Daffy the Commando (Cartoon, 1943)

Daffy – The Commando (sometimes stylized as Daffy the Commando) is a 1943 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes animated short directed by Friz Freleng, with a story by Michael Maltese and production oversight by Leon Schlesinger. Released on November 20, 1943, during the height of World War II, this 7-minute Technicolor cartoon stars Daffy Duck as a plucky American saboteur infiltrating Nazi territory. Voiced entirely by Mel Blanc, with music by Carl W. Stalling, it exemplifies wartime propaganda cartoons that blended slapstick humor with anti-Axis satire.
Plot SummaryThe story opens in a Nazi bunker where the pompous Commander Von Vultur rants about elusive American commandos, only to receive a stern telegram from the Gestapo demanding better results. As an American plane buzzes overhead, Von Vultur and his hapless aide Schultz scan the skies with a searchlight. Enter Daffy Duck, parachuting in with a Union Jack (mistakenly for the American flag in some prints) and belting out a cheeky rendition of "She Was Poor but She Was Honest" in a mock Cockney accent.Daffy quickly turns the tables with a barrage of gags: He flips off the bunker lights, projects shadow puppets of dancing chorus girls and animals onto the clouds to distract the Germans, and hides behind an asbestos curtain before popping out with a grotesque face to terrify Von Vultur. Tricking the commander into revealing the time, Daffy slips him a ticking bomb, which Schultz foolishly passes back and gets blasted through the roof. Daffy then dons Schultz's helmet as a disguise, clobbers Von Vultur, and flees to a phone booth, where he taunts his pursuer with bilingual wisecracks via cue cards (e.g., "Can't you see this telephone is busy? Wait your turn!").Von Vultur chases Daffy into a stolen plane, leading to an aerial dogfight where Daffy outmaneuvers pursuing Messerschmitts—until his plane unravels from tail to nose. Thinking he's found a safe tunnel, Daffy crawls into a howitzer barrel and is launched like a cannonball straight to Berlin. There, amid a rotoscoped crowd scene parodying Hitler's speeches, Daffy delivers the final blow: a mallet to the Führer's head, prompting a dazed Hitler to cry out for "Schuuultz!"