Window Cleaners (1940) User Reviews

Donald, Pluto and the bee have a high-rise adventure...

[Doylenf · 6/10 · 30 March 2008]

Donald is window washing on a high-rise scaffold while his co-worker PLUTO is snoozing instead of passing up a bucket of water. Donald makes a hilariously vain attempt to waken the sleeping dog but nothing works. When Pluto does wake up, he sends the wrong bucket and Donald throws what he supposes is a pail of water against the window but is really a pail full of bolts.

More misadventures follow when he plays a prank on a busy bee enjoying himself on a flowerpot--"Buzz-Buzz" again--and the bee finds ways of getting even when Donald sprinkles him with water. One of the bee's prank has Donald walking dangerously along a flag pole but managing to hold his footing--sort of borrowing from a Harold Lloyd comedy.

He and the bee go through some strenuous routines (all of which were done better in some of the other "B" movies), but by the story's end the bee is too exhausted to put his stinger into Donald.

Amusing and must have been a welcome addition to double features back in the good old days.

Deja vu

[CuriosityKilledShawn · 7/10 · 5 September 2005]

This cartoon reminded me a lot of a previous Donald short called Clock Cleaners. The same high rise/vertigo gags are used but that doesn't stop it from being funny.

Donald is washing windows while Pluto down on the ground sends up fresh buckets of water. But he's to busy napping and ignores Donald when prompted with a hook to the head. Instead Donald snares a bucket of bolts (why would a window washer have a bucket of bolts?) and smashes a huge pane of glass with it. But his troubles aren't over as a bee makes it his mission to sting Donald for soaking him.

Despite some erection/impotence imagery at the end with the bee struggling to make a decent sting, it's amusing.

Donald vs the bee

[TheLittleSongbird · 8/10 · 5 July 2012]

As a fan of Disney, Donald and Pluto I was all for seeing Window Cleaners. While not one of my favourites, it is very entertaining regardless. As ever I loved the crispness and colour of the animation and the energetic character that the music had. The gags, while slower to unfold, are well timed and very amusing, though there have been more hilarious gags in other Donald cartoons. The best ones were those when Donald shouts down the drain and the one with the bolts. The story is interesting and nimbly paced, but it is one particular sequence and what is done with Donald that makes Window Cleaners. Pluto's role is not very prominent, mainly to sleep actually, while the bee is a good foil. The sequence where the bee lifts his stinger up to get at Donald is beautifully animated and as a child I remembered in a way feeling inspired by it for some reason. Donald on the other hand is a sort of everyman person, but not one ordinary everyman. You see several sides of his character, first he is happy with not a care in the world, later on he is angrier and more easily frustrated, something I found very interesting to watch. Overall, a good cartoon if not a great one for me. 8/10 Bethany Cox

When Popeye and B-l-u-t-o are competing . . .

[tadpole-596-918256 · 7/10 · 11 February 2022]

. . . to wash the windows of the office building in which Olive works, neither resorts to throwing buckets of rocks through the expensive panes. However, Don Duck does exactly that during WINDOW CLEANERS, as the Dizzy gang frequently took "stipends" to encourage such American carnage from product placement people representing Big Construction, Big Car Repair, Big Medicine and so forth. Of course, such economic sabotage was a huge drag on our Homeland's economy, resulting in a Great Depression which lasted during the entire 1929-1941 heyday of Dizzy animated shorts. Once America's hero president FDR got wise to Dizzy's calumny and cracked down on such wanton destruction, the product placement payola faded away and soon after Dizzy's brief cartoon franchise withered away as well.

How Donald Ducks butt got stung by a bee

[crosswalkx · 10/10 · 18 June 2014]

I have seen this 1940 Donald Duck cartoon. It's funny and embarrassing at the same time.

This short starts out with Donald Duck wearing a blue shirt and sailor hat but no pants or shoes, singing while standing on the roped platform being hoisted up by Pluto the dog.

Things go wrong for Donald Duck while he's washing windows. First his hat and tail feathers gets clipped exposing his bare tail and Donald is annoyed by this. He also falls down and lands on a statue horse. He has trouble getting Pluto to wake up to get him a bucket of water. Then Pluto wakes up and Donald ends up hooking to a bucket of bolts and breaks the window.

Donald tries to drown the bee in water as a joke. The bee gets mad at Donald and attacks Donald. Donald Duck fights the bee until he ends up getting his body tied up on the roped platform with his feathery rear end exposed for the bee to sting. Donald tries to blow at the bee to stop the bee from stinging him, but they both get tired out.

The bee finally stung Donald Duck in the butt and it causes Donald to get untied and he falls head first into the drain pipe all the way down at the bottom pipe, where he calls Pluto for help. But Pluto ignores him and shoves his foot into Donald's head and goes back to sleep.

I find it funny that Donald Duck gets his hat and tail feathers trimmed and he breaks the window. I liked that his tail feathers turn into a hand warning the bee and the bee ignores him anyways. I also find it embarrassing that Donald Duck gets his rear end stung by a bee without any pants on. He did deserve to be stung on the rear end after being a mean bully to a bee.

I also feel sorry that Donald Duck is stuck in the pipe. I hope someone can get him out. There should be a sequel where Pluto goes for help and has someone get Donald Duck out of the drain pipe and Donald pay for the damages to a broken window he accidentally vandalized.

Out On A Ledge With Mr. Duck

[Ron Oliver · 10/10 · 1 July 2003]

A Walt Disney DONALD DUCK Cartoon.

Donald & Pluto are WINDOW CLEANERS on a large skyscraper, but the Duck's day comes unstrung when he plays a joke on a very belligerent bee...

This was one of a small handful of cartoons to co-star the Duck and the Pup, their very different personalities bouncing well off of each other. The addition of the Bee to the mix only adds to the vertiginous hilarity. The legendary Carl Barks wrote the story; Clarence Nash supplied Donald with his unique voice.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by pictures & 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 comic 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 childlike simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.

Donald the hilarious singing window washer!

[OllieSuave-007 · 9/10 · 25 March 2016]

Donald and Pluto team up once again in another hilarious cartoon short, where Donald is in charge of cleaning the windows of an apartment high-rise (brave of Donald doing so without any safety harness!), while Pluto attempts to help. Unfortunately, the lazy dog rather sleep, and Donald gets himself tangling with an angry bee.

It's another beautifully animated short with plenty of laugh-out-loud moments; Donald was absolutely hilarious in this one, from him attempting to wake up Pluto with his cackling voice to him accidentally splashing a buckle of bolts onto a window instead of water.

Donald's singing is sure to crack anybody up, and his little fight with the bee was pretty entertaining. It's just too bad Pluto wasn't of much help in this story.

Funny stuff here!

Grade A

Earn That Money

[Michael_Elliott · 25 May 2016]

Window Cleaners (1940)

*** (out of 4)

Donald and Pluto are on their job of cleaning windows when they run into one issue after another. While up cleaning windows Donald decides to be mean to a baby bee and this leads to his downfall.

WINDOW CLEANERS is a pretty good short from Disney as they give you the typical high quality animation but also a pretty good story with lots of laughs. There's no question that the highlight deals with the bee, the rather cruel prank played by Donald and of course the bee's revenge. Fans of Donald and Pluto will certainly enjoy this short since there are several good laughs and the two share some great chemistry even if they're never actually together.