One of the weirdest conflicts in Disney fandom is the identity of Donna Duck (Clarence Nash, but sped up). This is her only appearance in Disney animation, and it’s often said to be the first appearance of Daisy. In the comic strips, she is, however, explicitly different and has been in the same place with Daisy at the same time. In fact, Daisy has been shown to be jealous of her, though Donna is dating Donald’s cousin Whitewater. (As we’ve discussed, the Duck family tree is ridiculously complicated.) However, on the animated side, Donna is generally treated as just the name Daisy was going by for the purposes of this short. If it was, this is her first appearance.
At any rate, Donald Duck goes a-wooing. He rides his burro (Lee Millar) to her house. Daisy dances for him, then falls and lands on the burro, who kicks her into the fountain. Donald laughs, so they quarrel. She goes back into her house, and he storms off. He returns, having traded the burro for a car. They go driving off together, but then the car breaks down. She is knocked into a dirty puddle, and he laughs again. They quarrel some more, and she rides off on a unicycle because why the heck not. “Jenny” the burro laughs at the whole thing.
Donald had been around for three years at this point. Mickey would start with a love interest—she appears in his first short regardless of whether you’re counting “Steamboat Willie” or “Plane Crazy.” Donald took longer, and I think this is in part because the youngest Mickey has ever seemed in relevant human years is perhaps a late teenager; in some of Donald’s early appearances, he seems considerably more childlike. I tend to like him better when he’s acting younger, as it gives him more of an excuse to be less in control. Once he acquires a love interest and young nephews, he just comes across as abusive.
Practically all that matters about the short’s Mexican setting is the costuming. Donald wears an enormous sombrero, which eventually gets shrunk when sprayed with boiling water, and Daisy wears a comb and mantilla. She also does a Mexican hat dance. The actual point of the short, inasmuch as it has one, is the conflict between your standard Disney Semi-Sentient Animal and its owner and then the ornery nature of animated machinery. Change the costuming and take away two bits of the short, and you could set it in rural practically anywhere, especially in the ‘30s. Doubtless there were still Americans and Canadians and people from various places around Europe who went a-wooing riding animals and had romantic interests who preferred cars.
This is the first cartoon that would eventually be released as a Donald Duck short, though its initial release was as a Mickey Mouse one. In 1937, Donald was slowly starting to develop as his own character, which would eventually include acquiring his own cast of supporting characters. Donna was the first of them, and that remains true whether or not she’s actually Daisy. In fact, she’s more interesting if she isn’t, because that makes Donald the only major Disney character to have an ex other than Minnie.
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