Donald's Cousin Gus

A Walt Disney DONALD DUCK Cartoon.

DONALD'S COUSIN GUS Goose arrives with his inexhaustible appetite & bottomless maw.

The Donald finally meets his match in this very funny & well-made cartoon. Clarence `Ducky' Nash supplies Donald's voice. Gus did not prove popular enough with viewers to justify his return as a featured player in further films; when last heard from he was operating a tiny seafood restaurant in Redondo Beach, California.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by 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 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, Bambi, Peter Pan and Mr. Toad. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.

In this cartoon an ungainly and annoying goose called Gus turns up at Donald's house with a note from Aunt Fanny (?) claiming that he is his cousin and is here for a visit. The note also says he doesn't eat much, which turns out to be a total lie since Gus proceeds to eat Donald out of house and home and turn an otherwise peaceful, non-stressful day for Donald into bedlam.

Gus is an annoying character but thankfully he doesn't say much and only ever makes a honking sound when he wants attention, which he does by squeezing his ass! Much like Donald, I hope to never see Gus again. And this cartoon ain't that great I'm afraid.

I know Donald Duck always get the bad luck in Disney cartoons, which gives the character his uniqueness and charm. However, I think Donald got a little too much misfortune in this short.

I know this is a cartoon and I shouldn't dwell on the details. But, Donald's cousin Gus is one annoying bird, who pays Donald a visit and eats him out of his house and food. When I watched this as a kid, I wished Donald would have thrown this creature out and locked all the doors so he could enjoy his lunch. Too bad Donald didn't get the last laugh in this one.

Grade D

I have seen this Donald Duck cartoon and I was very disappointed in this cartoon. Donald Duck is about to have lunch when his cousin Gus stops by for a visit.

It made me mad that Cousin Gus just rudely stole the food including corn, peas, loaf of bread and ate the entire cake and he didn't even share with Donald Duck, Donald Duck tried to get him out of the house with a magic sausage but it didn't work and he even broke into Donald's refrigerator to eat more and leave nothing left for Donald Duck.

I'm very disappointed in this cartoon. His cousin Gus owes Donald Duck an apology for stealing his food without permission. I didn't like the portrayal of a gluttony character with an eating disorder, this episode made me sick to watch, I'm surprised Cousin Gus didn't throw up because this episode made me literally want to throw up. There should be a sequel where Cousin Gus has to pay back Donald Duck for the food he rudely stole from him.

This is one of the worst Disney cartoons I've ever seen and I would like to forget this Donald Duck episode ever existed. I sure hope this cartoon short doesn't end up on Disney Plus, oh wait it's in the Disneyland episode "The Plausible Impossible" by Walt Disney which is painful to watch. Do yourself a favor and fast forward this cartoon short scene and skip it, it isn't worth your time. But everything else in that episode is worth watching.

This Donald Duck episode deserves a Razzie Award for worst cartoon short ever.

This is a real shame as I love Donald Duck and Disney. But Donald's Cousin Gus just wasn't them at their best for me. It certainly has its good points. The animation is absolutely beautiful, as pretty much always it is nothing to complain about, and I'll say the exact same for the music too. Donald's trademark personality is put to good use, mainly through his priceless reactions to what's going on, though could have been done better in a more inspiredly written situation. Some of the gags at the beginning and a couple of Gus' sly ways with stealing the food especially the one with the cake work very well, and Clarence Nash's Donald voice is impeccable. Sadly, the story gets routine very quickly, and it doesn't help that most of the gags are too more of the same. The barking hot dog gag was an interesting concept and quite an original one, but came across as contrived here instead. Also not helping is that outside of the sly food-stealing Gus doesn't have much of a personality and his playing dumb gets annoying and predictable at the end of the day. Overall, lacking but not bad. 6/10 Bethany Cox