Donald's Snow Fight

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Donald's Snow Fight
Donald's Snow Fight.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed byJack King
Story byCarl Barks
Harry Reeves
Produced byWalt Disney
StarringClarence Nash
Music byOliver Wallace
Animation byLee J. Ames
Jim Armstrong
Walt Clinton
Jack Hannah
Hal King
Ed Love
Lee Morehouse
Ray Patin
Retta Scott
Don Towsley
Judge Whitaker
Layouts byBill Herwig
Production
company
Distributed byRKO Radio Pictures
Release dates
  • April 10, 1942 (1942-04-10)
(USA)
  • October 25, 1973 (1973-10-25)
(Finland)
Running time
7 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Donald's Snow Fight is an animated short film featuring classic cartoon character Donald Duck in a civil war-esque snowball fight with his nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie.[1] It was released in 1942 by Walt Disney Productions.[2]

Plot[]

The short begins with Donald wiping the fog off his glass door, excited to see the snow. Wearing a fur overcoat, Donald goes out to play with a sled while singing "Jingle Bells". When Donald reaches the top of the hill, he notices his nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie, at the bottom, building a snowman while singing "For He's a Jolly Good Fellow". Tempted, Donald crashes his sled into their snowman and thus his nephews, resulting each of them to "wear" a part of their snowman. Donald laughs himself silly afterwards, which prompts the angry trio to plot revenge.

The nephews craft another snowman, this one a silly-looking one that vaguely looks like Donald, around a boulder before calling out "Here's Uncle Donald!". Irked by the unflattering caricature, Donald attempts to crash the snowman, only to crash into the boulder underneath it, destroying his sled and the shockwave shaking off all of the furs on his overcoat, save for one, that Donald touches with his finger to stop its shaking and pulls out. The nephews happily laugh themselves silly, prompting an angry Donald to chase after them, blowing snow off a couple making out on a park bench in the process. Eventually, the nephews escape into an ice fortress that they made, with Donald crashing into the bedspring drawbridge, sending him flying backwards and crashing into a tree, causing the ice on it to come down around him like cage as he is covered in snow to make him look like a rhino. At the nephews sing "London Bridge", Donald bursts out of the ice and snow before declaring war on the boys by building himself a snow battleship.

Donald starts off a small barrage of snowballs, which results in the nephews looking like bowling pins. Donald then uses a bowling ball-like snowball to strike them out. Donald then pulls out a bucket of water, dips a snow chunk in it, and creates an ice missile (which he calls "Big Bertha".) He launches it and it splits his nephews' flagpole in three spots, "spanking" all three of them. Despite the pain they endured, the nephews angrily refuse to surrender to Donald and instead started creating snow missiles of their own while getting three other objects: a picnic basket, some rope, and some mouse traps. They place the mouse traps inside the rocket-shaped projectiles and stick them in the picnic basket now with the string tied to it. Huey, Dewey, and Louie soon launch the basket and release the missiles, with Donald getting hit by several of them, burying him and covering him in mouse traps, which sends him into his usual tantrum. With Huey commanding them with a wooden sword, Louie and Dewey started launching snowballs from a catapult, much to Donald's frustration ("That's unconstitutional," quacks the duck angrily), with one of them even sending him through the wall of the top of his ship, and making a snow-like impression of his head.

The nephews then spear hot coal onto arrows (while singing the "Battle Hymn of the Republic") and launch them into the top of the battleship as well, creating a skull-like structure around Donald. As a final attack, they launch a huge flaming piece of coal into the base of Donald's ship. As Donald declares he'll exterminating the boys, he realizes his ship is starting to melt, with only the mast he's standing on remaining, with it eventually melting away as well, leaving Donald to fall into the hole in the frozen lake below, resulting in him being frozen in a palm tree-shaped prison of ice. To celebrate their victory, the triplets perform a (stereotypical) ceremonious Native American dance around the icicle (this latter performance was edited out of later broadcasts of the clip, due to perceived political incorrectness).

This short was featured as part of the edited collection, , from 1979, and is featured in From All of Us to All of You which is shown on TV every Christmas in the Scandinavian countries. This short was one of the many featured in Donald Duck's 50th Birthday. The short aired as part of the original Broadcast TV airing of Mickey's Christmas Carol but was replaced on the 35th anniversary edition home media release with "The Hockey Champ."

Voice cast[]

Home media[]

The short was released on December 6, 2005 on Walt Disney Treasures: The Chronological Donald, Volume Two: 1942-1946.[3]

References[]

  1. ^ Crump, William D. (2019). Happy Holidays—Animated! A Worldwide Encyclopedia of Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and New Year's Cartoons on Television and Film. McFarland & Co. p. 90. ISBN 9781476672939.
  2. ^ Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 74-76. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved 6 June 2020.
  3. ^ "The Chronological Donald Volume 2 DVD Review". DVD Dizzy. Retrieved 13 February 2021.

External links[]

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