimson)
Riff Raffy Daffy (1948, dir. Arthur Davis)
Daffy Duck Slept Here (1948, dir. Robert McKimson)
The Ducksters (1950, dir. Chuck Jones)
Boobs in the Woods (1950, dir. Robert McKimson)
Rocket Squad (1956, dir. Chuck Jones)
Robin Hood Daffy (1958, dir. Chuck Jones)