DOUG’S Q-C COLLECTIBLES: Daffy Duck and other childhood memories
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By Doug Smith | Monday, July 14, 2008 |
(CONTRIBUTED PHOTO) This cel appears to be from the 1938 Bob Clampett cartoon titled “The Daffy Doc” starring Porky Pig.
Dear Doug: While shopping in an antique store, I acquired a drawing used in the production of a Daffy Duck cartoon. Could you please provide me with the name of the Daffy Duck short that this drawing was used in, the year it was produced and a ballpark idea of its value?
Thanks!
Mike M., Moline
Dear Mike: What fond memories those old cartoons stir up.
Daffy Duck was part of the Warner Bros. Looney Tunes series of animated cartoons. He first appeared in 1937, receiving second billing to Porky Pig in “Porky’s Duck Hunt.” Cartoons were such an attraction in those days that all of the movie theaters played several before the featured film. God forbid if you arrived late for the cartoons!
In September 1956, Warner Bros. released its pre-1948 cartoons to syndication, and I believe they were shown locally on WOC-TV’s “Captain Ken’s Cartoon Showboat” as early as 1958, and cowboy host Wes Holly may have shown them before that for a few years.
Of course, growing up here in the ‘60s and ‘70s, we had only three television channels. A kid couldn’t just watch cartoons whenever he wanted like they can today. My earliest recollections include my mother announcing that tomorrow was Kid’s Day, another name for Saturday, when cartoons were shown on all three stations all morning long. Boy, did we love Saturday morning cartoons.
What you have found is a celluloid animation drawing, usually called a cel for short. In producing a cartoon, the artist first sketched the movement of each character on a storyboard. Those rough images were then drawn on a clear plastic sheet of cellulose acetate or cellulose nitrate. The background was drawn separately and positioned underneath the clear cels for the final photograph, which became part of the finished cartoon. The background could be used over and over without being redrawn and painted, which is why you often see the same background as a repeating panorama.
This cel appears to be from the 1938 Bob Clampett cartoon titled “The Daffy Doc” starring Porky Pig. This early “black & white” was produced by Leon Schlesinger and later colorized in 1995. In this adventure, Daffy plays an assistant to a doctor, who is also a quack. Daffy gets booted from the operating room and finds himself stuck in an iron lung! When he finally pries himself out, his individual body parts expand to enormous proportions in succession, including his hands, as shown in your cel.
When these old cartoons were redrawn for colorization, they were reproduced inexpensively by artists in the Orient, and it appears yours has something written in the upper right-hand corner in Chinese. My guess is that this cel is one of the Oriental remakes that were released in the ‘90s. The old cels were painted on nitrate material while the newer cels were on acetate and of inferior quality.
Original production cels are highly collectible because they are one-of-a-kind, handpainted works of art that were actually used in the production of a cartoon. It is most desirable to have what is called a “key master set-up,” which is the cel and the original background used in the short. People love to hold onto their childhoods, and displaying an original cel from a favorite cartoon or movie is one way of doing that.
There are many factors that determine the value of these original production cels, including the age, condition, historical significance and attractiveness of the artwork itself. Many cels are autographed by the artist or producer, which naturally enhances their desirability. Early cartoon cels can sell for thousands of dollars. Your cel, unfortunately, is not from the original 1938 production but rather a redrawn, colorized version. They typically are worth between $25 and $50 — not much I’m afraid, but “That’s all folks!”
Contact Doug Smith with your collectibles questions by e-mailing him at DougsQCCollecting@hotmail.com or sending a note to the Quad-City Times, Attn.: features editor, P.O. Box 3828, Davenport, IA, 52808. Please send a photograph, if available, either by e-mail or letter.
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