Snow Fight, Old MacDonald Duck, Bee on Guard

DAY 236


Snow Fight takes place on a regular wintery Wednesday in the-not-yet-established Duckberg. Donald decides to flow sledding but then ends up being part of an all-out snowball fight with his nephews. Think of this as a combination of Sandcastles in the Sand and Snowball Effect from Spongebob. I remember segments of this short were shown a couple times in the Christmas sing-along video, like Donald singing "Jingle Bells" (before the very song set to Once Upon a Wintertime) and the first 2 snowman/sledding parts from the opening in "Walking in a Winter Wonderland". There's a lot of creative liberties with the impacts, preparations and throwing-tactics, there's great speed/visual gags animation-wise but it's just plain fun being a one-on-one (ish) battle, all in the name of fun, which is the best aspect. Both are on equal terms and it's a simple "keep going til one side looses".
Donald Duck had a farm, E-I-E-I-O. And on his farm, he milks his cow, E-I-E-I-O. But a fly comes here with a buzz-buzz there, here a squirt, there a crash, everywhere a punchline. That's what goes on at this farm, E-I-E-I-O. That's the short in a nutshell. It's god nice music especially with the fiddle/violins, the opening bit with Donald singing the Old MacDonald song doing his farm duties is pleasant, you'd think the cow would hate Donald but she's fine (even when she's somehow stuck in a tree), we've all been there with irritating bugs that won't stop (especially green flies which is what that fly is) and there's lots of neat tiny fights with a milk-filled udder being the weapon of choice.
Bee On Guard is sort of like a Flintstones' Fruity/Cocoa Pebbles cereal commercial (at least logic wise). Donald follows a bunch of bees to their hives and scams the head guard bee into getting the golden nectar and, like these other shorts, ends up in a big battle with a being smaller than him. The Pebbles cereal connections come with the "not gonna go to the store and go after this one person with the food I want instead", but that's just a nitpick. Donald's seen a bit more as the antagonist in this one, but he's still an enjoyable antagonist. There's always creative ideas with bees in cartoons (here they fly like fighter planes, fight like musketeers and have viking wardrobe), Donald's scams are clever like treating Buzz Bee like a drinking buddy and his bee costume, the final fight is unique with having the stingers be the swords, Buzz Bee is an unfortunate hero who must avenge his dishonor misunderstanding and it's funny how we don't know what happened to Donald in the end, but he probably just ending up opening a bee farm of his own next to Brownstone.

DAY 238

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