Daffy Duck has arrived: a mountain of soft toys for a wave of smiles

Guido Lombardo, President of the renowned Titanus, the oldest Italian film production company and the second oldest in the world, is an extremely generous and sensitive person, long committed to social causes. You might call him a philanthropist, but heaven forbid you should tell him so!

As a child, after receiving several gifts from Warner Bros, he became particularly fond of the character “Daffy Duck”: one of the most iconic and beloved of the Looney Tunes, and he began collecting dozens of them, in all shapes, expressions and sizes.

When Warner Bros learnt that Guido, the son of Goffredo, an absolute genius of film production, had a special fondness for the endearing character, they did not hesitate to have a Daffy Duck measuring 3.54 metres delivered to him.

Over the years the collection grew with many other pieces until it reached a considerable size. Meeting the Smile House Fondazione ETS gave Guido Lombardo the chance to discover a reality entirely new to him: that of the suffering of children with facial malformations.

Guido Lombardo is especially fond of children and, like all sensitive people, was immediately moved by this reality: he has been supporting the cause for years now, but he feels the time has come to do something more personal to dedicate to them. He believes that, although supporting the Foundation financially is a fundamental gesture that allows the children to receive care they would not otherwise be able to access, something more meaningful is needed to reach their hearts, something that makes him feel closer to their suffering and that can somehow ease it, bringing a little joy into a very difficult daily life. With this in mind, he decided to part with his historic Daffy Duck collection – over 600 pieces, some of them very rare – and to give it to the young guests of the centre, with the hope that Warner’s most famous duck can bring them the same happiness it brought him as a child.

The handover took place during the weekend clinic before Easter and it was a moving event: the joyful children opened their eyes wide with surprise and delight at seeing a mountain of Daffy Duck soft toys laid out before them!

One of the children, held in Guido’s arms, could not hide his joy and emotion as he shyly asked permission to receive two Daffys as a gift: could this be a new little collector? Of course, the request was met with a big smile. Watching Guido Lombardo among the happy, smiling children, it was impossible to tell whether this symbolic gesture did more good for him or for them.