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November 25, 2008
Rage, rage against the Donald Duck cartoon.
The gloom lowers, and the writer snaps.
As the sun disappears in Seattle for the winter and the damp cold sets in, as I well recall, you either get depressed or get angry. Paul Constant of Slog unambiguously embraces the latter in his review of—I crap you negative—a Donald Duck cartoon compilation:
First thing you see when you watch this DVD? Leonard Maltin. I fucking hate Leonard Maltin. I hate his shitty warmed-over film historian bullshit, I hate his canned enthusiasm for whatever project will pay him to show up, I hate his nasal know-it-all voice...So, finally, after Leonard Maltin putting the cartoons in their proper bullshit historical perspective, I watched the goddamned Donald Duck shorts. And you know what? Donald Duck shorts, like many other things from the 1950s, suck. Here is the plot of all these cartoons: Donald Duck lives in a boring house in the suburbs. He wants something. He tricks someone into doing something for him. The person gets mad, and tries to fuck with Donald Duck, but Donald Duck gets the upper hand. The end...
This video is total proof that the 1950s were the most awful time in American history. All everyone did, apparently, was take care of their yard and go on day-trips into the country. The worst part of these two DVDs—even worse than Beardy McManchild's commentary—is the fact that the studio moved Donald Duck to the suburbs and set him out on these petty, dull adventures. Much like everyone in America in the 1950's, Donald Duck is a smug, suburban bully in all these shorts. I half expected him to have an affair and a midlife crisis somewhere in here. These are perhaps the most monotonous cartoons that Disney ever created. And that's saying a whole lot.
"Bad Duck" (Paul Constant on Slog)
