From Ryan Kilpatrick at The Disney Film Project : Donald making waffles. That alone makes Chef Donald a freakin’ awesome short. I love waffles, I love Donald, so this makes for a great short in my eyes.

Chef Donald is a classic example of one type of Donald short – Donald on his own, trying desperately to complete some sort of task, against the advice of either his better nature or some outside influence, in this case a radio. While Donald is scrapbooking, the radio entreats him to make waffles, leading to visions of a piping hot waffle and ultimately to cooking.

Remember how I mentioned Donald was scrapbooking? The only issue he has is that he leaves the rubber cement on the table, and well…

You can see where this is going. The dough turns into a sticky, viscous substance, and thwarts Donald’s every effort to make it into waffles. It’s another way to have Donald’s frustration build and build, going from a simple situation to an absurd one. That escalation is what makes Donald so unique.

This is very much like one of Goofy’s “How To” shorts, with the radio providing the narrator voice, but instead we have Donald going farther and farther to make his point. I personally lost it when Donald ended up with an axe, trying to chop the dough up. It backfires, of course, leading to a massive crack in Donald’s house that spreads quickly.

This is just a flat out funny short, because Donald is so hyperactive throughout. Even when he gets his tail caught in the waffle iron, it’s more funny than painful, at least for the viewer. It’s where the animators do some of their best work – pitting Donald against something that isn’t really fighting back, but thwarts his efforts all the same.

As I said…I love Donald, and I love waffles, so I loved Chef Donald. This is one of my new favorites.

From Ryan : Watching this short was pretty funny. By the way, I think this short is similar to the Plastics Inventor where Donald is "baking" an airplane. Here, he's making waffles using a recipie from a cooking show host on the radio. Not those crummy waffles that you pop into the toaster. No these are the real thing. Like the Plastics Inventor Donald has problems with what he has made. In the "Plastics Inventor Donald gets his project done, but has problems when it starts raining. Here, he accidentally pours rubber cement into the waffle batter. This is the only thing that triggered the problem. By the end of the short, Donald is pretty ticked off and goes to the radio station to attack the cooking show host. It's always funny seeing Donald lose his temper and attack something. Definitely one of my favorites.

From Baruch Weiss : Great short! That's all I can say about this one.

From John : One of the all time greatest shorts ever made by Disney. The rubber cement gag amazed me that it supplied the shorts entire material. I still laugh at the thought of the tree branch knocking at the door and then to see Donald open the door and get a face full of waffle mixture. 10 out of 10 for sure.

From Grace : This was the funniest Donald Duck cartoons Disney have ever made. By watching the short you could really feel sorry for Donald trying to make delicious waffles, but ended up using rubber cement instead of baking powder. There is one funny scene where Donald thinks that there's company, but the mixture of rubber cement ended up landing on him, doing a similar Pinocchio number on " I Got No Strings.", and himself running into the studio, trying to kill the cook show host. Highly Recommended, and rating 10!

From Dino Cencia : Another funny Donald Duck cartoon. In this short, Donald wants to make some yummy waffles. So he gets the ingredients to make the waffles. 1 quart of milk, 1 pound of flour, 2 eggs, a dash of baking powder, and stir thoroughly. But Donald put rubber cement in the bowl instead of baking powder! (Donald should've put the rubber cement away.) And now he can't the waffle batter in the waffle iron. A lot of funny stuff happen in this short when Donald got his head stuck in the bowl with rubber cement and his tail touched the hot iron! (Yeow!)

Also, when the crack knocked the nail of the rubber cement, the bowl went into Donald sliding a carpet or rug in his mouth and the bowl landed on Donald cut the rug in 2 pieces. So Donald's really mad now and opens his door and throws the bowl outside and says "Good riddance!" But the bowl's stuck on the doorknob and stuck in the tree and the ! tree shakes back and forth and it knocks on Donald's door. Donald thinks their company. He opens the door and says "Come in" and the bowl went right into his face and crashes into his kitchen with a mess. Then the radio announcer says how they enjoyed their waffle. Then Donald goes to the radio station and fights the announcer at the end of the cartoon. Donald Duck is my favorite Disney character. And I will see him at Disneyland. This cartoon is cool to watch if you want to make waffles, but first put your rubber cement away. I give this a 900.

From Bryan Hensley : Never trust folks like Donald Duck to add a roast duck recipe to his cookbook! He was angry over that since he's a duck himself! I've never been a fan of Eggo Waffles by eating them, only the commercials. ("Leggo my eggo!") One time, my mom and I saw this short together. She said you don't need a quart of milk and a pound of flour for just one waffle! To me, maple syrup tastes great on bacon, even though my fingers get sticky in the end. Donald had a sticky situation with his rubber cement waffle batter, even if it means getting waffled tailfeathers and bad-mouthing in the batter from his head being stuck in it. Near the end, Mother Mallard (The host of her radio cooking show) was in for a huge shock after saying "Won't you let me hear from you?"; Donald went to the station and attacked her (off-screen), causing his radio to bust! I hope you enjoy this recipe catastrophe only Donald Duck could make!

From Mike : This cartoon is good. I enjoyed the scenes of Donald trying to get rid of the bowl. It was funny at the end when he went to beat up the cooking show host, you certainly won't see that today. To me the funniest scene was when Donald accidentally pasted in the photo of roast duck.

From Abigail Watson : This is a really great Donald Duck short, and it's one of the best, too. I especially like the part where Donald says, "Eggs? Just a minute", rushes off-screen and, after I hear some clucking, suddenly appears quickly -- probably two seconds later -- with two fresh eggs. That part's pretty neat! Next time, Donald, listen closely, follow the recipe to the letter, and look very hard while doing it. And make sure to put the rubber cement away beforehand; that way, you'll end up with a great batch of waffles to eat. In conclusion, I give this short two thumbs up!

Poster

Chef Donald

A Donald Duck Cartoon

Synopsis

Characters

Credits

Director

Animation

Story

Video

United States

Italy

CED

United States

Laserdiscs

DVD

Germany

Italy

Canada

Sweden

United Kingdom

Television

Technical Specification

Released by RKO Radio Pictures, Inc.

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