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Porky Pig And Daffy Duck’s Greatest Moments

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With the release of The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie — the very first original, fully-animated theatrical feature to star the Looney Tunes — we’re taking a look at the careers of the film’s two stars, Daffy Duck and Porky Pig, and their best appearances together.

Let’s begin with a prime Porky and Daffy moment from Robert McKimson’s Boobs in the Woods (1950).

Porky Pig made his debut as a supporting player in Friz Freleng’s I Haven’t Got a Hat (1935), and he stood out from the crowd due to his distinctive stutter, which was originally provided by WB bit player and makeup assistant Joe Dougherty (who actually stuttered in real life). The pivotal Tex Avery cartoon Porky’s Duck Hunt (1937) not only debuted Porky’s new and improved voice, provided by Mel Blanc, but introduced a brand new character who completely stole the show: Daffy Duck. Silly characters, like Disney’s Goofy, were nothing new, but a completely insane anarchist like Daffy hadn’t been seen in animation before, and this proudly ridiculous short firmly established the Looney Tunes as being the irreverent, fourth wall-breaking antithesis of Disney.

Porky was a hunter trying to shoot Daffy when they first met, but director Bob Clampett saw potential in the two as a comedy team and he paired them together as buddies/co-workers in the boxing cartoon Porky and Daffy (1938). These early black & white Clampett shorts are so charming in the way they burst at the seams with youthful energy.

Although Chuck Jones led the transformation of Daffy’s personality from out-of-control screwball to self-described “greedy little coward,” Freleng was the first to tap into Daffy’s jealous side in the classic You Ought to be in Pictures (1940). In the film, Daffy convinces Porky to quit cartoons to work in features, in the hopes of securing more starring roles for himself. Freleng made the cartoon to thank producer Leon Schlesinger for hiring him back after he left the studio for the greener pastures of MGM. The combination of live-action and animation here is still enchanting more than 80 years later.

Jones’ first cartoon to pair Porky and Daffy is My Favorite Duck (1942), a funny and beautifully-animated film in which Daffy wrecks Porky’s vacation. This was one of Jones’ first collaborations with writer Michael Maltese, and the film shows a hint of the witty interplay their films would become known for.

Frank Tashlin directed one of Porky and Daffy’s best pair-ups: Porky Pig’s Feat (1943), in which our two looney pals try to sneak out of the Broken Arms Hotel without paying their bill. Tashlin, who later became a live-action filmmaker, had a penchant for unusual camera angles, and there are some doozies in this short. Pay attention to how that pan down the stairway changes perspective along the way without cutting to a new shot, a tricky thing to pull off in a hand-drawn animated cartoon.

Porky and Daffy’s circumstances could vary a lot from cartoon to cartoon. For instance, Freleng casts Daffy as a talent agent who won’t stop pestering Porky in 1943’s Yankee Doodle Daffy, and then casts Porky as a hunter out to shoot Daffy in 1944’s Duck Soup to Nuts. What’s funny about this is that despite the shifting power dynamics here — with Porky as the hapless victim in one case and the aggressor in another — the characters’ rapport doesn’t change much. In both cartoons, Porky acts as a level-headed straight man trying to accomplish a task, while hyperactive attention-hog Daffy runs circles around him.

One of Porky and Daffy’s best cartoons is Baby Bottleneck (1946), a frenzied Clampett masterpiece in which our two incompetent heroes attempt to run a baby delivery service. The film shows the way Porky and Daffy’s kinship can flip on a dime; they start out working together, and wind up whacking each other with wooden planks. Bill Melendez’s handling of Daffy trying to run with a bizarrely elongated leg remains one of the greatest things ever animated.

In McKimson’s Porky and Daffy shorts, he tended to portray Daffy as an obnoxious pest that slowly drives Porky crazy. Maybe my favorite in this little series is the underrated Daffy Duck Slept Here (1948), which features a relatable sitcom-style premise — Porky and Daffy have to share a room for the night — and then keeps amping up the cartoony absurdity as Daffy gets more and more annoying. Izzy Ellis animates Daffy’s song about his friend “Hymie.”

In the 1950s, Jones refashioned Porky and Daffy’s dynamic into something more his speed. He began casting the two in genre parodies, with Daffy out of his depth as the supposed hero and Porky tagging along as his more competent sidekick. The first of these films — Drip-along Daffy (1951) — stars Daffy as a “Western-type hero” and Porky as the designated “comedy relief.” Writer Maltese was the king of getting a laugh out of stating the obvious; could there be a more perfect capper to this scene than Daffy’s straightforward delivery of the line, “I hate you?”

Arguably Porky and Daffy’s greatest appearance together is the classic Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century (1953), a cartoon space opera released at the height of the ’50s sci-fi craze. The character expressions and backgrounds in this short could not be better, and every gag in the film is a home run.

Jones later admitted that he didn’t really have a handle on Porky’s personality until he started directing these costume drama pair-ups with Porky and Daffy. Jones defined Porky as “the observer, stating what the audience is thinking and only incidentally playing an active part in the plot.” He continued, “Humor always involves our knowledge of the way things ought to be. In his observer role, Porky represents sanity, and that, I like to think, is the part of myself that I put in him. Even in me there is a small core of sanity.” One of the clearest examples of Porky as the dry observer is in Deduce, You Say! (1956), a Jonesian twist on the Sherlock Holmes stories.

Jones’ final pairing of Porky and Daffy is one of his best: Robin Hood Daffy (1958), in which Daffy tries in vain to prove to Friar Tuck (played by Porky) that he is the true Robin Hood. Everything about this clip is great, from Blanc’s impassioned voicework to Levitow’s animation of Porky laughing. Maurice Noble’s experimental layouts are especially noteworthy in this cartoon; I particularly enjoy the decision to use rubber stamps for the leaves.

Despite the many classic cartoons starring Porky and Daffy, their relationship isn’t one that most Looney Tunes revivals have focused on. Still, there are lots of fun interactions between the two in the Cartoon Network series Duck Dodgers.

More recently, the Looney Tunes Cartoons series on HBO Max has made great use of our favorite pig and duck team. The designs and personalities in the show echo Clampett’s interpretation of the characters from back in the 1930s, with the episode The Curse of the Monkey Bird (2020) being a prime example of the series’ penchant for Clampett-inspired screwiness. This short was directed by Pete Browngardt (director of The Day the Earth Blew Up, incidentally), with storyboards by Eddie Trigueros and killer character designs/layouts by Kali Fontecchio.

And for a very different look at the characters, there’s Crumb and Get It (2023). This Looney Tunes Cartoons episode was written and designed by Spongebob Squarepants veteran Aaron Springer, and we get to see Porky and Daffy as filtered through Springer’s wonderfully idiosyncratic drawing style. I wish more tv cartoons today were willing to let the personalities of the artists behind them shine through like this.

What are some of your favorite Porky and Daffy moments? Let us know in the comments below. We’ll finish things off with the gloriously weird ending to Art Davis’ Riff Raffy Daffy (1948).

Pictured at top: Crumb and Get It (2023).

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