SNG Exploration Blog: Donald Duck Cartoons That Helped Paved A Way With My Ideas

There is 2 Donald Duck shorts that left me feeling inspired.

I remember watching these and it left me feeling interested in watching more of the classic Disney stuff.

While I liked the Disney stuff as a kid, I'm not too keen on knowing everything about the company. What I admire about it the most is the old movies and the Illusion Of Life, the best book on how Disney's films and characters made an impact.

The first cartoon is called Goose I mean... Duck Pimples (1945). This cartoon I liked not for it's utter surrealistic themes, but it was also really funny with a very amusing pack of one-off characters.

This short opens with one of my favorite starts. I like the intensity of the atmosphere, I love the extra detail of the tree branches and the rain effect is really cool.

You may notice that this particular cartoon hasn't had a remastered version yet, but honestly, that's for the best, I like alot of the color palette and seeing Donald without his usual sailor cap is very interesting.

Unlike some of Donald's more unamusing hits like his Chip and Dale cartoons, the beginning of this cartoon is already insane, Donald tunes in the radio and Donald imagines that the ape is behind him and right away it becomes dark and disturbing.

I love the camera angles given here, so as the expressions. Jack Kinney rarely made any Donald Duck cartoons, he mostly made shorts starring Goofy but Donald's facial expressions here are extremely well-drawn and fascinating. The characters we get are actually likeable, unlike some of the characters in a surreal movie Alice In Wonderland (1951), they actually move and have fast paced energy without being tediously slow. For example, Leslie J. Clark who is obviously a nod to Les Clark (Nine Old Men Fame) has alot of smooth and interesting movements and feels more cartoony, and has a distinctive design. I really like it.

The other characters are fun too and are what I expect in a likeable abstract cartoon, straightforward and energetic. Pauline has some excellent poses and an amusing personality and H.U Hennessy is a really funny bad guy and Bletcher as always does an excellent job voicing the character.

Later in the cartoon, we get different backgrounds with each given action scene and there's absolutely no sign of filler or flawed moments in the slightest, its honestly just all played for exaggeration and creativity.

I also love the ending punchline, that little silly voice saying "Well possibly it was only your imagination" considering that Donald had to go through a few minutes of pure unrealistic possibilities. This was so different than what you usually see in Donald's cartoons and even his personality is different here. After re-watching it, it lead me to make my own version but this time with Dredd The Moose using his vivid imagination to meet with unusually different characters and silly scenarios.

First is Groucho, obviously inspired by Groucho Marx from the Marx Bros, and his witty charming humor.

Secondly is the beastly Wolf, his fur is a reddish-brown tone. He's described as being bold and logical, while also being welcomed to any situation.

And lastly The Jester who is simply a performer with tons of talents, in most instances, he grabs out a yo-yo, but still keeps accidentally failing over and over again, but The Wolf can't get enough it.

This isn't where it starts, but I did it anyway, hope you like it.

For the next and final cartoon, is something a little more passable, but it was definitely drawn to me in alot of ways, like the title of the cartoon, Donald Duck and The Gorilla, and some of the scenes are actually really enjoyable.

Just like with Duck Pimples which would come out a year later, this film has an introduction that's quite similar. It begins with a house, it's storming, and Donald alongside his nephews are listening to the radio.

Like I said, this version of the cartoon I captured pictures to isn't entirely the remastered version, in fact it was partially on the House Of Villains DVD, but I prefer the colors to this print alot more.

Anyways, this film heavily focuses on the suspense that a gorilla has escaped the zoo, and the nephews worried that they are fully aware that it might break through their house. It's all pretty darn good so far.

Then completely obvious out of nowhere, Huey, Dewey and Louie decide that they would disguise themselves to trick and scare Donald. It's weird how the costume looks identical to the actual real gorilla we get to see later in the cartoon.

This is fresh for a short subject by Disney. I remember first watching this film and being heavily impressed by how creative you can get in only 7 minutes and a straightforward premise.

This frame of Donald accidentally using the candle to burn the door knob is an underrated and stellar image.

My favorite sequences are when the chase actually begins, especially when the gorilla tries to destroy Donald's table, it's fantastic.

I did feel like the ending to this cartoon was kinda embarrassing. Both the gorilla and Donald crying while the nephews use the tear gas is just not that clever to end it off.

Still both these cartoons have alot of good qualities and have interesting premises and character development.

So what I came up with was Dredd The Moose meeting with spooky, or horror novel characters.

The first one I created was a tap-dancing skeleton named Ol' Smoky. I talked about this character of mine in another post I made last September.

Here's the link if your curious.

https://sngexplorationblog.blogspot.com/2024/09/halloween-is-coming.html?m=1