Origin-
The origins of Donald Duck's name was said to have been inspired by Australian cricket legend Donald Bradman. In 1932 Bradman and the Australian team were touring North America and he made the news after being dismissed for a duck against New York West Indians. Walt Disney was in the process of creating a "friend" for Mickey Mouse when he read about Bradman's dismissal in the papers and decided to name the new character "Donald Duck". Voice performer Clarence Nash auditioned for Walt Disney Studios when he learned that Disney was looking for people to create animal sounds for this cartoons. Disney was particularly impressed with Nash's duck imitation and chose him to voice the new character. Besides, during that period Mickey Mouse had lost some of his edge since becoming a role model towards children, and so Disney wanted to create a character to portray some of the more negative character traits that could no longer bestow on Mickey. Disney came up with Donald's iconic attributes including this short-temper and his sailor suit (based on ducks and sailors both being associated with water). While Dick Huemer and Art Babbit were first to animate Donald,Dick Lundy is credited for developing him as a character.
Characteristics-
Donald's two dominant personality traits are his short temper and his positive outlook on 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 anger 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, 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 it 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, for example Pete's attempts to intimidate him, he is initially scared, but his fear is replaced by anger. As a result, instead of running away, he fights—with ghosts, sharks,mountain goats, giant kites, and even the forces of nature. And, more often than not, when he fights, he comes out on top.
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 his nephews and Chip 'n' Dale. As the animator Fred Spencer has put it:
The Duck gets a big kick out of imposing on other people or annoying them, but he immediately loses his temper when the tables are turned. In other words, he can dish it out, but he can't take it.
However, with a few exceptions, there is seldom any malice in Donald's pranks. He almost never intends to hurt anyone, and whenever his pranks go too far, he is always very regretful. In Truant Officer Donald, for example, when he is tricked into believing he has accidentally killed Huey, Dewey and Louie, he shows great remorse, blaming himself. His nephews appear in the form of angels, and he willingly endures a kick by one of the them---that is, of course, until he realizes he has been played for a sap, whereupon he promptly loses his temper.
Donald is also a bit of a show-off. 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 good fisher and a good hockey player. 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 tenacity. Even though he can at times be lazy, and likes to say that his favorite place to be is in ahammock, once he has committed to accomplishing something he goes for it 100 percent, sometimes resorting to extreme measures to reach his goal.
Donald has a few memorable phrases that he occasionally comes out with in certain situations. For example, when he stumbles across other characters in the midst of planning some sort of retaliation or prank, or when things don't go as he'd planned or don't work properly, he often says, "What's the big idea!?". When he has given up on something he's been trying to do, or something he's been hoping will happen, he tends to say, "Aw, phooey!". When he confronts someone who's been antagonizing him, or something that's been frustrating him, he likes to exclaim, "So!!". He greets his friend Daisy, and occasionally others, with, "Hiya, toots!". And when he's very excited about something, he usually mutters, "Oh boy, oh boy, oh boy..." under his breath.
There's a running gag in the Donald Duck comics about him being out of shape and unwilling to exercise. Usually, some character close to Donald annoys him by saying he's being lazy and needs to get some exercise. But despite his apparent slothfulness, Donald proves that he is physically strong. In the short film, Sea Scouts, Donald is traveling with his nephews in a boat when it's 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.
Rivalry with Mickey Mouse-
Throughout his career, Donald has shown that he's jealous of Mickey and wants his job as Disney's greatest star, similar to the Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck rivalry. In most Disney theatrical cartoons, Mickey and Donald are shown as partners and have little to no rivalry (exceptions being The Band Concert. Magician Mickey and near the end of Symphony Hour, which were due to Donald's menacing attempts). However by the time The Mickey Mouse Club aired on television (after Bugs vs. Daffy cartoons such as Rabbit Fire), it was shown that Donald always wanted the spotlight. One animated short that rivaled the famous Mickey Mouse March song was showing 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 would cause Donald some problems, 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 rivalry. 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 has also been shown in Disney's 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". However, in later episodes, Donald accepted that Mickey was the founder and worked with Mickey as a partner to make the club profitable and successful.
Donald has numerous enemies, who range from comical foil to annoying nemesis: Chip 'n' Dale, Humphrey the Bear, Spike The Bee, Mountain Lion Louie, Bootle Beetle, Witch Hazel (in Trick or Treat), Aracuan Bird and Baby Shelby (in Mickey Mouse Works).
In the comics, he is often pestered and tormented by the Beagle Boys, Magica De Spell, Gladstone Gander and Mr. Jones.
In the videogame Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers, he saves Daisy from Merlock.
In Animation-
Donald Duck first appeared in the 1934 cartoon The Wise Little Hen which was part of the Silly Symphoniesseries of theatrical cartoon shorts. The film's release date of June 9 is officially recognized by the Walt Disney Company as Donald's birthday despite a couple in-universe contradictions. Donald's appearance in the cartoon, as created by animator Dick Lundy, is similar to his modern look — the feather and beak colors are the same, as is the blue sailor shirt and hat — but his features are more elongated, his body plumper, and his feet smaller. Donald's personality is not developed either; in the short, he only fills the role of the unhelpful friend from the original story.
Burt Gillett brought Donald back in his Mickey Mouse cartoon, Orphan's Benefit, released August 11, 1934. Donald is one of a number of characters who are giving performances in a benefit for Mickey's Orphans. Donald's act is to recite the poems Mary Had a Little Lamb and Little Boy Blue, but every time he tries, the mischievous orphans heckle him, leading the duck to fly into a squawking fit of anger. This explosive personality would remain with Donald for decades to come.
Donald continued to be a hit with audiences. The character began appearing regularly in most Mickey Mouse cartoons. Cartoons from this period, such as the 1935 cartoon The Band Concert — in which Donald repeatedly disrupts the Mickey Mouse Orchestra's rendition of The William Tell Overture by playingTurkey in the Straw — are regularly hailed by critics as exemplary films and classics of animation. Animator Ben Sharpsteen also minted the classic Mickey, Donald, and Goofy comedy in 1935, with the cartoon Mickey's Service Station.
In 1936, Donald was redesigned to be a bit fuller, rounder, and cuter, the first to feature this design was the cartoon Moving Day. He also began starring in solo cartoons, the first of which was the January 9, 1937 Ben Sharpsteen cartoon, Don Donald. This short also introduced a love interest of Donald's, Donna Duck, who evolved into Daisy Duck. Donald's nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie, would make their first animated appearance a year later in the April 15, 1938 film, Donald's Nephews, directed by Jack King . By 1938, most polls showed that Donald was more popular than Mickey Mouse. Disney could, however, help Mickey regain popularity by redesigning him, giving him his most appealing design as production for the Fantasia segment "The Sorcerer's Apprentice" began in 1938.
After his early appearances, he went on to become part of the famed trio Mickey, Donald, and Goofy. He appeared in many of the cartoons, including Moving Day.
Wartime Donald-
Several of Donald's shorts during the war were propaganda films, most notably Der Fuehrer's Face, released on January 1, 1943. In it, Donald plays a worker in an artillery factory in "Nutzi Land" (Nazi Germany). He struggles with long working hours, very small food rations, and having to salute every time he sees a picture of the Führer (Adolf Hitler). These pictures appear in many places, such as on the assembly line in which he is screwing in the detonators of various sizes of shells. In the end he becomes little more than a small part in a faceless machine with no choice but to obey until he falls, suffering a nervous breakdown. Then Donald wakes up to find that his experience was in fact a dream. At the end of the short Donald looks to the Statue of Liberty and the American flag with renewed appreciation. Der Fuehrer's Face won the 1942 Academy Award for Animated Short Film.Der Fuehrer's Face was also the first of two animated short films to be set during the War to win an Oscar, the other being Tom and Jerry's short film, The Yankee Doodle Mouse.
Other notable shorts from this period include seven films mini-series that follow Donald's life in the US Army from his drafting to his life in basic training under sergeant Pete to his first actual mission as a commando having to sabotage a Japanese air base
Donald also appears as a mascot—such as in the Army Air Corps 309th Fighter Squadron and the U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary, which showed Donald as a fierce-looking pirate ready to defend the American coast from invaders. Donald also appeared as a mascot emblem for: 415th Fighter Squadron; 438th Fighter Squadron; 479th Bombardment Squadron; 531st Bombardment Squadron. He also appears as the mascot for the United States Air Force 319 Aircraft Maintenance Unit at Luke Air Force Base. He is seen wearing an old-style pilot's uniform with a board with a nail in it in one hand and a lightning bolt in the other hand. Donald's most famous appearance, however, was on North American Aviation B-25B Mitchell medium bomber (S/N 40-2261) piloted by Lt. Ted W. Lawson of the 95th Bombardment Squadron, USAAF. The aircraft, named the "Ruptured Duck" and carrying a picture of Donald's face above a pair of crossed crutches, was one of sixteen B-25Bs which took off from the aircraft carrier USS Hornet to bomb Tokyo on April 18, 1942. The mission was led by Lieutenant Colonel (later General) Jimmy Doolittle. Like most of the aircraft that participated in the mission, the Ruptured Duck was unable to reach its assigned landing field in China following the raid and ended up ditching off the coast near Shangchow, China. The Ruptured Duck's pilot survived, with the loss of a leg, and later wrote about the Doolittle Raid in the book, later to be the movie, Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo (Random House pub. 1943).
During World War II, Disney cartoons were not allowed to be imported into Occupied Europe owing to their propagandistic content. Since this cost Disney a lot of money, he decided to create a new audience for his films in South America. He decided to make a trip through various Latin American countries with his assistants, and use their experiences and impressions to create two feature-length animation films. The first was Saludos Amigos, which consisted of four short segments, two of them with Donald Duck. In the first, he meets his parrot pal Jose Carioca. The second film was The Three Caballeros, in which he meets his rooster friend Panchito.
Post-war animation-
Many of Donald's films made after the war recast the duck as the brunt of some other character's pestering. Donald is repeatedly attacked, harassed, and ridiculed by his nephews, by the chipmunks Chip 'n' Dale, or by other characters such as Humphrey the Bear,Spike the Bee, Bootle Beetle, the Aracuan Bird, Louie the Mountain Lion, or a colony of ants. In effect, much like Bugs Bunny cartoons from Warner Bros. the Disney artists had reversed the classic screwball scenario perfected by Walter Lantz and others in which the main character is the instigator of these harassing behaviors, rather than the butt of them. The short 'Clown Of The Jungle' (1947) very much feels like either a Daffy Duck or a Woody Woodpecker cartoon.
The post-war Donald also starred in educational films, such as Donald in Mathmagic Land and How to Have an Accident at Work (both 1959), and made cameos in various Disney projects, such as The Reluctant Dragon (1941) and the Disneyland television show (1959). For this latter show, Donald's uncles Ludwig von Drake (1961) and Scrooge McDuck (1967) were then created in animation.
Clarence Nash voiced Donald for the last time in Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983), making Donald the only character in the film to be voiced by his original actor. Since Nash's death in 1985, Donald's voice has been provided by Tony Anselmo, who was mentored by Nash. Anselmo's voice is heard for the first time in Who Framed Roger Rabbit?. In this movie, Donald has a piano duel scene with hisWarner Brothers counterpart and rival Daffy Duck voiced by Mel Blanc. Donald has since appeared in several different television shows and (short) animated movies. He played roles in The Prince and the Pauper and made a cameo appearance in A Goofy Movie.
Donald had a rather small part in the animated television series DuckTales. There, Donald joins the Navy, and leaves his nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie with their Uncle Scrooge, who then has to take care of them. Donald's role in the overall series was fairly limited, as he only ended up appearing in a handful of episodes. Some of the stories in the series were loosely based on the comics byCarl Barks.
Donald made some cameo appearances in Bonkers, before getting his own television show Quack Pack. This series featured a modernized Duck family. Donald was no longer wearing his sailor suit and hat, but a Hawaiian shirt. Huey, Dewey, and Louie now are teenagers, with distinct clothing, voices, and personalities. Daisy Duck has lost her pink dress and bow and has a new hairdo. Oddly enough, no other family members, besides Ludwig von Drake, appear in Quack Pack, and all other Duckburg citizens are humans, and not dogs.
He made a comeback as the star of the "Noah's Ark" segment of Fantasia 2000, as first mate to Noah. Donald musters the animals to the Ark and attempts to control them. He tragically believes that Daisy has been lost, while she believes the same of him, but they are reunited at the end. All this to Edward Elgar's Pomp and Circumstance Marches 1–4.
In an alternate opening for the 2005 Disney film Chicken Little, Donald would have made a cameo appearance as "Ducky Lucky". This scene can be found on the Chicken Little DVD.
Donald in Comics-
While Donald's cartoons enjoy vast popularity in the United States and around the world, his weekly and monthly comic books enjoy their greatest popularity in many European countries, especially Italy, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Finland and Iceland, but alsoGermany, the Netherlands, and Greece. Most of them are produced and published by the Italian branch of the Walt Disney Company in Italy and by Egmont in Denmark, Norway, Finland and Sweden. In Germany, the comics are published by Ehapa which has since become part of the Egmont empire. Donald-comics are also being produced in The Netherlands and France. Donald also has been appeared in Japanese comics published by Kodansha and Tokyopop.
Though a 1931 Disney publication called Mickey Mouse Annual mentioned a character named Donald Duck, the character's first appearance in comic-strip format was a newspaper cartoon that was based on the short The Wise Little Hen and published in 1934. For the next few years, Donald made a few more appearances in Disney-themed strips, and by 1936, he had grown to be one of the most popular characters in the Silly Symphonies comic strip. Ted Osborne was the primary writer of these strips, with Al Taliaferro as his artist. Osborne and Taliaferro also introduced several members of Donald's supporting cast, including his nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie.
In 1937, an Italian publisher named Mondadori created the first Donald Duck story intended specifically for comic books. The eighteen-page story, written by Federico Pedrocchi, is the first to feature Donald as an adventurer rather than simply a comedic character.Fleetway in England also began publishing comic-book stories featuring the duck.
