Underplayed Gems

Donald's Off Day (1944)

Donald's Off Day poster
Directed by
Jack Hannah
Genre
comedy film
Country
United States
Runtime
7 min
Rated
NR
Rating
6.5 of 10 from 27 voters
Elsewhere
IMDb
The 3D catalogue: film cases on wooden shelves, with the cat sitting at the counter next to its greeting.

The catalogue in 3D

The film shelves have a room of their own that you can walk around in. The cat behind the counter is the AI Catbot, and they pick real films from the same catalogue when you tell them what you feel like watching. Nothing is for sale, here or in there. Go in from here and this film is already out on the counter, with more like it waiting on the shelf next to it.

More films like this

How it feels

Donald Duck's nephews convince him he is very sick. The nephews play tricks on Donald to keep up the prank, leading to a series of funny situations.

comedicmischievouslightheartedplayfulchaoticfast-pacedsilly

What happens

Donald's Off Day is a 1944 Walt Disney animated short by Jack Hannah starring Donald Duck and Huey, Louie and Dewey. It stars the nephews tricking Donald into thinking that he is seriously ill. This cartoon was Hannah's debut as an animation director. Veteran animator Jack King was slated to direct the short, but Hannah argued that King wasn't up to it: I got it filled with a lot of personality bits which I always believed were more important in a story than just a series of gags. I went to [head of Story Hal Adelquist] and said, "I'd just love to direct this." As much as I like Jack King, I can't see him directing these personality sequences. Carl [Barks] and I always were disturbed that King put one of our stories onto the screen without looking for further development in the personalities of the characters... The next thing I knew, Adelquist came up to me and told me Walt had said it was okay to pick up another story to direct. So I picked up another one, and ended up directing cartoons for Disney for the next seventeen years. (from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA)

More like this

This page is from Underplayed Gems. Not quite it? You can browse by genre, country and year, or take this one into the 3D catalogue and ask the Catbot for something closer.