The New Daffy Duck Show (lost pilot script for unproduced animated series; 1997-1998)

Ad for The New Daffy Duck Show.

Status: Lost

The New Daffy Duck Show was a planned, written, developed, and almost produced cartoon based on the Looney Tunes character Daffy Duck (mostly his Space Jam counterpart considering it had just came out the year before). The show had been planned to be apart of the regular Saturday morning block on the now-defunct WB block Kid's WB!.

Details

The New Daffy Duck Show was going to be one of those "show within a show" cartoons, featuring skits and other stuff going on behind the scenes. However, the writers found a problem within this format considering all the skits they'd wrote were going nowhere for what was supposed to be a prime-time cartoon.

Production on the project had gone on for months. Jamie Kellner, head of The WB network at the time, had ordered for the cartoon before being unhappy with how it was going and cutting work on it entirely. The crew working on the show at the time were Spike Brandt, Tony Cervone, Doug Langdale, John McCann, and Paul Rugg, possibly later Joe Alaskey as he was considered for the voice of Daffy.

When asked about the show, Spike Brandt said:

It was kind of a cross between Jack Benny and Larry Sanders. Instead of a talk show it was a variety show where you could put on skits. So you could have stuff happening both on stage as short-like things, and then all the shenanigans going on behind the scenes. That didn't go anywhere.

Fate

During production, a script for the pilot had been written. No art had been created as of yet but, the crew had been ready to start on such things before Jamie Kellner pulled the project.

On crew member Paul Rugg's last day at Warner Animation, Greg Shepherd, John McCann, Doug Langdale, Spike Brandt, and Rugg himself burned the pilot script for the show.

The crew about to burn the script.

Despite the negative reception of the man who had ordered the show in the first place, Paul Rugg is quoted as saying:

We had all worked months on the project. Jamie Kellner didn't like it. In all honesty, it was the best thing we had done at Warners.

It is unknown if any other material or a copy of the script existed. The only other known material was an ad found in a promotional package for Kid's WB!. (Found in the main image) The ad read:

What do the "in" kids want for breakfast every Saturday? Duck. Daffy Duck that is. Based on his outstanding performance in last year's blockbuster, Space Jam, Daffy has finally gotten what he's always wanted (besides speech therapy): his own new show! For the first time in a generation, Daffy is back in front of the TV cameras with attitude, action and an all-new show that will blow the competition out of the pond. (Look for Daffy to pull some of his other Looney co-stars into his new shows.)

See Also

• Looney Tunes: By A Hare (lost build of cancelled arcade racing game; 1993)
• Looney Tunes: Laff Riot (found unreleased pitch pilot of "The Looney Tunes Show" animated sitcom; 2009)
• Looney Tunes: Space Race (lost build of cancelled original Nintendo 64 version of Dreamcast/PlayStation 2 racing game; 1998-1999)
• Hare Ribbin' (found original ending of Warner Bros. cartoon; 1944)
• Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies (partially found original title cards for animated shorts; 1930s-1940s)
• New Looney Tunes "To Catch a Fairy" (partially found unaired Toon City version of Warner Bros animated series episode; 2014)
• Fish Tales (found redrawn colorized version of Looney Tunes short; 1968)
• The Heckling Hare (lost original ending of Looney Tunes short; 1941)
• Porky's Hare Hunt (partially found redrawn colorized version of Looney Tunes short; 1968)
• The Bugs Bunny Show (partially lost animated TV series; 1960-2000)
• Noël chez Bugs Bunny & Opération Bugs Bunny (found French live-action/animated Christmas TV special; 1997)
• Looney Tunes ClickN Read Phonics (found Flash animated internet shorts; 2011)
• Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies (partially found original title cards for animated shorts; 1930s-1940s)