I cannot help admiring the artwork, the creativity, and the loving care that went into each and every one of these Disney creations.
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If I were a kid again, say six or eight, I would have a field day with this two-disc set of Walt Disney Donald Duck short subjects. I loved cartoons when I was young, and my dad and I used to go to the Saturday morning cartoon-fests at the local theater every week.
But I have to admit I preferred Warner's Looney Tunes to the Disney products, Donald and Mickey and the gang always taking a backseat to Bugs, Elmer, Daffy, and the rest. Not that I disliked the Disney characters; I just liked the WB guys better. Not surprisingly, then, I didn't find over four hours of Donald Duck any more appealing now that I've grown older. Still, I cannot help admiring the artwork, the creativity, and the loving care that went into each and every one of these Disney creations. It's these qualities that continue to set the Duck and the Mouse apart from most of their rivals, back then and today.
Maybe, too, it's just that when I think of Disney animation, I immediately think of the studio's full-length features, the "Snow White," "Pinocchio," and "Lady and the Tramp" films I grew up with and still cherish, and any comparisons to the Disney short subjects are unfair. The Disney shorts are no less well animated, no less warmly rendered than Disney's bigger productions, but they never seemed as wild and crazy as they should have been. It was all right for the full-length things to be all warm and cuddly and politically correct, but it never seemed to me even as a kid that the short subjects should also be that way.
Nevertheless, this new collection of Donald Duck cartoons is everything a Duck fan could want. Spread over two discs in the Disney Treasures series, the shorts cover the years 1934-1941 and are labeled Volume One. Presumably, that means we'll be getting more collections of Donald in the future. The cartoons are listed on the disc menus both chronologically and alphabetically and may be accessed individually either way, or they can be played all at once. For a change, even an adult can figure out how to navigate a Disney menu page.
This may bore you, but I'm now going to list all of the cartoons for the benefit of connoisseurs who may be interested. For the rest of you, skip this and the next paragraph. Disc one contains Donald's first appearance on screen in "The Wise Little Hen," followed in order of time by "Donald and Pluto," "Don Donald," "Modern Inventions, "Donald's Ostrich," "Self Control," "Donald's Better Self," "Donald's Nephews," "Polar Trappers," "Good Scouts," The Fox Hunt," Donald's Gold Game," "Donald's Lucky Day," "Hockey Champ," "Donald's Cousin Gus," "Beach Picnic," "Sea Scouts," "Donald's Penguin," "The Autograph Hound," and "Officer Duck."
Disc two contains "The Riveter," "Donald's Dog Laundry," "Billposters," "Mr. Duck Steps Out," "Put-Put Troubles," "Donald's Vacation," "Window Cleaners," "Fire Chief," "Timber," "Golden Eggs," "A Good Time for a Dime," "Early to Bed," "Truant Officer Donald," "Old MacDonald Duck," "Donald's Camera," and "Chef Donald."
The box claims over four-and-a-half hours of Donald Duck and related material, which for me was something approaching overkill. And this is only Volume One, ending in 1941, with the promise of more to come. Certainly, we can understand the need for Donald. After all, the Mouse could only go on for so long, being as nice as he was. Donald allowed the Disney artists to develop a character who could compete on a more even playing field with Warners' zanier Bugs and Daffy. Donald could lose his temper and be annoying, something Mickey could never be allowed to do.
Fact is, Mickey Mouse may be the Disney trademark character, but he's really pretty boring. Apparently, audiences felt the same way back in the thirties, and thus Donald was born. It wasn't long before the Duck was more popular than the Mouse and got quite a few short programs of his own. Film critic and historian Leonard Maltin is even brought in from time to time to introduce the cartoons and apologize for some of Donald's actions. It is perhaps carrying PC to extremes, but the Disney corporation is like that, making sure the little tykes don't get the wrong impressions. So Maltin tells us not to take too seriously Donald's occasional use of guns or the cartoons' periodic stereotypical depictions of Italians, Indians, African Americans, and Native Americans. I would note without comment that WB's various Looney Tunes collections on DVD do not make such disclaimers.
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