Why does Donald keep getting other birds for pets?
Well this one isn’t technically a pet since it came as part of
a baggage delivery at the train station he is
working at, but the point still
stands that I find it weird. Just like
Pluto is a dog and Goofy is a dog and yet one speaks and one doesn’t. It’s just weird to see sometimes; especially
with the 30’s and 40’s more wide-eyed character design. For me Donald and Hortense like too similar
and it clashes. In later shorts the pet
animals start to look more realistic and it helps with the illusion that one
character has more human characteristics than the other.
Still this short is better than ‘Donald’s Penguin’ for me as
there is more going on with Hortense flirting with Donald, and eating all kinds
of things like balloons, an alarm clock and the radio. The radio itself is also fun with the different
programs and voices used for it, and there’s some nice slapstick with Donald
here too. My personal favourite is him
getting stuck in a large milk jug, we cut to Hortense eating stuff and getting
the hiccups, and then go back to Donald who is still stuck in the milk
jug.
The only other thing besides character design that doesn’t
really work for me is the scene at the end where Hortense and Donald have
crashed and both come out of the rubble with black eyes. Sure slapstick is funny when it looks like it
hurt, but lingering damage should be minimal or at least played for laughs and
I felt that look wasn’t funny to me.
So again not a bad short with a few fun ideas, the character
design and the physical injuries at the end keep me from calling it a great short,
but most of it was entertaining.
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