Daffy - The Commando | 1943 | World War 2 Era Propaganda Cartoon

Daffy - The Commando is a 1943 Looney Tunes cartoon produced by Warner Bros. It features the character Daffy Duck.

It was intended as an American propaganda film against the Nazi Germany while the two countries were at war. As with most of the Looney Tunes shorts produced during World War 2, the film consists of a series of rapid-fire, short gag vignettes.

Daffy Duck is a commando, dropped behind enemy lines, and causes havoc to the German commander, Uberkomt von Vultur, who tries to capture him.

Most of the cartoon involves a series of comedic mishaps with Daffy foiling Von Vulture, but it’s the ending that makes this cartoon extremely memorable. Daffy Duck is fired out of a cannon and lands right in Berlin where Adolf Hitler is making a speech; as Hitler is just rambling on in a nonsensical mix of English and German (with a stereotypical German accent), Daffy whacks him with a cartoon mallet, causing Hitler to cry like a baby.

All of the voices in the cartoon were performed by Mel Blanc. (Mel Blanc earned the nickname "The Man of a Thousand Voices". He is best remembered for his work as the voices of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety Bird, Sylvester the Cat, and many other Looney Tunes characters.)


HISTORICAL BACKGROUND / CONTEXT

On 11 December 1941, four days after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the United States declaration of war against the Japanese Empire, Nazi Germany declared war against the United States, in response to what was claimed to be a series of provocations by the United States government when the US was still officially neutral during World War 2. The decision to declare war was made by Adolf Hitler, apparently offhand, almost without consultation. Later that day, the United States declared war on Germany.

The course of relations between Germany and the United States had deteriorated since the beginning of World War 2, inevitably so given the increasing cooperation between the United States and the United Kingdom. The Destroyers for Bases Agreement, Lend-Lease, the Atlantic Charter, the hand-over of military control of Iceland from the United Kingdom to the United States, the extension of the Pan-American Security Zone, and many other results of the special relationship which had developed between the two countries had put a strain on relations between the US, still technically a neutral country, and Nazi Germany. US destroyers escorting American supply vessels bound for the UK were already engaged in a de facto war with German U-Boats. Roosevelt's desire to help the UK, despite the objections of the influential US isolationist lobby, and legal impediments imposed by Congress which prevented direct involvement in the war, brought the US to push hard against the traditional boundaries of neutrality.

On December 7, 1941, the Empire of Japan launched an attack on the US naval and army base on Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, beginning a war between Japan and the United States. Japan had not informed its ally, Germany, in advance of the attack, although the Japanese ambassador had informed the German Foreign Minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop, at the beginning of December that relations between the US and the Japanese Empire were at a breaking point, and that war was imminent. He was instructed to ask Germany for commitment to declare war under the terms of the Tripartite Pact should that occur...


Daffy - The Commando | 1943 | World War 2 Era Propaganda Cartoon