Quite apart form the puntastic title, which celebrates hilarious misuse of the English language in the service of Easter-y jokes going back eons, Daffy Duck’s Easter Egg-citement is an unmitigated joy to watch because we get to watch the eponymous star of the show characteristically lose his you-know-what in not one but cartoon shorts, as well the intro and outros to each cartoon and the special itself.
That’s a lot of Daffy at his bill-spitting best, made all the more hilarious by an artist, variously referred to as a “Poor man’s Picasso” and the “Van Gogh of vandalism” by a super exasperated duck, who knows he or she has the power of visual life-and-death over the host of the show.
Even knowing that, Daffy continues to vent his spleen with extreme prejudice, which doesn’t end well for him, delivering all kinds of unwanted drawn-on costume changes from a daisy (with very aggro giant bee) to a giant Easter egg and a big, fluff, yellow chicken.
Much of the fun of the elegant 22-minute special which was first released in 1980, is watching Daffy not only lose his temper over and over again, but being manifestly unable to learn a single lesson from the many unpleasant ways in which his anger issues cost him dearly.
Not so good for him but a sheer delight for us as Daffy implode as he introduces with not a lot of grace but all kinds of hilarity, three beautifully done shorts, all specially made for the show.
“The Yolks on You” (directed by Gerry Chiniquy, Art Davis, Dave Detiege, and Tony Benedict)
It’s Easter and Foghorn Leghorn is doing his best to get his hens, including an always flustered Miss Prissy (her first appearance in a Looney Tunes short since 1961) to lay the right coloured eggs for Easter, leading to her producing a golden egg which causes all kinds of friendship-busting mayhem for down-on-their-luck besties Sylvester Cat and Daffy Duck (his first appearance since 1968 if you can believe it!). Daffy is, of course, the instigator of the falling out, greed winning out over altruism and you just know things will not end well for Daffy, not even a little bit.
“The Chocolate Chase” (directed by Friz Freleng)
Daffy is hired in this short to protect an Easter chocolate factory from theft by poor Mexican mice who simply want something special to celebrate the day. Now, the nice thing would be to give each of the mice a gift, build goodwill in the community and all that but the pig factory owner is having none of it, and so inadvertently the cartoon becomes a 1% defending their massively indulet lot against the poor who are seen as the villains. They’re not, of course and when Speedy Gonzales turns up, this gross social inequity is put to rights with Daffy bested time and again by an fast-moving activist who knows that the only way to solve any situation is with lots of duck-sized chocolate.
“Daffy Flies North” (directed by Art Davis, Dave Detiege, Gerry Chiniquy, and Tony Benedict)
Less of an Easter cartoon than a spring one – great for the northern hemisphere but not so relevant for the southern – this short sees Daffy once again defying authority, in this case the leader of his V-shaped flock flying north for the summer, and and doing it so intensely that he backs himself into a furious corner and has to find another way to get to his destination. He tries to hitchhike but only ends up attracting the attention of a truck full of duck hunters and their dogs, then he tries to sit in a chair in a trailer being hauled by a truck which serves only to get him wet all over when the trailer disengages and the chair wheels itself into a pond, and finally he straps on some skis and tries to coast along behind a car. With man and machinery failing him, he tries to convince a horse to let him ride it which doesn’t end well for Daffy but provides the horse, and by extension us, with all kinds of laughs. After all this effort, do you think things end well for Daffy? No, not one little bit and that is really how it should be in the world of Looney Tunes or Merrie Melodies.
With Mel Blanc voicing Daffy Duck, Foghorn Leghorn, Sylvester, Speedy Gonzales, and the Duck Flock Leader in the final short, and Nancy Wilbe as Miss Prissy, Daffy Duck’s Easter Egg-citement is a short but sweet joy – literally if you count all the Easter eggs and chocolate – that gives us Daffy at his worst, and this his character best, and some new shorts that capture the manic energy of the old Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies, all while celebrating the fun, colour and comic richness of Easter.
