Donald Duck 90th Birthday Special: A Look At Mr Duck Steps Out
Happy Birthday Donald! For those I haven't had a chance to tell, i'm a HUGE Donald Duck Fan. Easily my faviorite Disney Character and the best of the sensational six.... which Pluto is a part of for some godforsaken reason but you didn't hear to come me badmouth a cartoon dog, I didn't come here to do that, it's time to celebrate one of the best characters in all of ficiton. And that's not hyperbole: Donald is a versatile character: he's been the best dad ever, an absuive parent, a put upon dad raising three horrifying nephews, a loving boyfriend, a negelctful ass, a put upon worker in the nazi regime, a sailor, a soldier, a cabllero, a singer, a lover, a dreamer, me, an unstoppable force of rage, a heavily abused worker for a billionare, a fire fighter, a musketeer, owen an ostrich, owned a penguin, fought an elder god, been to the moon and back, reawakened a billionare's will to live, been a superhero, been in a collectable card game, had a goose eat everything in his kitchen and many more adventures i'm simply not aware of. Donald has done it all.
Donald is at his best though when he's the every man: he fucks up, get's frustrated and often fails, but keeps going anyway. He reminds us that failure or loosing your temper isn't the end, you can recover from it and even if you don't, that's life.
To Honor Him I was spoiled for choice with tons of Barks stories, a ducktales episode, and a quack pack episode that all fit.. but for 90 years, I wanted something special, something that captured the age of the character, the scope of what he's capable of and the humor all in one.
So I settled on this: I covered this short way back in my donald duck shortsravagangza years ago, but felt it deserved a closer look: This short is without a doubt my faviorite theatrical short. That is a large library and given my love of Looney Tunes and Tom and Jerry, a tall order, and others certainly come close. I mean I bought a 40 short compliation called best of space jam just to get Hot Cross Bunny, it's a close race.. but it's one this short wins. It's got great timing, gorgeous animation and tons of great laughs and while it's throughly tied to the 40's it was born in, that creates an old fashiond charm to it. It's far and away one of disney's best cartoons ever, so if you please, join me under the cut to find out why.
Mr Duck Steps out came out in 1940 and is notable as the very first apperance of Daisy, and with an opener like this, it's easy to see why she stuck around.
It's also got a power house team behind it: Besides Disney's fantastic as always staff from them, it was directed by Jack King. Jack is someone I just really looked into and shame on me: With how much I love this short, I shoudl've done this way sooner because as it turns out King's career is drenched in Donald Duck Classics. King started his career as an animator, only moving up to director after leaving Disney to work at Warner Bros. His first efforts were the much malinged Buddy Cartoons, along with a few starring attempted star beans the cat.
Thankfully he moved back to Disney which not only bumped him up to director (Albeit uncredited because animation directors went uncredited back then which was awful), where he found his Niche: By then Donald Duck had started his solo career and King proceeded to direct most of his shorts from then on out exclusivley worked witht he duck.. and it was a match made in heaven. King perfectly got the duck's style, how to direct his temper and thus most of his shorts with donald are classics. A few duds from the ones of his I have seen but you can't win em all. He directed faviorites of mine such as Modern Inventions (His first Donald Duck Short), Donald's Ostrich, and the Hockey Champ and i'm defintely going to watch more
The other key to his success was another legend, the guy who made Donald what he is on screen and page Carl Barks. Yes something I often forget and the public at large seems to is Carl Barks was writer and story director on a LOT of Donald Duck Shorts. You can tell too as the more put upon everyman from his comics is present: He may not speak as much, but he's there. Barks really got how to bring out the best in donald and how to make him look good and with an all star team of animators. Combine him with a director who really got the character and you get magic.
Mr Duck Steps out Preemered on June 6th 1940, making this a celebration of it's 84th anniversary as well , if a few days late. It was distributed by RKO and other than that I don't have much. This short is great, I wish I knew more about it, let's begin.
The short has a simple setup: Donald in a banger outfit that's rightfully gotten a funko in Disney's 20th anniversary wave... which so far is donald doing a temper tantrum, in his black sailor suit from the comics, in this banger outfit and for some reason, with heart eyes. One of these things is out of place and it's the heart eyes. It's cute and all but the guy has a massive career and costumes to pull from. Come on.
At any rate Donald has a date tonight and does some really fun dancing to some 40's music. The dancing animation is REALLY fucking smooth and one of the best things this short has, with the moves being smooth as butter.
Unfortunately for him, his Nephew's want to tag along. I love them dancing right behind him and when he opens the door and realizes there there, using his cane like a hook to pull them back in the house.
Huey , Unsettling Yellow Dewey and Louie are prominent here and while I used to hate the classic versions for being identical i've mostly come around. I still PREFER that they have seperate distinct personalities, the Ducktales Reboot versions are still far and away the best, taking elements from different versions and separating them into three distinct people with designs that make it easy to tell them apart.
That said the three in one version CAN work: It worked in the comics as having three gave them more flexiblity and Scrooge more of a crew, yet characterization wise still fill just one slot, making a freudian trio with their uncles. Likewise they work very well when their the absolute worst, little hellions who are like living in a living nightmare and put their uncle through a LOT. There the numbers game means Donald can't beat them easily. It also works in more benign examples of showing him up like the hockey champ.
So for this short it works well that Donald's outnumbered: he rightfully wants a night to himself and while he shoudl've got a sitter, his frustration and antics towards the kids feel entirely understandable when they keep following him, taking his choclates for daisy and nearly getting strangled for it, back when that was a funny punchline and not child abuse.
Enter daisy complete with fan fare. I've always loved it, the fact she has a curtain to announce herself, the fact there's this random fan fare, the fact the fan fare dosen't land as much as this isn't a new character to modern viewers so much as "One of the core cast for 84 years now". I also love Donald's rebound of "Hehehe I brought my nephews, weh". Clarence Nash's delivery is great. His delivery as Daisy and the boys also works and feels mostly distinct, though I do get why June Foray and Tress MacNeile have both dubbed over him in some versions. I still go with the original but I get wanting a voice that actually sounds like daisy and not exactly like her boyfriend.
Donald gives the kids a quarter for ice cream, another delivery I love. While Tony Anselmo is my faviorite Donald, Nash really can't be understated: while the voice itself is impressive, how expressive he can get with it is remarkable, able to make donald angry, horny or happy as can be with ease. Screen Donald gets flack for not having his comics counterparts range, but I think with the right scripts, Nash gave donald a lot of great comedic range and had excellent timing, able to make what could've been just a goofy voice one of the best characters in animation. That little "heh" when he says he brought his nephews, the awkward way he says it as he's making it up on the spot it's so good.
So Donald gets to flirt with Daisy, who flirts with him with her ass
How they made THIS sexy I don't know. Maybe i've just lost it. It's hard to tell. But it's also funny and Donald sadly dose'nt get a kiss as the little shits return and try to ruin his date because.. their bored? he tried to leave them behind? They have no souls just a styigan void where it would be?
They dance and that's really the bulk of the short as the boys cut in, Donald cuts back in after turning into a tiger, and it's all amazingly animated. Just fluid, gorgeous and hilaroius to look at. Really smooth stuff. I also like how happy and cheerful daisy is here. She still has some of her later pepper in how fast she moves, but I like her being upbeat but assertive over thier later status quo
I love that short but I prefer them as a stable couple over bickering assholes.. or in the case of three Cabs Daisy an ABUSIVE asshole.
It all ends in the boys deciding to feed donald popcorn kernels, have them explode inside him and ... somehow that'd ruin the date. or kill him their fine with either. So we get a really fun climax as donald dances to the beat of the pop corn, daisy rolls with it and the boys play piano, a manequin like a base guitar and plungers. What makes it work best is not only how fun the animatoin is.. but that Donald comes out on top. The boys are pretty awful and Donald is fine to have one night ot himself. Still should've gotten that sitter but .. 40's. What can you do? He gets covered with kisses and wins the day. It's a sweet ending.
Overall this short is just masterful. I said what i could but it's a feast for the eyes ears and pancreas with some great gags, fast animation and is just.. a joy. It makes me happy every time I watch it and is easy to default to when I want to watch a disney short. It's on D+ if you have it in glorious hd and if not you can still find it on the internet archive, and I recommmend you go seek it out. It's only 9 minutes and every one of those is worth your time. Thanks for reading.
