Donald und Pluto

As we all know, whatever Donald Duck sets out doing at the start of any cartoon, by the end everything in the vicinity, be it house, car, shop, work, will be destroyed and Donald will be left fuming.

Here, Donald is working on plumbing in his basement, using a magnet to pick up objects from the floor. Pluto becomes curious to the magnet's strange powers and mucks around with it. Soon enough he's swallowed it and scrambles around the house trying to get it out, eventually tying up Donald in the shenanigans.

Cue running from flying knives, walking on the ceiling (including one moment when Donald bizarrely defies gravity) and general mayhem in which Donald's house is left in ruins.

It's what we expect and love about Donald.

This is the first cartoon featuring Donald Duck and Pluto together. While Donald does plumbing work in a housing complex, he drops a large magnet and Pluto accidentally swallows it. As a result, it causes all sorts of metal objects to move around Pluto. What results are hilarious scenes after the other as it is funny to see metal objects come to life and seem to surround poor Pluto.

The stubborn alarm clock that corners Pluto is a hilarious scene, as well as the most intense one of all - all the sharp kitchen utensils including forks, knives and a cleaver chasing the dog around and around the house. With Donald caught in the mayhem as well, it's nothing short of physical comedy and Donald doing what he does best - trying to get himself out of frustrated situations! It's a great cartoon - funny for the adults and kids!

Grade A

While Donald tries to fix the plumbing, Pluto swallows a powerful magnet and finds himself being chased around the house by various metallic items, which are magnetically attracted to his tail end.

Although notable as Donald Duck's first solo outing since gaining popularity as a supporting player in Mickey Mouse cartoons, this is really a Pluto cartoon. The entire short is built around exploring the comic possibilities of a dog with a magnetic behind, and the animators come up with some wonderful gags. The irascible Donald eventually finds himself on the wrong end of the destructive hijinks, and more hilarity ensues as he chases Pluto while wielding a metal pipe wrench. A lot of fun.

I have always loved Disney shorts, and I have always loved Donald for his hilarious temperament and Pluto for his cuteness and energy. Donald and Pluto is great, the two's chemistry is rather limited here together, but both of them are great fun. Donald is not quite at his best, where he finds himself easily frustrated, but the parts where he walks on the ceiling and ends up in the washing machines are very funny. Pluto though is the one who steals the show, just by doing what he is famous for. He is cute, he is energetic but he is also fun and all within his actions. The animators do a great job in not just his animation but putting personality in it as well. The animation is wonderful, the backgrounds are sumptuously coloured and the house and furnishing make you wish you lived in it. The music is both beautiful and characterful, and the gags mostly focusing on Pluto and the magnet are inventive and make their mark. The story may feel a little routine in places like the Pluto causing chaos ending(still funny though), but the crisp energy and gags make it interesting as well. Clarence Nash's voice work as Donald is impeccable as always. Overall, a great short, beautifully animated and a lot of fun. Donald has his moments and is a delight but it is Pluto who steals it. 9/10 Bethany Cox

A Walt Disney Cartoon

While attempting to fix a plumbing problem, DONALD AND PLUTO run afoul of nearly every hazardous object in the place.

This little film has some very funny moments, although there is not much actual interplay between the two characters. The Pup's struggles with a large magnet dominate the cartoon, while the Duck's temperamental reactions to the plot are a definite delight. Clarence Nash provides Donald with his unique voice.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by pictures & 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 always pay off.