Mission Canard

This short is great.Donald as a commando is effective in a way no other Disney character could be.The Japanese have quite a sence of humor.They also have dialogs that cause me to burst in laughter such as in a moment in which one of them sees a shoots the rope from which Donald is hanging he shouts"I did it!Just like the Lone Ranger!".The condition of the airfield in the end is reminding me of Surrealistic paintings.Probably one of Disney's best shorts,

Donald is a commando (duh) who has to wipe out an entire Japanese airbase all by himself. I love it when he gets his commands: 'surround them!'. Reminded me of Chaplin's 'Shoulder Arms', where Charlie claims to have surrounded a dozen enemies all by himself.

Donald doesn't get far though as his parachute gets stuck in two trees, and a lifeboat is all that's left of his belongings. Who knew that lifeboat would flood the entire airbase though!

Funny if silly little WWII short, with not that many nasty references to the Japanese, except when one Japanese guy says to another: 'Remember the old Japanese saying: always shoot a guy in the back!'.

6/10.

Easily one of the worst soldiers the Army has ever seen (judging by his previous cartoon hijinks), Donald is dropped out of an airplane and right into enemy territory. That's somewhere in the Japan jungle actually.

The air is ripe for typical wartime xenophobia as things go wrong for poor old ducky right from the start. He sniped at by stereotyped Japanese soldiers and runs for his feathered life. The funny thing is, while running he tries to escape on a rubber raft. But the raft gets caught under a waterfall and fills up with river water. Soon it becomes a massive waterballoon and Donald running for his life once more, tho not from the 'Japs' but from the impending doom of a mile high water balloon.

It's very funny and highly inventive. Definitely one of Donald's better wartime efforts.

Disney and Donald Duck are a perfect combination when it comes to animation. Commando Duck is simply wonderful, and one of Disney's best World War 2 shorts. True it does stereotype the Japanese and in a way that not everybody is going to find gratifying. But actually I wasn't offended by the stereotyping and I love their sense of humour, their one-liners are a definite highlight of Commando Duck. Donald is a great and charismatic lead character, one who you feel for and understand his frustration and predicament. The animation is beautifully done, with colourful backgrounds and I loved how the washed down air-planes look like something from a Salvador Dali painting. The music is rousing and nimbly orchestrated, while the one-liners and gags, mainly from Donald accomplishing his goals quite by accident, make for great and very inventive(especially the solution to how Donald will destroy the base).

All in all, one of the best Disney WW2 shorts and extremely entertaining. 9/10 Bethany Cox

The heavily supplied "Donald" must head to a Japanese airbase on a remote island. There he is to surround and wipe them all out...! Well narrowly avoiding a couple of crocodiles upon landing, he sets off on his mission whilst the vocals of his well camouflaged enemy indulge in some stereotyping pidgin-dialogue about only shooting people in the back. Quickly, "Donald" realises that his inflatable dinghy isn't bullet proof, nor is it much use on waterfalls either, especially when more and more full of water and expanding exponentially - though the resulting inundation clearly has it's uses. Cartoons were regularly used as propaganda tools, but I rarely remember one quite this aggressive. Not just in the animation, itself, but in the whole presentation. Somehow, even the perilous antics of the duck didn't inject much humour into this and I didn't love it.