Donald Duck is anything but a lame duck. After all, the anti-hero from Duckburg has been wearing the same blue cap and cute red bow for 90 years. The pants, well, they’ve been missing since the beginning, but not the big mouth, the nagging and his choleric nature, for which we’ve always secretly preferred Donald to Mickey the mouse grinning around the world. So happy birthday, old duck, here’s to another 90 years!
Donald Duck received his own star on Hollywood’s Walk of Fame on his seventieth birthday. The address: 6840 Hollywood Blvd.
The creator
Carl Barks was certainly the most important ZeicDonald Duck is anything but a lame duck. After all, the anti-hero from Duckburg has been wearing the same blue cap and the little donkey’s hat for 90 years. Fired by Disney because he did not want to adhere to specifications, he drew Donald from 1942 for Western Publishing, which had the license for the magazine market. He invented almost all the important characters such as Scrooge McDuck, Daniel Gyro Gearloose and the Tank-Crackers, and ultimately built up the whole of Duckburg. Banks created a total of 6,215 comic pages, 190 covers and 296 scripts.
Donald is unlucky. Its creator Walt Disney deliberately set his birthday on a Friday the 13th. His license plate number is 313 and contains the unlucky number from the front and back.
Donald Duck’s family background
Donald has no children of his own, but has his nephews Tick, Trick and Track (Huey, Dewey and Louie in the original) on his hands. Donald’s twin sister Della brought it to him on the 17th. October 1937, because her father had to go to hospital because of a fireworks accident, and never picked her up again.
Lard curls
Donald is a passionate and good cook. His favorite thing to do is to bake lard crackers for himself and his nephews, the smell of which regularly attracts stingy Uncle Scrooge, who then usually scrounges up a whole lunch or dinner.
Clarence Nash originally invented Donald’s voice for a sheep. He spoke the Donald role in all languages for over five decades. Before his death in 1985, he gave his successor quacking lessons as a precaution.
For decades, Donald has been the most flexible worker of all and has worked as a fireman, gardener, animal keeper, museum attendant, glazier, frog farmer, letter carrier, captain, border policeman, fish farmer, real estate agent, snake charmer, reporter and exterminator, to name but a few.
Donald Duck international
Donald Duck has many names around the world, such as. B. Tang Lao Ya in China, El Pato Donald in Spain, Ntonalt Ntak in Greece, Paolino Paperino in Italy, Paja Patak in Bosnia, Anders And in Denmark, Kalle Anka in Sweden or Aku Ankka in Finland. In Switzerland, he was still called Schnatterich in the 1937 Mickey Mouse newspaper.
Number One
With Donald Duck, Walt Disney wanted to create a character that children could identify with better than Mickey Mouse. He said that Donald embodies what we are, whereas Micky embodies what we would like to be. His calculation worked out: Just four years after the clumsy bad-luck bird appeared, he overtook the correct mouse in the popularity stakes.
09. 06. 1934
Donald Fauntleroy Duck first appeared on 9. June 1934 in the animated film “The clever little hen”. Its beak was even longer and thinner back then, and it had wings instead of arms and hands. Donald then got his own cartoon series “Don Donald” in 1937.
Donald’s most difficult course was also his most successful. In “Der Fuehrer’s Face”, he takes on the role of a Nazi in 1942, who is transformed into a model American at the end of his nightmare. The 8-minute propaganda film against the Third Reich won an Oscar.
Donald Duck is a womanizer – who would have thought it? During his long-term engagement to Daisy, the clumsy man had his way with a mermaid, two princesses and several times with Mrs. Swan. But Daisy also often drives on two tracks and allows herself to be courted by Gustav Gans.
D.O.N.A.L.D.
In 1977, Hans von Storch founded the “German Organization of Non-Commercial Supporters of Loud Donaldism” (D.O.N.A.L.D.), in which die-hard fans of the Duckburg parallel universe discuss the comics in scientific and humanities matters. The board of the Donaldists is aptly named PräsidEnte.
Naked
Donald likes it topless. He never wears pants, except for swimming. The Finns found this indecent in the 1950s and wanted to ban children under the age of four from seeing the Disney hero. It never came to that.
Read all the facts about the Simpsons here