Donald's Failed Fourth

A Donald Duck Cartoon

Release Date : May 1, 1999

Synopsis

It's the Fourth of July and Donald Duck has found the perfect picnic spot to watch fireworks under the stars with Daisy. He battles the blanket, wrestles the lawn chairs, and combats the picnic basket until, finally, the site is set. But when Daisy arrives, she discovers that Donald has miscalculated and they can't even see the fireworks. Donald is disappointed to discover he has messed things up once again, but Daisy thinks the view is very romantic - a beautiful full moon.

Characters

Donald Duck

Daisy Duck

Credits

DVD

United States

Disney Treasures : Wave 8 : The Chronological Donald Volume 4

Television

Mickey Mouse Works: Season 1 - Episode 1

House of Mouse: Season 2 - Episode 6

Technical Specification

Comments

From Patrick Malone : Donald attempts to set up a picninc site for him and Daisy with an intractable blanket and two unco-operative chairs. This was okay, but there wasn't much to it. It seemed to me that they were trying to pad out a short-short with a lot of repetitive action. (And where was Daisy when all this was happening?)

From Tom : It looks like the "Mouseworks" writers are having a much harder time developing personality for Daisy then Minnie, despite the fact that I thought she already had a near full-fledged personality. Is just me or are the gags used in this short thinly disgusied versions of what we have seen before in classic shorts? What's more they seemed to repeat said gags again. But overall this gets a C+. It had two large saving graces, though they weren't the only reasons it earned it's grade:

1) It had Donald in it
2) The "Mickey to the Rescue" short aired in the same half hour, making it look rather good.

I could go on forever about this one, but it's best I don't.

From Lefty Lovitz : First, I have to say this. Out of all the ones with dialogue, this one had the least amount of the unnecessary type. Buuuuttttt, it also had a LOT of filler. This reminds me of any given Quack Pack episode. Secondly, is it just me or is Donald always REALLY passive around Daisy? Third, I was VERY happy to see Donald's tail wag! Insignificant, I know, but Donald has the coolest tail in all Disney history (never seen Marsupilami so can't comment on that). Check out classic shorts Timber, Donald Duck and the Gorilla and Donald Gets Drafted. I liked it ok, though they should stick to the original sketching guidelines created decades ago by Walt Disney and the original animators.

From Jon Cooke : Surely they could have come up with some better material for poor Donald than this. What seemed like a never-ending series of gags involving a picnic blanket that keeps folding up is followed by basically the same routine with a folding chair!

From Juan F. Lara : This short I warmed up to. It's dominated by two sequences (the blanket and the chairs) that were padded out and overused quick-change gags, like the rope scenes in "Train Tracks". But these gags worked somewhat better for me than the gags in the other shorts. Maybe because I could sympathize with Donald's building frustration in these scenes. When he was dumping stuff to hold the blanket down I was laughing a lot. I also thought the sequence where Donald set up the rest of the picnic, which had only one big messup, was well staged.

Daisy's flirting was fun to watch. In this short at least Donald's temper disappeared whenever Daisy was around, and instead he acted smitten around her. That behavior in contrast to his usual ranting made Donald an appealing character to me.

Also, this was definitely the best looking short in the episode, or at least the one with the brightest colors.

But I didn't like the anticlimactic and maudlin ending at all.

From Lee Suggs : This short has a good premise and it works well on Fourth of July Weekend. Donald is his usual self dealing with an impossible picnic blanket. Everything that can go wrong does, and Donald loses his temper. However, the short feels forced like the animators weren't sure how to handle a classic character. The weak ending doesn't help either. Fortunately the animators handling of Donald's character improves dramatically after this episode.

From John G : This short was good at times, but I basically found it pretty annoying.