Donald's Lighthouse

    A Donald Duck Cartoon

    Release Date : March 4, 2000

    Synopsis

    Donald attempts to rid his lighthouse of a rather stubborn pelican.

    Characters

    Donald Duck

    Credits

    Director
    Tony Craig
    Robert Gannaway
    Story
    Henry Gilroy
    Story Editor
    Henry Gilroy

    Television

    Mickey Mouse Works: Season 2 - Episode 16
    House of Mouse: Season 3 - Episode 1

    Technical Specification

    Comments

    From Patrick Malone : A tip to the 1946 short Lighthouse Keeping. Here Donald tries to rid himself of a pesky pelican. I've held off in identifying the pelican as either Marblehead from that previous short or "Monte" from "The Pelican and the Snipe" since this one is definitely female.

    The short is a repeated theme with variations; Donald tries to get rid of the pelican and gets thrown down the stairs. Luckily they didn't dwell on the stairs gag too much which could have bogged down the short quickly. Some of the variations worked; some didn't. The ones that worked for me were the "slinky Donald" and later when he gets thrown down the stairs underwater and then back up.

    From Juan F. Lara : Donald vs. a pelican in a lighthouse again. The short ran off a list of Donald's schemes to evict the bird, which all failed. But the short was notable in that none of the schemes seemed to last more than 15 seconds. That short length gave the cartoon a lively pacing. The schemes were a mix of hit (One funny scene had Donald fall all the way to the seafloor, and then had continuity with Donald's other bright ideas.) and miss (the scene where the pelican briefly disappeared was just confusing.) Sometimes both (I went "huh" when Donald tried to stop the fuse he had just set, but that bad setup lead a hilarious punchline that was another example of Patrick Malone's "fifth wall breaking".) But to me it seemed more hit than miss. The makers tried a variety of ways to show Donald falling down the stairs, or instead have him fall somewhere else, or not show him fall at all. I got a sense that the makers were making fun of the fact that they were repeating themselves so much.

    The short also had a good opening scene featuring "Dumbo"-like narration and more stylized art.

    From Lee Suggs : A nice series of sight gags on Donald's attempts to rid a lighthouse of a pesky pelican. I think the animators decided to see how many bizarre ways Donald could get kicked down the stairs. They came up with quite a few. There are nice cameos here by a POC skeleton and the Moonliner Rocket. If you like shorts with a lot of violence done to the main character this one's for you. I did kind of feel like I was watching a Daffy Duck short.

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