Western Animation / Daffy Dilly

"Daffy Dilly" is a 1948 Merrie Melodies short directed by Chuck Jones, starring Daffy Duck.

The cartoon sees Daffy as a struggling sidewalk gag-gift salesman whose fortunes change when he overhears on a storefront radio that multi-millionaire J.P. Cubish is on his deathbed and will offer one million dollars to the first person who successfully manages to make him laugh. Daffy rushes to the tycoon’s mansion, only to discover that he first needs to get past Cubish’s uptight butler.

This cartoon, along with “You Were Never Duckier” (also released in 1948), is notable for featuring an early example of the greedy/scheming Daffy, a characterization that Chuck Jones would further refine in later cartoons. It is also one of a handful of 1948–49 WB cartoons to be made in Cinecolor rather than Technicolor, as well as one of five post–1948 shorts to get a "Blue Ribbon" reissue (with the long version of the 1941–55 “Merrily We Roll Along” theme and its title card removed).

The near-complete cartoon was edited into the start of 1988's Daffy Duck's Quackbusters, which acts as a sort of feature-length extension of "Daffy Dilly".

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Tropes:

• Alliterative Title: A play on the word “daffodil,” in fact.
• Battle Butler: The butler gets more and more desperate at getting rid of Daffy, and eventually resorts to killing him.
• Bavarian Fire Drill: Just as the butler is about to try and do him in, Daffy suddenly starts acting like a detective accusing him of not wanting his master to get well; in fact, he insinuates that he's planning on murdering him. The butler gets so flustered that when Daffy offers him a head start to escape, he runs out of the house in a panic.
• The Butler Did It: Daffy finally does away with the butler by scaring him with a pretty elaborate on-the-spot murder accusation.
• Butt-Monkey: Daffy winds up being this for Cubish at the end. He doesn’t mind, though.
  Daffy: (shrugs) It's a living.
• Covered in Gunge: Daffy is about to cheer up Cubish when he slips and falls on a cake, and ends up wearing it like a dress. This is what finally makes Cubish laugh, to Daffy's bemused resentment.
  Daffy: What's the matter? You see anything green? Any flies on me?
• Determinator: Daffy puts himself through a lot to get that reward, even risking his own life a few times at the hands of the butler.
• Dumbwaiter Ride: At one point Daffy tries to escape in the dumbwaiter, but the butler is somehow waiting for him on every floor, even shooting at him with a cannon that obliterates the dumbwaiter, so Daffy has to climb the rope to the top floor, where the butler is waiting for him.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • A variation. This was among the first cartoons to showcase Daffy’s greedy/jealous down-on-his-luck side. However, unlike in later Jones-directed Daffy shorts, the character still has quite a bit of zany wit and energy about him, and hasn't yet developed into the bitter Butt-Monkey he would be later on.
  • This is one of several cartoons in which "Suffering succotash!" was Daffy's catchphrase, before it became more associated with Sylvester.
• Electric Joybuzzer: One of Daffy's gags is this, which oddly does a Harmless Electrocution despite the shock being at 200 volts. Daffy subjects himself to it early on and then uses it on Cubish's butler.
• The Help Helping Themselves: Daffy tries to get past a butler by disguising himself as a bottle of wine for the master of the house. The butler brings the bottle in... then looks to see if anyone's watching and opens it for himself. He doesn't realize the "bottle" is really Daffy until the little black duck offers a toast.
• Manipulative Bastard: Daffy on-the-fly plants a The Butler Did It accusation as to why the butler is so vehement about Daffy not meeting his master and trying to cure him. Whatever the butler's real motive is, Daffy's Perp Sweating is so menacing and elaborate that even he starts to believe it and is convinced to make a hasty getaway.
• Money to Burn: Implied with a trash bin in the entrance to Cubish's mansion with a "Throw Dirty Money Here" sign.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: Daffy wraps himself like a bottle of wine to fool the butler. It doesn't take long for him to see through the disguise after Daffy tells him "Skål!"
• Pie in the Face: The cartoon ends with Cubish throwing pies at Daffy to keep himself merry. Daffy just shrugs it off, as he gets paid for it.
• Plot Hole: Lampshaded and exploited. The butler, for whatever reason, doesn't want Daffy in the house to entertain his master despite the latter having publicly invited people to do such. Daffy ends up putting him on the spot for this and plants a convoluted The Butler Did It conspiracy on him. While the real reason is never elaborated upon (save for possible snobbery on the butler's part), Daffy's scenario is so convincing that the butler himself starts to believe it.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: The butler when he threatens to take care of Daffy permanently.
• Shout-Out:
  • One of the items Daffy is selling in the opening is a Joe Miller joke book. The first such book dates to 1739, and the name has since become synonymous with an old, trite joke.
  • Daffy makes several during his Perp Sweating of the butler.
    "Not so fast, my man Godfrey!"
    "'Do the old boy in,' you said! 'Elderberry wine and old lace,' you said!"
    (to the camera) "Phew! What's Humphrey Bogart got that I ain't got?!"
• Traveling Salesman: Daffy is this in the cartoon's beginning.
• Wingding Pupils: Daffy gets the standard dollar signs when he hears about the reward for making Cubish laugh.

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