Donald's Ostrich

Donald's Ostrich is an animated short film produced in Technicolor by Walt Disney Productions and released to theaters on December 10, 1937, by RKO Radio Pictures.[2] It was the first film in the Donald Duck series of short films, although billed at the time as a Mickey Mouse cartoon. It was the first of the series to be released by RKO.[3]

Donald's Ostrich
Theatrical release poster
Directed byJack King
Story byCarl Barks
Produced byWalt Disney
StarringElvia Allman
Billy Bletcher
Clarence Nash
Pinto Colvig
Music byOliver Wallace
Animation byJack Hannah
Paul Allen
Johnny Cannon[1]
Color processTechnicolor
Production
company
Distributed byRKO Radio Pictures
Release date
  • December 10, 1937 (1937-12-10)
Running time
9 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish

Donald's Ostrich was directed by Jack King and features the voices of Clarence Nash as Donald Duck, Pinto Colvig as Hortense the Ostrich, and Elvia Allman and Billy Bletcher as radio voices.

Plot

Donald is working along as a custodian at a whistle stop train station and is responsible for loading and unloading luggage. A train passes the station and dumps a large pile of luggage on Donald without stopping. Donald finds that one of the crates contains an ostrich and tied around the ostrich's neck he finds the following note: "My name is HORTENSE. Please see that I am fed and watered. P.S. I eat anything!"

Hortense begins to eat anything she can find at the station starting with the message. This includes Donald Duck's bottom. She then eats a concertina, a wind-up alarm clock and several balloons. This causes Hortense to have hiccups which Donald tries to cure by scaring her.

Finally Hortense swallows Donald's radio and her body begins to react to what is playing on the radio. Donald realizes Hortense has swallowed the radio and grabs a pair of forceps to try to pull it out (but ends up getting the concertina out instead). But when Hortense starts to react to a broadcast car race, Donald is unable to control her. Hortense finally crashes through a door which at last knocks the radio out of her, but she also gives Donald the hiccups.

Hortense

While Donald's Ostrich was the first and only time that Hortense the Ostrich appeared in animation, she later appeared as a comic book character as Donald's pet. Her first comic appearance was in the first publication of the Donald Duck Annual in 1938.[4]

Hortense also appeared in the Donald Duck comic strip, first appearing on October 3, 1938 for a few weeks,[5] and then appearing very occasionally until her last appearance on October 30, 1944.[6]

Deleted scenes

One of the scenes involves Donald dressing up as Frankenstein's monster and scaring Hortense. The reason for cutting this out of the official version might have been that the design of the monster was copyrighted by Universal. These scenes were not included for theatrical release in the United States. However, they are left intact on a Pathescope 9.5mm home movie release of the film in the United Kingdom, dated from February 1938. The scenes were also compiled as a separate Pathescope release, titled Donald's Disguise.[7][8]

Voice cast

Home media

The short was released on May 18, 2004, on Walt Disney Treasures: The Chronological Donald, Volume One: 1934-1941.[9]

It was also released on VHS on Walt Disney Cartoon Classics Vol. 2: Here's Donald.

References
  1. Donald's Ostrich Archived November 24, 2012, at the Wayback Machine at The Encyclopedia of Animated Disney Shorts
  2. Lenburg, Jeff (1999). The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons. Checkmark Books. pp. 74–76. ISBN 0-8160-3831-7. Retrieved June 6, 2020.
  3. Donald's Ostrich at the Internet Movie Database
  4. "Donald Duck Annual #1". ComicVine. Retrieved July 2, 2019.
  5. "Donald Duck Settles a Grudge". Inducks.org. Retrieved July 2, 2019.
  6. "Donald Duck 44-10-30". Inducks.org. Retrieved July 2, 2019.
  7. "Donald's Disguise (1938)". YouTube. Archived from the original on December 21, 2021. Retrieved December 8, 2020.
  8. http://www.pathefilm.uk/95flmcat/95flmcatpsiln.htm
  9. "The Chronological Donald Volume 1 DVD Review". DVD Dizzy. Retrieved February 13, 2021.
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