The Daffy Doc (Crude Reproduction, Imperfect Frame/Signs of the Times)

 

Director(s): Bob Clampett (credited as “Robert Clampett”)

Summary: After causing chaos during an operation at the Stitch in Time Hospital (where their motto is, “As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Rip”), Daffy Duck decides he needs to prove himself a competent doctor…by knocking out, abducting, and performing unnecessary surgery on an unsuspecting Porky Pig.

Fun Facts:

- Going by the logline, this is one of Bob Clampett’s most twisted cartoons so far, but even he (and his colleague/frienemy Chuck Jones) thought the two inflation (nothing to do with skyrocketing prices and everything to do with an innocent animation gag becoming a sick fetish thanks to freaks and weirdos online airing out their dirty laundry…which they probably sniffed and shuddered orgasmically before they did it) scenes involving Porky and Daffy crashing into an iron lung was tasteless and shameful. Why? Because this was made when there was a polio epidemic and the vaccine wouldn’t be considered safe, potent, and for public use until 1955 (seventeen years after the cartoon was released in theaters) after being developed in 1952 (so…14 years later) by Jonas Salk at the University of Pittsburgh. It’d be like doing jokes about face masks, medical staff/facility shortages, and hospital respirators for COVID…or any AIDS/HIV joke involving gay men, heroin addicts, blood donors, or blood-donating gay male heroin addicts (which would have been a smash in the 1980s, but unbelievably offensive today).

- The lip sync for Daffy in this short is pretty much nonexistent (there are only two scenes where his mouth moves in sync with his lines), but I think that adds to the wacky and surreal humor.

- Daffy’s hopping walk as he’s following Porky is a reference to Dopey’s hopping walk during the “Heigh Ho” sequence on 1937’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarves from Disney. Don’t believe me:

Clampett vs. Disney -- Round One:

I guess Bob Clampett really did admire Walt Disney’s work, but also loved referencing/spoofing it, such as Mr. Meek blushing after Daffy kisses him (cf. Bashful doing the same when Snow White kisses him) on “The Wise Quacking Duck” (in fairness, that was probably a common trope back then, but the realization that the two scenes may be related due to Clampett’s love of spoofing Disney popped in my head when I wrote that and it’s easy to draw that conclusion, especially since I made a video comparison of it):

Other examples of Clampett spoofing/referencing Disney include: the scene of the flying elephant holding up a sign that reads, “I Am Not Dumbo” on “The Bashful Buzzard,” the fact that Clampett did an African-American jazz spoof of Snow White and the Seven Dwarves called “Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarves” (originally titled, “So White…” but was changed due to audiences potentially mistaking it for Disney’s first animated feature film and possible legal repercussions from Walt himself), and “A Corny Concerto” basically being Fantasia if Termite Terrace did it. There are more examples; those are just off the top of my head.

- You can tell that Clampett was focusing more on Daffy than Porky in this one. In fact, a lot of the shorts made after “Porky in Wackyland” seem to have Porky in a limited role, despite him being the star. In this one (which can, at least, be forgiven because the title is called “The Daffy Doc”), Porky doesn’t appear until the four minute and 50 second mark…in a cartoon that’s six minutes and 59 seconds long (when shown uncut. The redrawn edited version has Porky’s appearance clock in at four minutes and 47 seconds in a cartoon that lasts six minutes and 34 seconds).

-”Patient Porky” is considered a remake of this, so I will be covering that the same way I covered “Milk and Money” vs. “Porky’s Prize Pony,” because both of them have been edited for African-American stereotypes, though “The Daffy Doc”’s version is more subtle.

The Channel(s): Nickelodeon, unnamed syndication (for those channels besides Nickelodeon that aired the redrawn-colorized version), and MeTV.

Part(s) Edited: Okay, time to break this down again. There aren’t that many scenes that were cut (at least, upon first glance), but Nickelodeon aired two colorized versions of the same short. No points on which version is the more severely cut:

- Nickelodeon initially aired the infamous redrawn-colorized version from somewhere in the 1960s, which shortened the part where Daffy holds up signs telling people to be quiet to remove the “Hush Yo’ Mouf” sign (which one blog identified as African-American vernacular English [AAVE], which, in my day, was called “ebonics” and does refer to Daffy reading it off as, “regrettable,” though it sounded more like Daffy said, “Shut yo’ mouth,” not “Hush yo’ mouf.” Still, I get where this person is coming from, but ten bucks says that this is yet another white person flagellating themselves over sins of the past. I have seen worse African-American stereotypes on better animated shorts) and the sign with Hebrew writing (in one of the rare times Nickelodeon edited something for having outdated Jewish stereotypes. The only other time was the scene in “Bosko’s Picture Show” where Hitler chases after Jimmy Durante with an axe because, in his twisted, genocidal mind, “long nose” equals “being Jewish”) which translates to Bill Holman’s “Silence is Foo!” from the Smokey Stover comic strip when shaken (for the curious monolingual with dreams of being a ployglot, “Zol zein shah!” actually does mean “Shut up” or “Be quiet!”, but not in Hebrew. It’s Yiddish, which is medieval German mixed with Hebrew, Aramaic, Slavic and other Romance languages. It does use the Hebrew alphabet, but mostly, I’ve seen Yiddish words and phrases spelled out in English).

This is the only censorship-based edit made in the redrawn-colorized version, because the next two cuts are simply because of shoddy workmanship:

- The next cut in the redrawn version comes when, after Daffy takes Porky’s temperature with a lollipop, Daffy decides to call in a consultation by hitting himself with a mallet, summoning two ghostly versions of himself (done with double-exposure effects) who discuss with the corporeal Daffy what to do about Porky and his “condition.” That scene was cut because it was too difficult to replicate in redrawn-colorized version.

- The final cut comes during the infamous ending of Daffy chasing Porky with a saw and the two of them crashing into the iron lung, being spat out by the machine, and going through a comic body inflation cycle before the cartoon irises out. All that was cut on the redrawn-colorized version because (say it with me now): “It was too difficult to replicate.”

Fortunately, Nickelodeon aired a computer-colorized version in the 1990s where the only edit done was the “Hush Yo’ Mouf!”/Hebrew writing translating to “Silence is Foo!” scene to remove “Hush Yo’ Mouf!”

Decades later, when MeTV aired it the same way Cartoon Network aired some of its shorts: first uncut, then edited, then back to uncut again (surprisingly, “The Daffy Doc” was not on that list of Warner Bros cartoons that went through that ordeal. It should have been, but I guess Cartoon Network didn’t know that “Hush Yo’ Mouf!” can be construed as a stereotypical way African-Americans say, “Hush your mouth!” [sarcastically]: And they’re usually so good with identifying objectionable content in otherwise family-friendly viewing…). Initially, “The Daffy Doc” was shown uncut on MeTV until January 2023, when an episode of their classic cartoon installment show, Toon in With Me, cut Daffy holding up both the “Hush Yo’ Mouf!” sign and Hebrew sign that translates to “Silence is Foo” when shaken. Two years later (2025), the scene was reinstated.

What Grinds My Gears About the Edit(s): The only thing that grinds my gears about the “Hush Yo’ Mouf!”/“Silence is Foo” part is how the MeTV version killed the joke. I wish they would have done it like Nickelodeon and just cut the first sign, or, better yet, just cut it so that way it goes from “Shhh!” to “Silence is Foo!” The rest of the edits don’t grind my gears as much because I know redrawn-colorized versions ruin great cartoons, especially those that are considered the best at being wacky and packed with wild takes.

Video Comparison: 

Availability Uncut: This one has a good run on physical home media.

- In 1985, it was released on the VHS and Beta versions of the “Warner Bros Cartoons Golden Jubilee 24 Karat” collection (on the video/Beta tape called “Daffy Duck: The Nuttiness Continues…” Of those videos, I had the Foghorn Leghorn one, the Sylvester and Tweety one, the Wile E. Coyote/Road Runner one, the Bugs Bunny one, the Speedy Gonzales one, the one showcasing the best cartoons directed by Chuck Jones, the one showcasing the best cartoons directed by Friz Freleng, and the one showcasing the best voice acting done by Mel Blanc. The Daffy one, the Porky one, and the Elmer Fudd one I never had. The Pepe Le Pew one is a gray area, because, while I never got the actual tape, I did ask someone to record some select cartoons off it in a tape trade back when I had a VCR and the “Pepe Le Pew: Zee Best of Zee Best” DVD wasn’t made yet).

- Eleven years later (1996), “The Daffy Doc” was released on a UK VHS called “Daffy Duck” as part of their “Looney Tunes Collection.”

- Ten years after the UK release (2006), it appeared as a special feature on the DVD version of The Marx Brothers film, Room Service (which featured a pre-I Love Lucy Lucille Ball. In fact, Lucille Ball did a lot of movie comedies before becoming more well-known as a TV star).

- A year after that (2007), “The Daffy Doc” was picked for the fifth volume of the Looney Tunes Golden Collection DVD set (on disc three, which celebrates Bob Clampett’s best works. This version also has audio commentary by Mark Kausler, who does point out that, later in their respective lives, Bob Clampett and Chuck Jones didn’t like the iron lung gags because they felt it was insensitive to polio sufferers).

- Four years after that (2011), it was on disc one of The Essential Daffy Duck DVD set.

- Six years after that (2017), “The Daffy Doc” was released as part of the Porky Pig 101 DVD set (since it’s technically a Daffy/Porky cartoon).

- Finally, eight years after that (2025), “The Daffy Doc” appeared as a special feature on the Blu-ray release of the movie, The Citadel, starring Robert Donat and Rosalind Russell.

Is/Was It on Streaming or Digital Download: Yes. It was one of many Warner Bros shorts that used to be on HBO Max (then Max) between 2020 and 2025, and is now on Tubi as of 2025.

‘Til next time, Stay Looney, and Be Merrie.

 

I’d like to thank NotebookLM for helping me research and outline this and other Warner Bros shorts. It started off as just needed background material on the Porky/Sylvester horror vacation trilogy shorts, but I did find some interesting stuff on this short. Maybe I’ll do a regular, “analyzing Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies” shorts blog later, because you can learn a lot on how Daffy’s wacky persona in this short is different than it is on “The Wise Quacking Duck.”