Donald à l'armée

I was able to get this along with several other Donald Duck cartoons on tape. In the opening title, a man sings "The army's not the army anymore, it's better than it's ever been before." After his physical, Donald enters the army with Pete as his drill seargent. In the end, poor Donald ends up peeling potatoes in the mess hall. In this first army short of Donald, we also learn that his middle name is Fauntelroy by reading it on his draft card.

Donald Duck wants to join the army. First he got tested, this is a pretty funny sequence. Then his real training begins. This part has some little funny moments but overall it is a bit boring. An average Disney short.

A Walt Disney DONALD DUCK Cartoon.

DONALD GETS DRAFTED into the World War Two Army and immediately gets to experience marching, drilling & kitchen patrol.

The travails of Donald in this funny little film would have struck a sympathetic chord with millions of enlisted men suddenly thrust into military life. Pete makes the first of his appearances as the Duck's beefy sergeant. This is the cartoon, co-written by the legendary Carl Barks, where we learn that Donald's middle name is 'Fauntleroy' - Clarence Nash supplies him with his unique voice.

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.

After receiving his draft letter Donald marches his way right into the delivery office to sign up. He is probed and prodded during his medical and is soon down at the barracks getting trained to be a killer duck.

A rather false portrayal of the army is offered here (along to a lovely song 'The Army's not the Army anymore') in which everyone smiles, everyone matters, battles are clean, ritual humiliation is absent and Drill Sargent's are for some reason not total psychopaths who force you do to infinity push-ups while standing on your back.

Donald (who's middle name is revealed as Fauntleroy here) is the average Joe who makes a great soldier. Such propaganda may have easily convinced naive Joe Public back in the early forties but now, in this cynical day and age, it's a laughable experience watching this short.

Not one of my favourite Disney cartoons, but still very entertaining, the funniest being the first test with the colours before Donald gets in the army. The animation is beautiful, with the fluid backgrounds and lively colours to be especially admired. And I loved the music, the incidental music is jaunty and energetic and the song "the Army's not the Army anymore" is catchy and uplifting. The story is engaging and well paced and while there have been funnier Donald Duck cartoons, it is still amusing. Donald is very likable here, while Pete is a great foil. Clarence Nash and Billy Bletcher as usual voice impeccably.

Overall, entertaining and fun. Definitely recommended. 9/10 Bethany Cox