Beach Picnic

So-so Donald Duck short has Donald at the beach being his usual charming self picking on Pluto, who just wanted to sleep, by sending an inflatable horse over and messing with the poor dog. He stands there laughing like a jerk while Pluto fights with the horse. Pluto's struggles here are worth a chuckle or two but the start of the short is the weakest part. Then comes the 'picnic' part. Ants, dressing and acting like movie Indians, raid Donald's picnic lunch. Not sure why Donald needed so much food but it actually made me hungry just looking at it. Some really nice animation in this. Anyway, Donald sees the ants making off with his eats and, of course, goes ballistic. After screaming and carrying on, he sets up some sticky fly paper hoping to trap the ants. It doesn't take a psychic to guess that things don't go according to plan. I'm not a huge Donald Duck fan and shorts like this are why. The guy was just an angry jerk most of the time. Sometimes it is funny to see him get his comeuppance but here most of the humor falls flat. The animation is lovely and colorful. The music is very nice. It's worth a peek but not one of my favorites.

It's beach fun for Donald and Pluto. Them grappling with the inflatable horse was pretty funny, but, as usual, they fall victims to a bunch of bugs, in this case ants who steals their food. For once, I would like to see the annoying bugs actually getting beaten back by the Disney heroes.

Grade D

The BEACH PICNIC for Donald & Pluto is frustrated by a rubber sea horse named Sylvester and a marauding tribe of Red Indian ants.

This is a very enjoyable little film which features great animation and lots of laughs. Watching the reactions of the Duck and the Pup as the complications pile up against them provides much of the humor. Clarence Nash once again excels as the voice of Donald.

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.

In this cartoon Donald goes to the beach for some fun in the sun. He takes a giant inflatable horse (called Seabiscuit) with him to play with in the water. Everything seems fine until Donald decides to torment Pluto for some reason by blowing water and air into his face, or something. The cartoon lingers on this bit of unfunnyness for a few minutes before it goes to the typical 'picnic being stolen by ants' routine. Good God, man. How many times have I seen that in a cartoon?

Donald and Pluto try to take them on but lose to their own arrogance and stupidity. No, this cartoon is not really that funny at all and Donald surely deserves better than this. I don't rate Beach Picnic very highly I'm afraid.

Beach Picnic (1939)

** (out of 4)

Donald is on the beach trying to rid a rubber horse but he keeps getting thrown from it so when he sees Pluto sleeping he decides to have some fun and watch the dog fight it. Soon a group of ants (acting as Indians) show up to steal their food. BEACH PICNIC has some great animation and one good sequence but overall it's a pretty lackluster short from Disney. The one great sequence is when the ants start taking away the food because the music and the animation is just so good here. I think the weakest part of the film is the opening bits with the rubber horse as there's just really nothing too clever or funny going on here as we simply see Donald and Pluto fall around. Fans of the characters will probably want to watch this but the rest should look for a better film.