Donald auf Prominentenjagd

I taped this short along with 26 other Donald Duck cartoons off the Disney Channel. I thought it was hilarious. One scene that I laughed at was where Donald asks Mickey Rooney for an autograph. Rooney signs Donald's autograph book and does a magic trick, putting the book in Donald's suit. Donald then decides to do a magic trick of his own. He picks up an egg and puts it in his hat. Rooney says, "Could it be here?" and smacks Donald's head. Donald gets pretty mad, which causes his head to become hot and the egg to cook. Rooney then says, "I'll take mine over easy!" and flips it over. Donald begins throwing a fit and Rooney places a fiddle in his hands. Donald accidentally plays an Irish jig and Rooney dances to it. I could really identify quite a few of the stars like Clark Gable and Vivien Leigh who were no doubt in the process of making "Gone With the Wind." I wonder if this cartoon was played before that movie.

This has everything I love about Donald Duck and his cartoons and more. Donald as always is great fun, still with his trademark cantankerous personality but there is still something endearing about him. The story is one of the most original of his cartoons, it is well paced and I loved the celebrity (caricatures?) of Shirley Temple, "Mickey Rooney", Bette Davis, the Ritz Brothers, Lionel Barrymore, The Andrews Sisters, Greta Garbo, Clark Gable and Groucho and Harpo Marx(among others). The gags are very imaginative and wonderfully timed, especially the three tricks "Mickey Rooney" plays on Donald(the one with the egg was the best one) and the Ritz Brothers writing their group name on Donald's bottom. The animation is clean and vibrant, and the music is typically energetic. The voice work is spot on as well. Overall, one of Donald's best cartoons in my opinion. 10/10 Bethany Cox

A Walt Disney DONALD DUCK Cartoon.

Donald THE AUTOGRAPH HOUND attempts to find celebrities at mammoth Hollywood Studios - if the security guard doesn't throw him out first.

This very enjoyable little film was Walt's sly way of reminding the rest of the Industry that his creations - in this case Donald - were as popular as any of the flesh & blood stars. It's interesting that the animators seemingly go out of their way to make Mickey Rooney appear like a bullying punk. Clarence Nash provides Donald with his unique voice.

At the end of the cartoon a host of caricatured celebrities flood across the screen, making them exceedingly difficult to identify. For the record, here are all the stars depicted in order of appearance: Greta Garbo, Mickey Rooney, Sonja Henie, the Ritz Brothers, Shirley Temple, Clark Gable (with Garbo), Charlie McCarthy, Stepin Fetchit, Roland Young, Joe E. Brown, Martha Raye, Hugh Herbert, Irvin S. Cobb, Edward Arnold, Katharine Hepburn, Eddie Cantor, Slim Summerville, Lionel Barrymore, Bette Davis, Groucho & Harpo Marx, Mischa Auer, Joan Crawford & Charles Boyer (still dressed for his role as Napoleon in CONQUEST, 1937).

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 will always pay off.

Donald Duck is relentless in his efforts to get the stars of the day to sign his autograph book. A studio cop keeps grabbing him and throwing him into the street. This is a wonderful collection of stars. For instance, in most of these compilations we don't see Mickey Rooney or Shirley Temple. Here they appear with the use of very nice caricatures. What the stars forget is that Donald himself is a star.

I can remember this cartoon very fondly. It was one of the earliest cartoons I'd ever seen, let alone among the Donald Duck archives (when VHS first started, a good chunk of his and other Disney characters got their own sets of cartoon tapes). And, it also serves as something of worth as being maybe the first place I ever got some insight about Hollywood. That it's Hollywood in Marx Brothers, Shriley Temple, and Mickey Rooney form turns everything into bolder things. It even has a sort of timeless quality, even when dealing with icons of the time all now obscured or mythic in stature.

Basically, Donald, being a fan of every Hollywood star in sight, wants to get inside and get as much as possible for his little book. A venture that keeps getting thwarted by a security guard (the un-named Pete of several cartoons before his solidifying into the cast) and by several odd attempts at securing the coveted name in ink. Of course, everyone in the cartoon is impersonated (probably even Temple, though having never seen one of her films I can't vouch). But that then brings out more for the conventions to bring out more laughs. Rooney's segment, watching it today, is funnier than when I was a kid. I got more of the subtleties laced into the obvious gags. There's even a scene with Donald and three brothers whom I (and I admit this claiming to have seen a lot) don't know anything about.

Some of the more silly and low-key outrageous moments are matched with the sweeter touches of Temple's scene and a little moment involving an ice skater. Moments like these create a rhythm that is strong, and sometimes lacking in some of the more generally slapstick shorts. This could even be considered like a mild grandfather to humor later seen in the Critic on TV. The conclusion is a great one, displaying it as one of the earliest, and successful, cartoons to make fun of itself. Is Donald Duck as popular as Garbo or Charlie McCarthey?