10/10
Donald Struts His Stuff As Solo Star
10 December 2002
A Walt Disney DONALD DUCK Cartoon.

A marvelous collection of MODERN INVENTIONS contrive to give Donald a very bad day.

This is a wonderful little film, full of good humor & topnotch animation. The robotic butler (voiced by Billy Bletcher) and its penchant for appropriating headgear is especially funny. This was Donald's first solo star assignment and it also marked the arrival of the legendary Carl Barks as a story writer for the Duck's films. For the record, Donald runs foul of four inventions in the Museum Of Modern Marvels (the Hitch-Hiker's Aid, the Automatic Bundle-Wrapper, the Robot Nurse Maid and the hilarious Barber Chair - voiced by Cliff Edwards) while being deprived of six various hats (his sailor's cap, a silk top hat, a Napoleon cocked hat, a Civil War military cap, a baby bonnet and a derby) Clarence "Ducky" Nash supplies Donald's unique voice.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.
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