Chef Donald

A Walt Disney DONALD DUCK Cartoon.

Home kitchen CHEF DONALD is trying to mix up a batch of mouthwatering waffles. Too bad he doesn't know his batter is full of rubber cement...

This is a very funny little film, with watching Donald's expectations of a wonderful breakfast turn to extreme exasperation at the strange behavior of the unruly batter a real joy. Old Mother Mallard is a hilarious spoof of the cooks who broadcast during radio's Golden Age. The legendary Carl Barks was one of the writers on this project; Clarence Nash once again does yeoman service in supplying the voice of the Duck.

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 storm of naysayers, 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.

Donald is at home listening to a radio cooking program, which was giving lessons in how to make waffles that particular day. While he mixes the ingredients, Donald becomes distracted and uses rubber cement he left on the table instead of baking powder. What results is one hilarious mishap after the other.

This cartoon consists of classic Donald humor, from slapstick gags to his frustrated innuendos, trying to bring his bowl of rubber cement-soaked under control. But, the bowl won't give as it inadvertently leads to Donald getting his tail seared in the waffle iron and causing cracks to run from the ceiling to the floor. The laughs pile on and on as poor Donald lets the bad luck get the best of him. His facial expressions are humorous and the background organ music adds onto the tense moment of Donald's battle with the batter. Even the cooking program's voice, with her strong Southern accent, was too much not to laugh with.

I haven't laughed so much at a cartoon short before. It's one of the most hilarious ones I've seen featuring Donald!

Grade A

This is one the Donald Duck's cartoons which I have very fond memories from childhood. At the time, it was one of the cartoons I used to watch with more frequency. This is a great cartoon. It's very simple and predictable yet lacks in nothing. It does its duty quite well: to make people laugh and amuse them.

This is one of Donald's most hilarious cartoons. It is hysterical! Donald gets mad all the time, which is classic him. He listens to a radio cooking program while mixing up a batch of waffles. However, he ends up using rubber cement instead of baking powder in a moment of distraction, but he never realizes why is it going all wrong for him.

The funniest and craziest things happen to the duck and at the end, when they ask over the radio if he enjoyed his recipe and wished to hear about it, Donald runs to the radio station and... well, what happens is hysterical. We hear Donald getting mad and the radio shakes over and over.

In this cartoon Donald tries his hand at some baking. A radio cookery show is own and the female host is instructing listeners on how to make their very own waffles covered in butter and maple syrup. Feeling hungry, Donald decides to join in. And he does well enough until, in a moment of distraction, he adds rubber cement to the mix instead of baking powder.

Now he's created some kind of flubber substance with enough elasticity to cause no end of havoc in the kitchen. The gags are mostly quite simple but there's enough invention in some of the havoc to make it an above average Donald cartoon.

One of my favourite Donald Duck cartoons of all time. The story is simple and a tad predictable, but it is well paced and the simplicity works. Plus the gags are so inventive and so well-timed and the dialogue(ie. Old Mother Mallard's instructions) so effective that any predictability in the story were soon overcome. Donald himself is great, angry and manic which is indeed classic of him but he is very funny too. The animation is colourful and vibrant, and as usual the music has a lot of energy to it. Old Mother Mallard(aptly named) is a hoot too, as is the ending.

Overall, simply delicious, not only is it funny, but it has inspired me to further improve my cooking. 10/10 Bethany Cox