Duck Dodgers is the metafictional star of a series of cartoons produced by Warner Bros., featuring Daffy Duck in the role of a science fiction hero.
Daffy Duck reprises his famous role of Duck Dodgers in another spoof of Saturday afternoon space serials. Assigned to locate the rack-and-pinion molecule needed for yo-yo polish, Dodgers and his sidekick, an eager young space cadet (Porky Pig), crash their spaceship into a giant eggshell-shaped planet, where they find Marvin the Martian, who is, as usual, scheming to destroy Earth in an attempt to solve the "energy crisis". Marvin asks Dodgers to visit the boudoir of Gossamer (Looney Tunes), which Dodgers thinks is a space princess, but Gossamer turns out to be a giant, hairy monster in sneakers, and the frightened Dodgers flees. Porky uses electronic clippers to literally haircut Gossamer into nothingness, and Dodgers, furious of his assistant's all-too-literal interpretations of his commands, repeatedly fires his gun at Porky. When Porky asks what Earth will do without the rack-and-pinion molecule Dodgers replies "Let them eat cake."
Marvin the Martian mistakes Daffy Duck's Duck Dodgers show, in which Dodgers announces that his forces are about to invade Mars, for a live broadcast and retaliates by going after Daffy, who still thinks they're shooting the show.
With a hostile group of ravenous alien monsters threatening the Earth, Duck Dodgers creates robotic copies to stop them. The robots rebel, though, and Dodgers has to figure out a way to stop them.
The animated Duck Dodgers television series ran for three seasons beginning in 2003 and was inspired by the 1953 Merrie Melodies cartoon "Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2th Century"--essentially a spoof of science fiction book series Buck Rogers in the 25th Century and Flash Gordon. The series stars Daffy Duck as Duck Dodgers, a hapless duck frozen for three centuries, thawed in the 24 1/2th century, and then assigned by Chief Scientist Dr. Ignatius Q "I.Q." Hi to defend Earth from the Martians, who are ruled by the Martian Queen and protected by Martian commander X-2 (played by Marvin Martian). Duck Dodgers is an egotistical featherbrain who's easily distractible, so it often falls to his sidekick Cadet, played by Porky Pig, to hold things together and guide the team toward successfully completing its missions.