June 9 - Donald Duck

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On this day, in 1934, Donald Fauntleroy Duck made his world debut in a Silly Symphony called The Wise Little Hen. If you want to get technical about things, Donald was actually three years old by the time Hen was released. He’d first been mentioned in a storybook, 1931’s The Adventures of Mickey Mouse, as a barnyard friend of Mickey’s. However, on the cover of that book, he looks more like a normal duck, albeit one wearing a green hat and overalls (interestingly it’s a shirt he’s missing at this point). When Hen premiered, he had his signature look of sailor cap and shirt (sans pants), but still wasn’t much of a character yet.  Donald’s second appearance, later that same year, was when things began to come together for everyone’s favorite foul tempered fowl.

For Orphan’s Benefit, Dick Lundy, an animator most remembered for being a co-creator of Donald, gave the Duck several of the physical characteristics that continue to define him today. And the foremost of those traits has to be his short temper. While slapstick was fairly common on the big screen, the temper tantrum pratfalls tend to send Donald into was something new. As soon as something or someone gets the better of Donald, he starts hopping on one foot, shaking his fist and making unintelligible quacking sound (although you can almost read his lips) which is a reaction quite unlike Charlie Chaplain or Buster Keaton. The audience response to Orphan’s Benefit was overwhelming and divided: kids either loved Donald and cheered him on or hated him and booed him. Either way, it was quickly obvious that the pants-less little bird was here to stay. 

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By 1935’s The Band Concert, Donald had become the perfect comedic foil for Mickey, a pairing the two stars would enjoy for decades, even as Mr. Duck’s popularity began to eclipse Mr. Mouse’s. In fact, Donald would go on to appear in more shorts than any other Disney character. One of the reasons he was created in the first place was to showcase personality traits that Mickey no longer could (like temper tantrums). In time, though, even he would evolve into more of the straight man role when two little chipmunks from his garden, Chip and Dale, became his comic foils. And with the addition of his nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie, he would become even more of a responsible citizen, for the boy’s sake. During World War II, Donald even became a stand in for American GIs in a string of anti-Nazi propaganda shorts, including the Academy Award winning Der Feuhrer's Face. One thing that has never changed though, is that short fuse of his (or his aversion to pants). 

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Starting quite early in the company’s history, Disney had several daily and weekly comic strips that appeared in newspapers. Donald began showing up in them as soon as he debuted and quickly earned his own strip. As comic books began to take over the imaginations of America’s youth and began selling millions of copies every month, Disney licensed most of their characters to Western Publishing to get in on the trade. Once again, Donald proved his popularity by appearing in more comic book stories than anyone (not just Disney characters but any character) who wasn’t a superhero (let’s face it, supers have always been the kings and queens of the genre).  Drawn by the likes of Al Taliaferro, Don Rosa and (most famously) Carl Barks, the universe that Donald lives in is the largest, most complete of any of the classic Disney characters because of his career in comics. A whole slew of his friends and relatives, including Scrooge McDuck, Gyro Gearloose, Gladstone Gander, and Huey, Dewey and Louie first appeared in the comics before making the transition to movies. 

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Which brings us to the topic of Donald’s girlfriends (and yes there is an s on the end of that word). Most people nowadays only know Daisy Duck as the love of his life, but, truth be told, Donald has been a bit of a player over the years.  For most of his comic book career, he kept two ladies on the hook, Daisy and her rival Donna Duck. Donna actually appeared on the big screen first in the 1937 short Don Donald (where she is established as being a Mexican duck) while Daisy didn’t come along until 1940’s Mr. Duck Steps Out. Some would claim that Donna is simply an early version of Daisy (much like Goofy was known as Dippy Dog at first) and initially that might have been true as Donna never appeared on film other than that one time. However, in 1951, the comics introduced her as Daisy’s rival for Donald’s affection and they coexisted for decades. Since Donna was basically a female version of Donald (complete with a feisty temper) and Daisy is much more of a yin to his yang, I choose to believe that they have always been separate characters.  

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As if juggling two women weren’t enough, in the Seventies the comics introduced another girlfriend for Donald. Reginella is an alien duck that Donald apparently falls deeply in love with, has a bit of an affair with in a Swiss chalet and, over the course of five adventures, struggles to be with until they finally realize that, for various reasons, their love can never be and, with deep sadness, they part. Let’s just say that Donna and Daisy do not figure into those story lines at all.

In recent times, Donald continues to enjoy immense popularity while still rebelling against his status as second banana to Mickey Mouse. Even though that’s something he’s been doing constantly since The Mickey Mouse Club television show, he can never seem to convince most people that he’s actually number one (in spite of the fact that his official signature includes that exact sentiment). The world continues to love him anyways and nothing is going to change that. Not the fact that we can’t understand most of what he says, nor the fact that he still refuses to wear pants. He was, is and will remain our favorite Duck. (And for those of you wondering about his middle name, to my knowledge no one ever actually uses it, but that is how his draft notice reads in the 1942 short Donald Gets Drafted.) Happy birthday, Donald!

December 2 - Clarence Nash

On this day, in 1933, Clarence Charles Nash became the 125th employee of the Disney Studio. Born on December 7, 1904 in Watonga, Oklahoma (before it became a state), Ducky Nash, as he became know later in life for obvious reasons, grew up on a farm developing impressions of the animals around him. It became a tradition whenever school talent shows rolled around that Ducky would sing "Mary Had a Little Lamb" in his trademark billy goat voice. After high school, he hit the vaudeville circuit doing his impressions and playing the mandolin. By 1930, he'd secured a spot on The Merrymakers radio show on channel KHJ in Los Angeles. This led to a gig as Whistling Clarence the Adohr Bird Man, a promotional character for the Adohr Milk Company. Clarence would ride around on a milk wagon pulled by miniature horses and give treats out to the kids. One day, his route took him past a date with destiny.

As Whistling Clarence was trotting by the Disney Studio, he decided to stop in and drop off one of his publicity sheets. Because an episode of The Merrymakers had been rerun just a couple of days before, the owner of the studio recognized his name and set up a formal audition. When Clarence did his billy goat voice, the casting director immediately called Walt into the room saying "We've found our duck." Walt agreed and the voice of a new character, Donald Duck, was hired.

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A few words about that voice that Clarence originally thought sounded like a goat but was clearly a duck. It did not come from his throat as most people who try to imitate it seem to think. He produced that classic sound through a process called buccal speech. A pocket of air is trapped between the cheek and the jaw and is slowly squeezed past the teeth. It's generally a self taught kind of thing. When done well, about three quarters of the words spoken can be understood and singing can happen in up to a three octave range. And no one did it better than Ducky.

Clarence and Donald were together from the beginning. Starting with 1934's The Wise Little Hen, Clarence voiced his beloved duck for the next 50 years. A great thing about their relationship is that it was one of the few in the industry that truly spanned the globe. Because of the unique sound of Donald's voice, Clarence himself dubbed it in every language that Disney films ended up in basically using a phonetic alphabet (it helps that Donald is normally largely unintelligible). He once said that German, of all the languages, was the most difficult to "quack" in.

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 Donald became one of the world's biggest animated characters mostly because of Clarence's performances. In over 120 shorts, several features, television appearances, advertising, records and just about everything else you can think of, he perfected the duck that was destined to play second fiddle to Mickey Mouse. But that wasn't his only contribution to the studio. Clarence also voiced Donald nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie when they came along. And, believe it or not, he was the first voice of Donald's girlfriend, Daisy Duck. His talents can be heard as the Rough House statue in Pinocchio, a bullfrog in Bambi, Figaro the cat in shorts and some of the dogs in 101 Dalmatians. When Jiminy Cricket's original voice, Cliff Edwards, passed away in 1971, Clarence took over for a little while.

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Clarence's last performance as Donald Duck was for 1983's  Mickey's Christmas Carol. He was the only original performer for a character in the entire film. His 50 year career performing the same character puts him in a select group populated by only two other people: Mel Blanc for his Loony Tunes gigs and June Foray for Rocky and Bullwinkle. Near the end of his life, it became increasingly difficult to produce Donald's voice and Clarence limited his performances to the recording studio and entertaining kids. He could never pass up a chance to wow the kids. On February 20, 1985 Clarence passed away from leukemia in Burbank, California in the same hospital that his boss did nearly two decades before. His hometown of Watonga named a street after him and he was officially made a Disney Legend in 1993.