Don Donald

1937 "The first official Donald Duck cartoon"
6.7| 0h8m| NR| en
Details

Donald is courting Daisy (called Donna, here in her first appearance) Duck in Mexico. He arrives on a burro, which doesn't get along at all well with her; she convinces him to buy a car. They head through the desert, but the car breaks down, and throws Donald out, then takes off on its own with Daisy trapped inside the rumble seat. The car hits a rock, throwing Daisy into a mud puddle, to Donald's excessive amusement. Daisy pulls a unicycle from her purse, and rides off.

Director

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Walt Disney Productions

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Reviews

Gutsycurene Fanciful, disturbing, and wildly original, it announces the arrival of a fresh, bold voice in American cinema.
Asad Almond A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.
Ella-May O'Brien Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.
Sarita Rafferty There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.
TheLittleSongbird Don Donald was very interesting. The animation is very well done and colourful, and the music is stylish. The story is rather routine and the middle half of the short is rather slow. But it is funny, the two duck stars are very appealing, and one of the main reasons why I like this short is because Donald finds love. There are some good jokes like Donald's attempts to mend the broken down car, Donald laughing whenever Daisy does something funny much to her annoyance, and Donald's hat shrinking when it fills with water. And Clarence voices Donald to perfection. I have always thought this Donald Duck cartoon as an interesting one, it isn't the best, but it isn't the worst either. But it is one of the better ones. 8/10 Bethany Cox
Ron Oliver A Walt Disney DONALD DUCK Cartoon.In Old Mexico, DON DONALD learns what it takes to impress a temperamental señorita.Daisy Duck made her movie debut in this very enjoyable little film, which features good animation and funny performances from both Ducks. Strangely, it would be another three years before Daisy returned for her second appearance, in MR DUCK STEPS OUT (1940). At this point in her career, Daisy received her unique vocalization from the same source as Donald - talented voice artist Clarence Nash.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 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 will always pay off.
Spleen "Don Donald" has the distinction of being Donald's first solo cartoon. That's its only distinction. It offers no more than occasional, incomplete glimpses of Donald's personality, which had been far more fully developed in his cameo in "The Band Concert" (1935) and the ten or so cartoons that had been made since in which he had co-starred.The basic problem is one of casting. Donald may be the greatest, richest cartoon creation of all time, but there are some things he can't do, and role-playing song-and-dance is one of them. This is more the kind of cartoon that was assigned to Mickey at the start of HIS solo career. Mickey was born to play roles. Donald was always best as himself. (That's one of the reasons why Mickey's segment in "Fantasia" would be, if it were separate, one of the best short cartoons ever made, while the best that can be said of Donald's segment in the generally ill-conceived "Fantasia 2000" is that it was a game but doomed effort.) It's surprising that a director as talented and astute as Ben Sharpsteen could have made so elementary a mistake.Donald's solo career would soon take off. Later in 1937 he'd appear in "Modern Inventions" and "Donald's Ostrich", both the real thing.
dimadick The character that is in this short is not Daisy but Donna Duck who briefly appeared in comic strips even meeting Daisy in one of them,which means they are not the same person.Donald first dates this woman who temper matches his own and Daisy's.This woman doesn't need the protection or help of her partner like Minnie.In this movie the male and the female character are alike in so many aspects it gets intriguing.Too bad Disney didn't oftenly use srong female characters.Easily one of the most interesting Donald shorts and the first to portray him as a lover.