Did Daffy Duck Predict David Zaslav’s Massive WBD Stock Dump?

Controversial Warner Bros. Discovery CEO David Zaslav is selling off a sizable fortune’s worth of stock in his own company. Elmer Fudd must finally be about to ice Bugs Bunny — so long as he can keep that double-barreled shotgun pointed away from his own ass.

Ever since Zaslav took over the media mega-corporation following the merger between WarnerMedia and Discover Inc. in 2022, his tenure at the head of one of the most powerful entertainment empires on the planet could be described by many animation fans as “cartoonishly evil.” Following a period of unsustainable streaming expansion, Zaslav imposed harsh austerity measures on WBD and, specifically, its animated properties as he canceled completed films like Coyote vs. Acme, destroyed the classic cartoon streaming service Boomerang, gutted Cartoon Network and removed almost every animated show from the Max streaming library.

Now, after decimating his company’s IP portfolio and reducing offerings to their customers to a fraction of what Max and its sister services once boasted, Zaslav is starting to cash out as he just sold 2.5 million shares of WBD for a total haul of roughly $30 million, his first major stock sale since the merger. Is Zaslav simply profiting off of the numerous short-term cost-cutting measures he instituted at the possible expense of long term stability, or do he and Daffy Duck know something that we (and the SEC) don't? 

The above clip comes from the 2003 live-action/animated comedy Looney Tunes: Back in Action, which told the convoluted tale of Looney Tunes star Bugs Bunny teaming up with his envious and spiteful onscreen antagonist Daffy Duck (and Brendan Fraser, for some reason) to stop the chairman of ACME, played by Steve Martin, from turning the world’s population into monkeys. Daffy makes the call to his money man after he sees Bugs fall thousands of feet in a spy car seemingly to his doom — but, at the last second, the car stops short of a crash, saving Bugs and dashing Daffy’s insider trading aspirations.

Now, I’m not gonna go off and accuse Zaslav of abusing his position as the head honcho/chief cartoon executioner to make a quick buck. All I’m saying is that Looney Tunes fans should keep a close eye on their favorite characters in the following weeks, as there’s a not-insignificant chance that Zaslav is gonna roll some more heads in the classic cartoon department and the WBD stock price will plummet like it’s Wile E. Coyote after he looks down.