Daffy Duck - Daffy Today

Daffy Today

Daffy appears in later cartoons like a piano duel with fellow fowl Donald Duck (from the rival Walt Disney Company) in the 1988 Disney film Who Framed Roger Rabbit, as both are playing Hungarian Rhapsody No. 2. In 1987, to celebrate Daffy's 50th anniversary, Warner Bros. released "The Duxorcist" as its first theatrical Looney Tunes short in two decades. Daffy Duck also appeared in several feature-film compilations, including two films centering on Daffy. The first was released in 1983, Daffy Duck's Fantastic Island; the second came in 1988, Daffy Duck's Quackbusters, which is considered one of the Looney Tunes' best compilation films and featured another new theatrical short, "The Night of the Living Duck". Daffy has also had major roles in films such as Space Jam in 1996 and Looney Tunes: Back in Action in 2003. The latter film does much to flesh out his character, even going so far as to cast a sympathetic light on Daffy's glory-seeking ways in one scene, where he complains that he works tirelessly without achieving what Bugs does without even trying. That same year, Warner Bros. cast him in a brand-new Duck Dodgers series. (It should be stressed that in this show, Duck Dodgers actually is Daffy Duck due to him being frozen in suspended animation in some unknown incident.) He had a cameo appearance in the Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries episode "When Granny Ruled the Earth", first airing on March 27, 1999. Daffy has also been featured in several webtoons, which can be viewed online.

In the television series Tiny Toon Adventures, Daffy is a teacher at Acme Looniversity, where he is the hero and mentor of student Plucky Duck. Daffy is shown as a baby in the Baby Looney Tunes show, and makes occasional cameos on Animaniacs and Histeria! (TV series). In the show Loonatics Unleashed, his descendant is Danger Duck (voiced by Jason Marsden), who is also lame and unpopular to his teammates. In the majority of these appearances, the selfish, neurotic, and spotlight-hungry Daffy characterized by Chuck Jones is the common version.

More recently, Daffy has been given larger roles in more recent Looney Tunes films and series. Following Looney Tunes: Back in Action, Warner Bros. has slowly moved the spotlight away from Bugs and more towards Daffy, as shown in the 2006 video release Bah, Humduck! A Looney Tunes Christmas, where Daffy plays the lead, while Bugs Bunny appears in a supporting role.

However, more recent merchandise of the duck as well as that featured on the official website have been shown to incorporate elements of the zanier, more light-hearted Daffy of the 1940s. Producer Larry Doyle noted that recent theatrical cartoons were planned that would portray a more diverse Daffy closer to that of Robert McKimson's design; however, due to the box-office failure of Looney Tunes: Back in Action, these new films ceased production.

Daffy returned to Cartoon Network in The Looney Tunes Show, voiced by Jeff Bergman. His characterization here seems to incorporate some elements of Clampett's and Jones' designs while giving him an overall cheery if dimwitted personality. In the show, he has moved out of the forest and shares Bugs's house with him. Unlike Bugs and their neighbors, Daffy has no way of earning money and relies on Bugs for food and shelter. He has tried on numerous occasions to get rich quick, but ended up failing repeatedly. Daffy's one possession he is proud of is his paper-mache parade float, constructed on top of a minivan, which is his main means of transportation. It was destroyed by a car wash incident, and Daffy sought to replace it with a yacht by tricking Porky into giving him the expensive loan, but his less-than-stellar boating skills ended that ambition. His parade float is repaired shortly after. While Daffy's greed and jealousy of Bugs remains, it appears to be less antagonistic in this show.

Daffy starred in the 3-D short Daffy's Rhapsody with Elmer Fudd that was originally set to premiere before Happy Feet Two but instead it debuted prior to Journey 2: The Mysterious Island. The short features Daffy and Elmer in the first CG or 3-D depiction of these specific Looney Tunes characters. According to Matthew O’Callaghan who directed the short, the audio comes from a 1950s recording for a children's album.