À l'attaque!

A Walt Disney DONALD DUCK Cartoon.

Donald & his Nephews create havoc while stationed at their HOME DEFENSE listening post.

While it is always fun to watch Donald, the plot of this little World War Two era film is incredibly silly. Younger viewers may not know that listening posts were used to try to hear the sounds of incoming enemy aircraft. The legendary Carl Barks was one of the writers for this film and Clarence "Ducky" Nash provided the voices for the entire Duck clan.

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, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. 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.

Donald is stationed at some listening post in what appears to be a remote part of the Pacific coast. Not a lot is happening. So much so that he falls asleep. His snoring/trumpeting, wakes up his nephews Huey, Duey and Louie who then play a couple of tricks on him.

The few laughs come from Donald thinking he's under attack. Yes, it is a Disney war propaganda cartoon but the Xenophobia isn't as obvious as in other cartoons of the time.

The main problem is that the idea is kind of limited. It never leaves Donald's listening post and there's not a lot of imagination or stuff going on.

Meh! You've seen worse.

Let us consider how ludicrous the setup for this short is. During World War 2, Donald Duck sets up his own makeshift listening post on the California coast staffed by his three juvenile nephews in order to guard against impending Japanese invasion. Their weaponry consists of several shotguns tied together as an anti-aircraft gun that would only have the effective range of 100 yards or so, a few wooden swords (?!), and a circus cannon you'd see more fit to launch trapeze artists than any serviceable ordinance. Was Donald acting under orders by the Army or did he set this all up (incompetently) on his own accord out of his personal brand of patriotic duty? Watch and find out (or not)!

Really it's surreal but presented in such a matter-of-fact way that kid audiences won't really care and just see it as a loose setup for gags of Donald and his nephews picking on each other. The two biggest laughs come from the model airplane / gingerbread man invasion prank (complete with Donald's terrified reaction), along with the ultimate showdown between his cannon and hapless bee on maximum volume. It's Donald's attitude, enthusiasm, and proclivity to anger that makes this all works so well.

There were a few other Donald Duck wartime propaganda cartoons which had bigger and better laughs to them, but this one stands out with the setting and ridiculously over the top climax. The 1940's easily were Disney's high point in terms of excellent animation and humor that worked for adult and child audiences alike, so it's no surprise how well most of their wartime propaganda cartoons worked. The shock for me these days comes from thinking about how (or if) these cartoons really did much to instill a sense of patriotism in audiences that the government wanted at the time, as they largely depicted the U. S. military (or homegrown militia as presented here) as foolishly inept. I guess nobody was looking into the greater subtext at the time, or maybe they were designed more to subtly poke fun at the propaganda of the day rather than perpetuate it? We can only speculate these days as the answers likely have long gone lost in time.

I do like the cartoons with Donald and his three nephews, especially Donald's Snow Fight, Donald's Nephews and Good Scouts. But Home Defense while certainly watchable and decent enough was lacking for me, in short not one of their best. The animation does look pretty, and the music has bundles of energy. I also liked how Donald's temperamental personality contrasted with Huey, Duey and Louie's cute ones, and Clarence "Ducky" Nash's vocal work is as impeccable as ever. However, the story is not always that crisply paced and is very routine. This would be helped if the gags were good, however while some do work and are imaginative there are also some that are reasonably amusing at best. In short, has moments but not enough to make it one of the better or funnier cartoons of theirs. Overall, decent but unexceptional. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Donald and his nephews are manning a station to spot fighter plans during wartimes. But, of course, Donald gets himself into some bad luck with his nephews as they play tricks on him, as well as mistaken a bee for a plane. A few chuckles here and there, but nothing much to make you laugh out loud.

Grade C+