Donald Duck
Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created by the Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor shirt and cap with a bow tie. Donald is known for his semi-intelligible speech and his mischievous, temperamental, and pompous personality.
Widely regarded as one of the most famous cartoon characters of the 20th century, he has been described by scholars and critics as a global cultural icon of animation. Along with his friend Mickey Mouse, Donald was included in TV Guides list of the 50 greatest cartoon characters of all time in 2002, and has earned a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. He has appeared in more films than any other Disney character.
Donald Duck appeared in comedic roles in animated cartoons. Donald's first appearance was in The Wise Little Hen, but it was his second appearance in Orphan's Benefit that same year that introduced him as a temperamental comic foil to Mickey Mouse. Throughout the next two decades, Donald appeared in over 150 theatrical films, several of which were recognized at the Academy Awards. In the 1930s, he typically appeared as part of a comic trio with Mickey and Goofy and was given his own film series starting with Don Donald. These films introduced Donald's love interest and permanent girlfriend Daisy Duck and often included his three nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie. After the film Chips Ahoy, Donald appeared primarily in educational films before eventually returning to theatrical animation in Mickey's Christmas Carol. His last appearance in a theatrical film was in Fantasia 2000. However, since then Donald has appeared in direct-to-video features such as Mickey, Donald, Goofy: The Three Musketeers, television series such as Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and video games such as QuackShot, Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers and the Kingdom Hearts series.
In addition to animation, Donald is well known worldwide for his appearances in comics. Donald was most famously drawn by Al Taliaferro, Carl Barks, and Don Rosa. Barks, in particular, is credited for greatly expanding the "Donald Duck universe", the world in which Donald lives, and creating many additional characters such as Donald's rich uncle Scrooge McDuck. Donald has been a popular character in Europe, particularly in Nordic countries. In Italy, Donald is a major character in many comics, including a juvenile version named Paperino Paperotto, and a superhero alter ego known as Paperinik.
Characteristics
Voice
The character is known for possessing an only partly intelligible voice, developed by Donald's original performer, Clarence Nash. During an interview, Tony Anselmo revealed that "Most people believe that Donald's voice is done squeezing air through the cheek, that is not true. I can't reveal how it's actually done, but it is definitely not done by squeezing air through the cheek. The Hanna-Barbera character 'Yakky Doodle' is done that way. Donald Duck is not." Nash reputedly originally developed the voice as that of a "nervous baby goat" before Walt Disney interpreted it as sounding like a duck.Personality
The character of Donald Duck is portrayed as an impatient, immature, and arrogant duck with a pessimistic attitude and an insecure disposition. In addition, his two dominant personality traits are his fiery temper and his cynical attitude to life. Many Donald shorts start with Donald in a happy mood, without a care in the world until something comes along and spoils his day. His rage is a great cause of suffering in his life. On multiple occasions, it has caused him to get in over his head and lose competitions. There are times when he fights to keep his temper in check, and he sometimes succeeds in doing so temporarily, but he always returns to his normal angry self in the end.Donald's aggressive nature has its advantages, however. While at times it is a hindrance, and even a handicap, it has also helped him in times of need. When faced with a threat of some kind he is initially scared, but his fear is replaced by anger. As a result, instead of running away, he fights. In fact, his anger can make him powerful enough to defeat ghosts, sharks, mountain goats, giant kites, and even the forces of nature.
Donald is something of a prankster, and as a result, he can sometimes come across as a bit of a bully, especially in the way he sometimes treats Chip and Dale and Huey, Dewey and Louie. As animator Fred Spencer put it:
However, with a few exceptions, there is seldom any harm in Donald's pranks. He almost never intends to hurt anyone, and when his pranks go too far, he is often apologetic. In Truant Officer Donald, for example, when he is tricked into believing he has accidentally killed Huey, Dewey, and Louie, he shows great regret, blaming himself. His nephews appear in the form of angels, and he willingly endures a kick by one of them—that is, of course, until he realizes he has been tricked, whereupon he promptly loses his temper.
Donald is also a bit of a poseur. He likes to brag, especially about how skilled he is at something. He does, in fact, have many skills—he is something of a Jack-of-all-trades. Amongst other things, he is a talented fisher, a competent hockey player, and a skilled pianist. However, his love of bragging often leads him to overestimate his abilities, so that when he sets out to make good on his boasts, he gets in over his head, usually to hilarious effect.
Another of his personality traits is perseverance. Even though he can at times be a slacker, and likes to say that his favorite place to be is in a hammock, once he has committed to accomplishing something, he goes for it 100 percent, sometimes resorting to extreme measures to reach his goal.
Health
There is a running gag in the Donald Duck comics about him being physically unhealthy and unmotivated to exercise. Usually, some character close to Donald annoys him by saying he is being lazy and needs to get some exercise. But despite his apparent idleness, Donald proves that he is muscular. In the short film Sea Scouts, Donald is traveling with his nephews in a boat when it is attacked by a shark. Donald makes several attempts to defeat the shark, each of which proves ineffective, but then finally triumphs and defeats the shark with a single well-placed punch. Additionally, as discussed below, Donald had a stint in the U.S. Army during World War II that culminated with him serving as a commando in the film Commando Duck, and he was frequently away serving in the U.S. Navy in the television cartoon series DuckTales.Friendly rivalry with Mickey Mouse
Throughout his appearances, Donald has shown that he is jealous of Mickey and wants his job as Disney's greatest star, similar to the rivalry between Daffy Duck and Bugs Bunny. In most Disney theatrical cartoons, Mickey and Donald are shown as friends and have little to no rivalry. However, by the time The Mickey Mouse Club aired on television, it was shown that Donald always wanted the spotlight.One animated short that rivaled the "Mickey Mouse March" song showed Huey, Dewey, and Louie as Boy Scouts and Donald as their Scoutmaster at a cliff near a remote forest and Donald leads them in a song mirroring the Mouseketeers theme "D-O-N-A-L-D D-U-C-K! Donald Duck!" The rivalry has caused Donald some problems, for example in a 1988 TV special, where Mickey is cursed by a sorcerer to become unnoticed, the world believes Mickey to be kidnapped. Donald Duck is then arrested for the kidnapping of Mickey, as he is considered to be the chief suspect, due to their feud. However, Donald did later get the charges dismissed, due to lack of evidence. Walt Disney, in his Wonderful World of Color, would sometimes make reference to the rivalry. Walt, one time, had presented Donald with a gigantic birthday cake and commented how it was "even bigger than Mickey's", which pleased Donald. The clip was rebroadcast in November 1984 during a TV special honoring Donald's 50th birthday, with Dick Van Dyke substituting for Walt.
The rivalry between Mickey and Donald was shown in the 2001-2003 television series House of Mouse. It was shown that Donald wanted to be the club's founder and wanted to change the name from House of Mouse to House of Duck, which is obvious in the episodes "The Stolen Cartoons" and "Timon and Pumbaa". In the episode "Everybody Loves Mickey", Donald's jealousy is explored and even joins sides with Mortimer Mouse. However, Donald has a change of heart when Daisy reminds Donald how Mickey has always been there to support him. Since then, Donald accepted that Mickey was the founder and worked with Mickey as a partner to make the club profitable and successful.
Enemies
Donald has numerous enemies, who range from comical foil to annoying nemesis: Chip 'n' Dale, Pete, Humphrey the Bear, Spike the Bee, Mountain Lion Louie, Bootle Beetle, Witch Hazel, Aracuan Bird and Baby Shelby. During the Second World War, pro-Allied cartoons saw Donald set against Adolf Hitler and the Nazi regime.In the comics, he is often harassed or on the run from the Beagle Boys, Magica De Spell, Gladstone Gander and Mr. Jones.
In the video game Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers, he saves Daisy from Merlock.
The Italian-produced comic PKNA – Paperinik New Adventures stars Donald Duck as Paperinik, or Duck Avenger, in his battles against new alien enemies: Evronian Empire, founded by emperor Evron.
Origin
Voice performer Clarence Nash auditioned for Walt Disney Studios when he learned that Disney was looking for people to create animal sounds for his cartoons. Disney was particularly impressed with Nash's duck imitation and chose him to voice the new character. Disney came up with Donald's iconic attributes including his short temper and his sailor suit. While Dick Huemer and Art Babbit were the first to animate Donald, Dick Lundy is credited for developing him as a character.On April 29, 1934, five days before The Wise Little Hen's first theatrical release, bandleader Raymond Paige performed the score to the cartoon on his California Melodies program for the Los Angeles AM radio station KHJ. The main vocals were performed by a trio, the Three Rhythm Kings. Clarence Nash and Florence Gill performed the character voices for this radio treatment, with Nash performing both Donald Duck and Peter Pig, making it the first time the public heard Nash's duck voice.
An apocryphal alternative story for how Donald was created came about from a claim that Disney was watching an exhibition cricket match between Australia and the New York West Indians and Australia's star batsman Don Bradman was out for a duck. Disney allegedly used this as inspiration for the character. However, the veracity of this has been doubted by modern historians.