La blanchisserie de Donald

A Walt Disney DONALD DUCK Cartoon.

DONALD'S DOG LAUNDRY is ready for business and the plucky Duck has chosen poor Pluto as his first customer.

This is a very lively & enjoyable little film and features humorous interplay between the two characters. Watching Donald fall foul to his rube goldberg kit-built contraption is great fun. Clarence Nash provides Donald 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 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 childlike simplicity of message and lots of hard work will always pay off.

Out in his garden, Donald builds a huge dog bath machine with loads of pulleys and scrubs. Why he would want to subject Pluto to this behemoth instead of washing him normally I don't know but it's obviously Pluto ain't gonna be up for this.

The dog himself is snoozing in his nearby kennel and Donald must trick him into going into the bath with a rubber bone on a string and then a puppet of a kitten. Pluto doesn't fall for it and the highly expected ending of Donald falling into it proves true. Only he's too happy that his craftsmanship has actually worked to be annoying.

It's not that funny but the vivid and inventive animation makes up for it.

I have always been a great Disney fan. Donald's Dog Laundry however is not one of their finest hours, decent and watchable of course but not outstanding. The story is rather routine and unfolds at a less crisp pace than I usually see and Pluto's actions are energetic and cute enough but whether they're funny has mixed results here, the best of the gags being Donald being attacked by the dog washing contraception and Pluto's struggle with the rubber bone. On the other hand, it is very inventive and colourful visually, always looking well-drawn and fluid, while the lovely music and sound effects give plenty of character and fit well instead of feeling out of place. The two characters do work well together, Pluto has a lion's share of the action and while more interesting and amusing than hilarious he is still endearing. Donald is at his best either when he is easily frustrated or/and on the receiving end of misfortune, and what does make him fun here is that the cartoon does wonders with the misfortune side of his character, here he gets it big time and while fun to watch you do feel sympathy for him. Overall, not a favourite but definitely watchable for the characters, a couple of gags and the technical values. 7/10 Bethany Cox

Donald's efforts to franchise a high efficiency dog washing machine are better left on the drawing board. Using Pluto as his foil, he fails time and again to get the dog to cooperate. The problem with this cartoon is that there is little funny about it. There are no high moments. It's mostly Donalds trying to attract Pluto with a rubber bone.

In this cartoon, Donald invents an auto dog washing machine in which he is trying to desperately get Pluto to use. Of course, Pluto resists and Donald gets a bone and a fake cat as bait. But, the plan backfired and Donald ended up using the machine himself - but, he got a laugh out of it.

There is not much laughs in this one, just a bunch of slapstick stuff like Pluto trying to get the bone that Donald used to lure him to the tub. Donald displayed some of his best traits, but Pluto just acted like a whiny dog who doesn't want a bath.

Grade C