Favorite type of Donald Duck cartoon

[Cartman]

I chose the 1940's since just about all of his cartoons from that era were a classic such as:

Commando Duck
Bellboy Donald
Der Fuehrer's Face
Donald's Happy Birthday
Truant Officer Donald

[DarthGonzo]

The 1940s were terrific for all animation companies: Warners, Disney, MGM.....

[Howard]

The 1940's were the best time for Donald Duck cartoons, as they started to get repetitive in the 50's, and relatively few Donald Duck shorts were made in the 60's. Personally, I prefer the Comic book versions of Donald Duck by Carl Barks and William Van Horn.

[J Lee]

I kind of prefer the mid-1950s Donalds, when Walt got really involved with building Disneyland and gave Jack Hannah some breathing room to eliminate most of the "cuteness" from the shorts and just go for straight laughs, like in the Humphrey Bear-Ranger cartoons. The 30s and 40s shorts are beautifully animated and have their moments, but a lot of them just never take off and fufill their potential, as if they couldn't be too funny, because that would mean they couldn't be cute enough for Walt Disney Productions.

BTW -- Has anyone ever figured out why, when Disney was short on directors of shorts due to the making of "Snow White" and had to raid the Schelsinger studio to start the Donald Duck series, he grabbed Jack King? I know Jack worked for Walt before, but in the span of three short years, King had worked himself down from the "A" unit director for Leon to the "C" unit, behind both Freleng and Avery, who were doing the color Merrie Melodies while King was relagated to the Looney Tunes. Surely that should have said something about his creativity (or maybe Walt just thought Beans and Lulu the Ostrich were a million laughs).

[Matt Yorston]

Odd as it seems, I went with the "1950's period" (yes, the sole person, thus far, who voted for the 50's was me). The reason I chose that period was because it was the first time the Donald series removed itself from its usual formulas and started trying things that were new and funny. "No Hunting", for example, is so different from the norm, it almost seems to be from another series. The fast and furious gags, the biting satire, the lack of Donald's presence (he's practically only a supporting player in this one); all of this was almost never attempted in any earlier Donald cartoon.

The 1950's also gave us such cartoons as "How to Have an Accident in the Home", an entertaining cartoon which propagandizes household accidents using Donald as an example. Very funny gags (the falling downstairs gags, for instance) and a solid story make this worthwhile. However, I have never liked the film's sequel, "How to Have an Accident at Work", nearly as much. The gags are more forced, the ending is more abrupt, it just isn't as good as the first film. I'm a little amazed it was made in the first place considering Walt's contempt for sequels.

Best of all, in the 1950's, we first got the "Donald vs. Humphrey the Bear" cartoons which are among the best cartoons Jack Hannah ever directed. "Rugged Bear" is a scream with all the tortures Humphrey must endure just to keep from being slaughtered on hunting season. Donald doesn't even mean to inflict any damage on Humphrey; it just happens! "Grin and Bear It" is also very good and "Beezy Bear" is hilarious. I've never liked "Bearly Asleep" as much as the others for some reason but it has its moments.

Last but not least, the 1950's gave us the most offbeat Donald cartoon ever made, "Spare the Rod". Very few people have actually seen the unedited version of this film (Please, oh please, let me be one of those few someday) as its storyline deals with Donald mistaking three black pygmy cannibals for his own nephews. I saw the edited 3-minute version on my local Disney channel a few times and I abhorred how much the cartoon was massacred. Indeed, a cartoon like this had pretty much not existed before the 50's.