Characterization
Personality
Donald's dominant personality trait is his short temper and, in contrast, his positive look on life. Many Donald shorts start with Donald in a happy mood, without a care in the world, until something comes and spoils his day. His anger is a great cause of suffering in the duck's life, and he has on multiple occasions got in over his head and lost competitions because of it. There are times when he fights to keep his temper, and he has succeeded a few times, but he always returns to his well known, aggressive self at the end of the day. Donald's aggressive nature is a double-edged sword however, and while it at times is a hindrance and even a handicap for him, it has also helped him in times of need. When faced against a threat of some kind, Donald may get frightened and even intimidated (mostly by Pete), but rather than getting scared, he gets mad and has taken up fights with
ghosts,
sharks,
mountain goats and even the
forces of nature. And, more often than not, Donald has come out on top.
Donald can at times be a bit of a bully and a tease, especially against
his nephews and
Chip 'n Dale. As animator Fred Spencer once wrote:
The Duck gets a big kick out of imposing on other people or annoying them, but he immediately loses his temper when the tables are turned. In other words, he can dish it out, but he can't take it.
However, there is seldom any malice in Donald's pranks. He is never out to hurt anyone, and if he ever goes too far in his pranks he is always very regretful. In
Truant Officer Donald, for example, when he is tricked into believing he accidentally killed Huey, Dewey and Louie he shows great remorse, blaming himself and willingly takes a kick handed out by one of the “angel” nephews. That is, of course, until he realizes he has been played a sap and directly loses his temper.
Donald has also been shown to be a bit of a show-off. He likes to brag, especially when he is very skilled at something. This has a tendency to get him into trouble, however, as he also tends to get in over his head. Still, Donald has proven that he is a
Jack of all Trades and are, among other things, a good fisher and hockey player.
Among his personality traits is his stubbornness and commitment. Even though Donald at times can be lazy, and he has stated many times that his favorite place is in the
hammock, once he has committed to something he goes in for it 100%, sometimes going to extreme measures to reach his goal.
Phrases
Donald has a few memorable phrases that he occasionally comes out with in given situations. "What's the Big Idea!?" is a common one, which Donald usually says when stumbling across other characters in the midst of planning some sort of retaliation or prank, and sometimes when certain things don't go as planned or don't work properly. "Aw Phooey!" is another memorable saying Donald makes, usually after giving up on a particular action or event. Another popular phrase Donald says, in particular to Daisy, is, "Hiya, toots!".
Health
A
running gag in the Donald Duck comics is about his physical condition. Usually, some character close to Donald believes that because of his laziness, Donald needs to do some exercise, which annoys Donald. But, in spite of his apparent lazy condition, Donald proves that he is physically strong, as evidenced in one of his shorts,
Sea Scouts, where Donald travels in a boat with his nephews, but a shark attacks the boat and Donald, after several misadventures, finally defeats the shark with a single punch.
Rivalry with Mickey Mouse
Through out his career, Donald has shown that he's jealous of Mickey and wants his job as Disney's greatest star. In the early Disney shorts, Mickey and Donald were partners, but by the time
The Mickey Mouse Club aired on television, it was shown that Donald always wanted the spotlight. One animated short that rivaled the famous
Mickey Mouse March song was showing Huey, Dewey, and Louie as
Boy Scouts and Donald as their
Scoutmaster at a cliff near a remote
forest and Donald leads them in a song mirroring the Mouseketeers theme "D-O-N-A-L-D D-U-C-K-! Donald Duck!" The rivalry would cause Donald some problems, in a 1988
TV special, where Mickey is cursed by a sorcerer to become unnoticed, the world believes Mickey to be kidnapped. Donald Duck is then arrested for the
kidnapping of Mickey, as he is considered to be the chief suspect, due to their rivalry. However, Donald did later get the charges dismissed, due to lack of evidence.
Walt Disney, in his
Wonderful World of Color, would sometimes make reference to the rivalry. Walt, one time, had presented Donald with a gigantic
birthday cake and commented how it was "even bigger than Mickey's", which pleased Donald. The clip was rebroadcast in November 1984 during a
TV special honoring Donald's 50th birthday.
The rivalry between Mickey and Donald has also been shown in
Disney's House of Mouse. It was shown that Donald wanted to be the Club's founder and wanted to change the name from
House of Mouse to
House of Duck. However, in later episodes, Donald accepted that Mickey was the founder and worked with Mickey as a partner to make the club profitable.
Mickey Mouse has failed to realize how much Donald does not like him at times, and always counts him as one of his best friends. Despite the rivalry, Donald seems to be an honest friend of Mickey's, and will be faithful to him in tough situations, such as working with Mickey and Goofy as a team akin to
The Three Musketeers. In the
Kingdom Hearts games, Donald is quite loyal to Mickey, even briefly leaving Sora to follow King Mickey's orders.
The rivalry between Mickey and Donald is not unlike that of Warner Bros. characters
Bugs Bunny and
Daffy Duck, and many animation fans have commented on the parallels present among the four characters, the main difference being that Bugs actually realises that Daffy doesn't always like him, and uses this fact to play tricks on the duck.
“Saludos amigos, a fond greeting to you!” Those lyrics were sung in the 42-minute feature film Saludos Amigos,
which had its World Premiere in Rio de Janeiro on this day in 1942.
Four mucho entertaining animated segments were introduced, “Lake
Titicaca,” “Pedro,” “El Gaucho Goofy,” and “Aquarela do Brasil,” which
featured Donald Duck and a newcomer to Disney animation, Brazilian
parrot José Carioca. Live-action footage of a South American goodwill
tour with Walt Disney and some of his staff tied together the animated
segments. The film was produced at a time when Nelson Rockefeller’s
agency, the Coordinator for Inter-America Affairs, asked filmmakers to
include Latin-American themes in their films as part of a Good Neighbor
Policy. Ted Thomas, writer/director of the film Walt & El Grupo,
is a qualified expert on the subject and recently explained to D23,
“The Rockefeller request to make films with Latin-American themes came
in the fall of 1940. By the spring of 1941 the government asked Walt if
he would make a South American trip. Walt agreed to it on the
condition that the journey would be a true research trip to develop
films that the Studio would then produce.” The story continues in
Walt’s own words, when he discussed Saludos Amigos in a CBC
interview. “I took a staff and we set up headquarters in Rio and we also
went and set up a studio in Argentina. We went over to Chile and some
of my artists, we divided our party, and some of them went up to Peru,
and when we came back I made these four short subjects… These four films
were more or less put together and they went out in the theater. It was
one of those things that they thought Disney needed a subsidy, but
fortunately that little thing went out and it did a heck of a business
and the United States Government didn’t have to put up one nickel.”
