The characters known as Chip and Dale (officially in Disney lore Chip ‘n’ Dale) first received their names in this short, though they’d appeared twice before. Previously, they’d been pretty well identical; this is their first appearance where they are different in appearance (albeit without the later difference of Dale’s red nose) and personality. However, their relationship to Donald is always pretty well the same. I’ve said before that I prefer the shorts wherein Donald is resisting the malign forces of the universe to the ones where he’s opposing sentient beings, and this short is definitely the latter.

Donald is cold. (It’s below freezing outside as I write this, so I definitely sympathize.) He has, however, planned poorly for the winter and is out of wood. He goes and chops a single log, which he brings in and puts in his fireplace. Unfortunately for him, the dead tree he’s cut down was the home of a pair of chipmunks. They’d quite like their home back, and they go to retrieve it. Which also involves putting out Donald’s fire. He sees them and refuses them their home and delights in throwing them out of his.

Now, I am not an expert at winter preparedness in Donald’s situation. We have a woodburning stove, true, but we also have a furnace. I turn up the thermostat, and it’s warmer in here. But you don’t have to be an expert to know that Donald is not going to survive this winter if he keeps acting the way he does. Let’s leave aside that, per tradition, he is wearing neither pants nor footwear. He also has a single blanket, which is too small to fully cover him, and there’s still snow on the ground. He cuts one log. I’ve been around campfires often enough to know that he’s going to be back out there in an hour anyway and would have been better served to spend a couple of hours cutting lots of logs rather than antagonizing chipmunks.

On the other hand, once the tree’s been cut, is it really useful as a home for Chip ‘n’ Dale? A standing dead tree, yes, but a fallen one less so. It’s not as protected as an actual burrow would be. Once it’s on the ground, it’s pretty much going to start decaying right away. It’s open to predators—a wolf or coyote might not bother with a standing snag, but they’d definitely go after a log lying on the snow. And of course, if it snows more, which it seems likely it will, the log’s going to be buried.

I’m not necessarily saying that Donald’s wrong to go after the snag, you understand. It’s likely dryer wood than any of the standing trees around him. However, in a Disney world, he should be aware that the chipmunks he’s ousted are at least fifty percent likely to be as aware of things as he is. So even if you don’t think chipmunks inherently deserve to be treated with decency, these are the “people” next door. He destroys their house and sets it on fire. Then gets upset when they try to take it back. The least he could do is let them join him for the rest of the winter.

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