Donald Duck’s 80th Anniversary

I’m not sure, but I think Donald Duck’s birthday is a national holiday in Denmark. Here to celebrate the 80th Anniversary of Don’s public debut is a series of tweets from Danish comics scholar, animation expert, and all-round good egg Jakob Stegelmann.

Happy 80th Birthday, Donald Duck. No wiser but still going strong. Thanks to Walt, Ducky, Ben, Jack, Carl etc
– Jakob Stegelmann (@JakobStegelmann) June 9, 2014



The first one: Wise Little Hen, premiered June 9th, 1934
– Jakob Stegelmann (@JakobStegelmann) June 9, 2014



… and his breakthrough moment, The Band Concert, 1935
– Jakob Stegelmann (@JakobStegelmann) June 9, 2014



Jack Hannah was Don’s director in the ’40s. One of his best: Three for Breakfast
– Jakob Stegelmann (@JakobStegelmann) June 9, 2014



… but one of Dons best films is this one by Ben Sharpsteen, 1936. Beware! Flying knives!
– Jakob Stegelmann (@JakobStegelmann) June 9, 2014



… and Carl Barks wrote and storyboarded this 1941-Classic
– Jakob Stegelmann (@JakobStegelmann) June 9, 2014

Donald Duck 80: great comic book cover. Barks took Don to the next level.
– Jakob Stegelmann (@JakobStegelmann) June 9, 2014



Donald Duck 80: This 1945 Jack Kinney-directed short is the strangest Don-cartoon ever made: Duck Pimples
– Jakob Stegelmann (@JakobStegelmann) June 9, 2014

… and Barks did some weird things to Donald in the comics too, like Bombie the Zombie 1949
– Jakob Stegelmann (@JakobStegelmann) June 9, 2014

Donald Duck 80: Let's not forget the first great comic artist to take Donald from screen to print: Al Taliaferro.
– Jakob Stegelmann (@JakobStegelmann) June 9, 2014



Donald Duck 80: Academy Award-anti-nazi Duck: Der Fuehrer's Face
– Jakob Stegelmann (@JakobStegelmann) June 9, 2014



Donald Duck 80: the one and only film appearance of Cousin Gus (fætter Guf) for @catobagger
– Jakob Stegelmann (@JakobStegelmann) June 9, 2014



Why not end Donald's 80th celebration with a hot number? Mr.Duck Steps Out. Long live the King of Ducks…
– Jakob Stegelmann (@JakobStegelmann) June 9, 2014

Three-eyed cat

Behold, Peggy’s petrifying pumpkin!

Michael Sporn has a treat for you this year, a post on the classic Carl Barks Halloween duck comic, Trick or Treat.

Blitz Wolf

Three little pigs, a big bad wolf, and a non-aggression pact, in Tex Avery‘s 1942 cartoon, Blitz Wolf, his first release for MGM after several years at Warner Brothers.

Blitz Wolf was nominated for an Academy Award, but lost to Disney’s Der Fuehrer’s Face, below. Both cartoons apply established style and content to the task, the Donald Duck short obviously drawing on Chaplin’s Modern Times as well as Disney’s own Dumbo, but I think Avery’s well practiced irreverence comes out best here.



In Blitz Wolf, the censored word in the background painting at 4:10 is “Japs”, visible in some lower quality YouTube uploads. There is of course no shortage of racist material in other cartoons of the period, from  Tex Avery, from other directors, from other studios, in war cartoons and other cartoons.

The Disney cartoon too is unworried by the device of colouring its caricature of Hirohito bright yellow, (or is it meant to be Prime Minister Tojo?) and you can find examples of dumb racist caricature in Disney animation as late as The Aristocats.

It’s interesting to compare the Disney caricature of Axis leaders with one by Arthur Szyk. The 1943 Szyk image, a cover painting for Collier’s is if anything more brutal, but without resorting to crude skin colour cliché. More on Szyk and the Emperor of Japan.

Right Wing Radio Duck

By Jonathan McIntosh, via Cartoon Brew.

An earlier Donald Duck post here.

Dan Turèll and Donald Duck

An excerpt from a Danmarks Radio interview with Dan Turèll, for the TV programme Rubrik, 1976:

You have written an essay about Donald Duck, and a poem to Uncle Scrooge.

Yes, Donald Duck is a great man. I have said it with the words that in these times where so many offer gurus, and where so many of my own generation suddenly sit on street corners and chant Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, or run joyous and happy after the plump Maharaji, or go for tests with Scientology, in these times the only anti-guru that we can sensibly use to vaccinate ourselves against all that guru devilry, that must be my great guru, the man who taught me all I know and can do, my personal Maharaji Ji, Donald Duck.

I think Donald Duck is the best example we can take in our everyday lives today, where so many sigh after new and fresh inspiration, because what characterises Donald Duck, and it has characterised him since he came to Denmark in the late ’40s, that is that Donald Duck is always ready every Tuesday.

Donald Duck is always being beaten down, Donald Duck gets knocked down by The Beagle Boys, his nephews laugh at him, Gladstone Gander always wins the old sofa at auction where there’s a treasure map hidden away, Uncle Scrooge just orders him about, and tells him that now he has to go over and check on some old railway or other, long derelict and far out in the desert, which hasn’t paid a dividend on its shares in more than thirty years, Daisy Duck laughs at him and is always on the lookout for another better duck, and all the same, despite all this, Donald Duck is ready, and comes down the road, merrily whistling a fresh tune, every Tuesday. This time he knows, this time everything will work out, this time he’ll manage it, Uncle Scrooge will admire him, appoint him as sole heir, Daisy will say “Oh, Donald,” and the nephews will look at him with eyes wide with wonder, and tell their friends just what a fantastic uncle they have.

And it doesn’t work out that way, and we all know that it won’t, because by now we’ve known Donald long enough, we know quite well that it will go in the usual way. He gets a job in a bakery and what happens, he comes to mix concrete in the dough ... he gets a job in the zoo as a night watchman, and all the animals escape, and we know it, and he ends up in the Foreign Legion again, and the nephews get a postcard in the final panel, and all the same there he is again next Tuesday.

And that’s why I think that Donald Duck is a magnificent example for people of today, who also must be ready to start over with the same indomitability every morning, even though the day before has been so full of violence and loathing, as practically everyone’s days are.

My Translation. Original film copyright © DR.

For more along these lines, read Michael Barrier on The Mystery of Donald Duck, and see his follow up, and to hear Dan Turèll preach the duck faith in Danish, listen to Anders And Evangeliet.

Image: Cover art by Mike Royer, based on an oil painting by Carl Barks. It illustrates the Carl Barks story Donald Duck and the Ghost of the Grotto, first published in 1947. Copyright © The Walt Disney Company.