Donald Duck (cartoon series)

Donald Duck is a series of animated short subjects produced by Disney. The series stars an unlucky duck with a foul temper and speech impediment, but his heart is in the right place. When the writers ran out of ideas for Mickey mainly due to the various "role model" restrictions hampered onto the character as of the mid-1930s, they turned their attention to Donald because he had all the qualities and flaws of an average hard working man. The duck became Disney's newest star, alongside Goofy and Mh:greatcharacters:Pluto. The series ran from June 9, 1934 to June 21, 1961.

Why It Is “Ducky”

 * 1) The titular character is best known for having a heart of gold under his foul temper, despite being born unlucky. He also represents the qualities and flaws of a hard working man.
 * 2) *His "duck" voice is a contrast to Mickey's falsetto and Goofy's dopey simpleton voices. Also, as Mickey progressed into an everyman character, Donald inherited his previously mischievous traits.
 * 3) *When Mickey's role model status prevented him from taking up major active roles since the mid-1930s, fortunately Donald, whom isn't hampered by the same "role model" restrictions, is able to keep the Mickey Mouse franchise alive throughout the 1930s-1950s by his funnier, more comedic and less-restrictive cartoons.
 * 4) **In fact, Jack Hannah, a recurring director of the Donald Duck cartoons, claimed that some of the cartoons conceived were originally planned to be standard Mickey Mouse cartoons, only for the writers to end up replacing Mickey with Donald as the protagonist in the final products on second thoughts when they find out on that some of the gags used in these concepts were "too rough" for Mickey's "role model" status of the 1930s-1950s.
 * 5) One of the main reasons what made the Donald Duck cartoons so popular and beloved among audiences is how his cartoons are far more comedic and slapstick-driven than the rest of Disney's animated short cartoon output of the 1930s-1950s (yes, even more so than the Mickey Mouse, Goofy and Pluto cartoons themselves), with heaps of funny gags and great use of slapstick humor with a lot of clever and excellent timings. In fact, his series is mainly Disney's answer to various Tex Avery-inspired slapstick comedy cartoon series which were popular throughout the 1940s-1950s such as Looney Tunes, Tom and Jerry and Tex Avery cartoons.
 * 6) His series, as well as the Goofy series, are some of the earliest examples of comic relief-centered spin-offs done right in animation, unlike some botched comic relief-centric spin-offs. Like Goofy, Donald originally started off as a comic relief sidekick to Mickey in the Mickey Mouse cartoons, only to receive his own series of cartoons because of his popularity, and proved that he is capable of being the star of their own series due to him having a more complex personality aside for just being comic relief which enables him to stand on his own as an individual main protagonist in his own right. In fact, Donald proved to be so successful as a main star that there are heaps of spin-off material mainly centering on him, such as comic books (mostly written by Carl Barks), feature films like Saludos Amigos and The Three Caballeros, as well as numerous episodes of various TV shows such as the Walt Disney anthology series, DuckTales, Disney's House of Mouse and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse where Donald is given the main focus.
 * 7) Supporting characters such as Donald's girlfriend, Daisy Duck, and his nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie, were introduced to the series.
 * 8) Donald dealt with foes that Mickey had done before, such as Pete, The Gorilla and many others.
 * 9) Wonderful voice acting from Clarence Nash, Gloria Blondell and Billy Bletcher.
 * 10) The soundtrack of the cartoons are lush in orchestration, as with the Mickey Mouse series.
 * 11) Chip 'N Dale got their start as enemies to Donald Duck, before they got their own series of shorts.
 * 12) Has so many great shorts, such as:
 * 13) *"Don Donald" (The first cartoon in the series, which gave Donald a love interest for the very first time)
 * 14) *"Trick or Treat"
 * 15) *”Donaldʼs Dilemma”
 * 16) *”Mr Duck Steps Out” (which introduced Daisy Duck)
 * 17) *”Truant Officer Donald”
 * 18) *”Duck Pimples”
 * 19) *”Clown of the Jungle”
 * 20) *”Chip ʼnʼ Dale” (which introduced mentioned characters)
 * 21) *”Donaldʼs Nephews” (which introduced Huey, Dewey, & Louie)
 * 22) Impressive animation for late 1930s and 1940s standards.
 * 23) Has a catchy theme song based on his personality, even more so than "Minnie's Yoo-Hoo" (the original theme to the Mickey Mouse shorts).

Bad Qualities

 * 1) Several shorts from the WW2-era are extremely offensive towards Japanese people (including Japanese fans of the show, and there are a lot of them). One of the anti-Nazi shorts featuring Donald Duck, Der Fuhrer's Face (which won an Academy Award), was ironically widely used by Neo-Nazis movement.
 * 2) Donald's character design in his debut appearance is pretty ugly compared to his later round and cuter design. His face looked more like a realistic duck head and his limbs looking more thin and rubbery.
 * 3) In the mid-50s, the art style took a downgrade in quality despite the conversion from Academy ratio to CinemaScope widescreen process, similar to the CinemaScope MGM cartoons produced in the late-1950s. The irony is the animation style is still the same.
 * 4) *The stories also took a nosedive as well, despite Disney's reputation as a high budget studio.
 * 5) *By the 1950s decade, while not entirely bad or terrible, Donald is more of a huge Butt-Monkey in most of the later cartoons. He suffered abuse from various characters such as Chip and Dale, Humphrey the Bear, and even his own nephews compared to previous cartoons.

Trivia

 * Donald Duck was able to get an orange juice named after him, which continues to be sold in grocery stores to this day.