Suffice to say that he spends the entire strip adjusting as the artist draws him into stranger and funnier backgrounds. I always ... always ... crack up at 2:38. If you can, pause the cartoon at 2:41 - his expression is priceless.
Daffy's last line is "All right - enough is enough. This is the final ... th ... the very, very last straw. Who is responsible for this ... this ... ? I demand that you show yourself. Who are you, huh?"
Daffy's last line is my reaction to the news of WW2 Vet Mr. Marvin Schur's death in his home in Bay City, Michigan.
It seems that due to the bitter cold in his home town, it wasn't unusual for Mr. Schur to not go outside in Winter. It also seems that Mr. Schur had no family in the immediate vicinity to look out for him, and at 93, it's possible that Mr. Schur may have started to experience diminished mental capacity. Mr. Schur had a savings nest egg of more than $500,000 ... but Mr. Schur skipped a few payments to his local power company, in the total amount of around $1,000.
Possibly since Mr. Schur didn't go outside, any notices on his door would have gone ignored - but there's no indication that anyone even rang the doorbell. Instead of knocking on his door and finding out what the problem was, Bay City Power put a limiting device so that the money owed would be kept as low as possible. But no one walked Mr. Schur through the process of how to reset the limiting device. In fact, for now, it appears that no one even told Mr. Schur that such a device had been installed.
So Mr. Schur froze to death, under four layers of clothing, a heating pad and blankets in his own home. When Mr. Schur's body was found, icicles hung from the interior faucets home and windows throughout were frosted over ... from the inside.
I'll presume that Bay City Manager (and moral leper) Robert Belleman doesn't see the two-facedness in his comment that he was deeply saddened by Mr. Schur's death but adding too that neighbors have a responsibility to each other. So just because I've been seething for a few days, let me add in my best Daffy Duck rant - that Mr. Belleman - YOU were a neighbor of Mr. Schur. YOU managed the city in which Mr. Schur lived - and died. And you're absolutely totally 101% correct - YOU did have a responsibility to your neighbor.
And YOU, Mr. Belleman, closed the door.
Just as Daffy shouted "show yourself", there is a photograph of you, Mr. Belleman, on the Bay City website. (God bless the Internet, there's contact information there, too.) Mr. Belleman, you appear to be in your 30s or early 40s, and there is a ring on your hand that suggests you may have people in your life who care about you and whom you, presumably, care about. I wonder if you reach out to your in-laws, your parents, your siblings, your aunts and uncles each and every day. I wonder if you talk with your grocery store manager, your librarian, your gardener, your barber, your religious leaders, or even your neighbors each and every day. Or every third day. Every week? Because you know, life gets in the way sometimes, doesn't it Mr. Belleman?
And, while we're at it ... what's up with Bay City Electric Light and Power? Bay City EL&P is a business, I know. And they have a fiscal responsibility but - more than that - they have a moral responsibility because of the service they provide. I refuse to believe that an outstanding bill of $1,000 would have caused them to go bankrupt. And to think that it would have been so hard, while installing the limiting device, to knock on the door of their neighbor Mr. Schur to ask him why the bills had been unpaid (after 50+ years of being a customer) is just ... daffy.
Bay City Manager Robert V. Belleman
301 Washington Avenue
Bay City, MI 48708
Bay City Electric Light & Power
900 S. Water Street
Bay City, Michigan 48708
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