Norman McCabe | The Daffy Duckaroo / 1942

daffy as an indian girl

by Douglas Messerli

 

Melvin Millar and Don Christensen (screenplay), Cal Dalton (animation), Norman McCabe (director) The Daffy Duckaroo / 1942 [animated cartoon]

 

This World War II originally in black-and-white and later colorized, is filled with the kind of racial stereotyping common throughout the 1930s and which saw a rise in the War-time 1940s.

    In this case, Daffy Duckaroo, tired of Hollywood, retires to the role of a singing cowboy in the American West. Like Greta Garbo, Daffy declares, so report the newspapers, that he “wants to be a lone…ranger.”

   Daffy heads off into the desert on the back of a donkey, who tales pulls along a small camper. Suddenly he encounters a tepee containing an Indian girl Daisy June (portrayed through the voice of Sara Berner, an exception to all the other characters voiced by Mel Blanc). Daisy June is actually an American girl from Brooklyn, not at all the shy and silent type Daffy first admires. She is moreover, the girlfriend of Little Beaver who is well-known for scalping any other admirers she might encourage.

    If at first Daffy treats the existence of Little Beaver with bluff, when the hulking Indian returns and perceives his size, Daffy runs off and hides in Daisy June’s dresser, emerging as an Indian girl with whom Little Beaver immediately falls in love, forgetting his Brooklynese broad.

     Little Beaver puts on his warpaint and begins to court the newest gal in the teepee, Daffy escaping a kiss by mostly playing on a series of drums before accomplishing a tomahawk routine, each throw just missing Little Beaver’s head.

     But when Daffy, still dressed as an Indian girl, actually awards him with a kiss, Little Beaver becomes determined to conquer, shouting out, “wahoo,” a term that is now often associated with a scream of a fan’s delight but in the 1930s and into the 1940s also was a favorite cry of gay men upon spying someone of who delighted them at first sight.* But on making love to Daffy, the big Indian accidently pulls off Daffy’s wig, and the ruse is up with Little Beaver chasing after Daffy through the Painted Desert, the Petrified Forest, and into the outskirts of Los Angeles, where from a phone booth, Little Beaver sends out smoke signals to call out the Indians who surround Daffy’s camper, finally capturing him in a pile of tires.

     As the Wikipedia entry currently notes, there are numerous war-time references, including the moment when Daffy shoots back at the Indians with an unloaded gun, turning to the camera to explain that we save the bullets “for the Army.” At another moment he encounters a sign reading that to keep the speed level under 40, a reference to the 35 mph speed limit imposed during the war in order to ration gas.

   

*Among the requirements stated by The Loyal Wahoo, from January 29, 2006, in order to be a Wahoo one must own at least 60 pink shirts, must be attracted to the same sex, and must have girlish qualities. (The Urban Dictionary)

 

Los Angeles, September 23, 2025

Reprinted from My Queer Cinema blog (September 2025).