Pique-nique sur la plage

Another Disney short from the classic era, that I watched as it was next alphabetically on the Disney Plus short film channel. I've enjoyed quite a bit of this run through, but "Beach Panic" wasn't one of the stronger efforts.

Donald Duck (Clarence Nash) heads to the beach. He lays out his Picnic and then heads for a swim. He and Pluto (Lee Millar) frolic in the sea with his inflatable horse but meanwhile his Picnic is infiltrated and stolen by a colony of Ants. But Donald has come prepared and sets out some sticky flypaper to try and stop them from getting away.

It's not, I think, a case of time not being kind to the short, I recently watched "The Band Concert" which was genuinely charming and actually funny. The animation style of this the same and there is still, a timeless appeal to classic Disney animation. I really didn't find it funny though. The relationship between Donald and Pluto is ill defined, you'd assume that Pluto is his dog, but Donald seems to enjoy tormenting him. The interaction with the ants, which should perhaps have been the focus of the short, is mostly ignored in favour of just the flypaper business, which isn't that good.

I know there are better shorts that I'm going to come across in this section of Disney Plus, hopefully I won't see many more as disappointing as this one.

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

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.

This one is kinda ambiguous, Donald and Pluto appeared in this cartoon "Beach Picnic", But the pair of them isn't get along there, though the both had appeared in Donald and Pluto (1936), how in the world that they had to get together again?Humph! Donald was in a picnic at the beach, he spotted Pluto there and have fun teasing him (Pluto didn't do anything to him), ugh, how bad Donald were, also seen in the poster of the film. Then Donald spread the infinte flypaper and try to stick the ants, which happened to caused the curious Pluto to get stuck on it, and the moves like the film "Playful Pluto", and what's more, Donald laughed more hysterically, that could be hateful enough, and when Pluto unintentionally stuck Donald's buttock with him, Donald ranted at him to left him alone, spit out lots of abusive salivas and profanity, Pluto, understandably had enough, swung Donald away with the flypaper with one fierce blow, caused Donald to get completely stuck by the flypapers, and Pluto started to lick Donald like in Donald and Pluto (1936) too, and Donald get his comeuppance. This cartoon isn't really funny, but anyway, it's rather good.