Friends, in the early hours of the morning after my Father had left for work, while I was waiting for the school bus I was fortunate enough to be able to enjoy classic shorts from the likes of The Three Stooges, The Little Rascals, as well as a slew of Golden Age cartoons courtesy of WTBS. Since there was generally about three hours to kill before I had to make a dash for the bus stop – a whole lot of my appreciation for animation came from that block programming made up of Merrie Melodies and Looney Tunes theatrical shorts. Although to be fair, I was quite familiar with many of the iconic animated characters featured in those shorts – thanks to The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show on Saturday mornings. I’ve always enjoyed Bugs Bunny cartoons, but without a doubt, my favorite Looney Tunes character has to be Daffy Duck. Especially those cartoons that were directed by the legendary Chuck Jones – although one of my all time favorites featuring the deranged duck is 1945’s “Nasty Quacks”.
That particular theatrical short was originally released on December 1st of 1945 – written by Warren Foster (The Magilla Gorilla Show, The Porky Pig Show) and directed by Frank Tashlin (Snow White and the Three Stooges). Obviously Mel Blanc provided the voice of Daffy Duck and Agne’s Father in “Nasty Quacks”, but it was Sara Berner (Rear Window) who voiced Agnes, with Robert C. Bruce as narrator. Personally I prefer the more zany and madcap version of Daffy Duck to the more cranky and greedy version that seems to be the norm these days.
You may not know that Daffy made his first appearance in the 1937 short entitled “Porky’s Duck Hunt”, which was originally released in 1937. The popularity of the character might not have reached the heights of Bugs Bunny – but he was at least popular enough to warrant a song of his very own. “The Daffy Duck” song was released in 1955 as a Little Golden Record single, and from what I’ve read online, the character of Daffy Duck was voiced by Gilbert Mack (Astro Boy, Gigantor).
Not sure if Gilbert Mack did the voices here as Daffy sounds a lot like my late grandfather DAVE BARRY, who in 1955 voiced many of tge Mel Blanc voices on these Golden Records, He did all the voices for the “Bugs Bunny Easter Song and Mr Peter Rabbit” record and the “Sylvester The Cats Nine Lives” record among many more. At the time Mel Blanc’s Warner Bros contract would not allow him to do the voices on these. TO be clear, my family believes that Daffy Duck was in fact Dave Barry on this disc – not Gilbert Mack.