Donald Duck (Mickey Mouse 2013, seasons 1-5)

Donald Duck "Ah, Phooey!" - Donald when the writers flanderized him in the first 5 seasons of the 2013 Mickey Mouse reboot Gender: Male Type: Wrathful, Uncaring, & Selfish Duck The Dark Side Of Donald Duck Age: Unknowed Species: Anthropomorphic Duck Portrayed by: Tony Anselmo Status: Alive Media of origin: Mickey Mouse (2013) First appearance: The Wise Little Hen

Donald Fauntleroy Duck, or simply Donald Duck is a short anthropomorphic duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor shirt and cap with a bow tie. He is known for his semi-intelligible speech and his mischievous and temperamental personality when he gets angry, created by Walt Disney.

Unfortunately, he got flanderized during the first five seasons of The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse. Because of that, despite being one of the "supporting protagonists" of the series, in the first five seasons Donald has frequently been depicted as anti-heroic and even antagonistic (though not completely evil), even going so far to become the direct antagonist to Mickey in certain episodes of those seasons despite being his best friend.

"Traitor, vacillator, lousy second-rater" Qualities

Note: This only applies to his character as depicted in seasons 1-5 of Mickey Mouse (2013), where he was flanderized.

1. He was flanderized from being a short-tempered-yet-likable, relatable, friendly, funny duck to an angrier, mean-spirited, and selfish duck who is a terrible friend to Mickey.
2. He behaves rather mean and quite rude to Mickey when he's supposed to be his best friend and support him.
   • In "No Service" (arguably the episode where he was at his absolute worst despite being the first episode of the reboot), he cheats when he and Mickey drew straws and takes Mickey's clothes and laughs at him for being naked and blows a pin at him for mocking him in return, although he gets his comeuppance when he gets kicked out of the shack by Goofy for showing him Mickey's ID and gets humiliated on the beach naked when his full set of clothing falls off in the process.
   • In "Roughin' It", he doesn't care about Mickey's style of camping and selfishly brings his RV and he and Goofy cause Mickey nothing but pain and even hypocritically calls Mickey out for "ruining camping", when he literally brought the RV and ruined Mickey's camping activities and calls him a "hippie". Additionally, he practically screams at Mickey during this, despite Mickey literally having done nothing to irritate him or Goofy prior.
   • In "No", he outright refused to help Mickey say the word "No" by saying "No" as in he doesn't care about his friend at all, but he eventually helps him say it.
   • In "Wonders of the Deep", when Mickey blames himself for getting Ludwig von Drake eaten by a clam and getting himself and Donald trapped, Donald comforts him, only to say it is his fault, showing no sympathy for him whatsoever.
   • He makes a pointless, out-of-place cameo in "Feed the Birds" where he is seen partying among the mean pigeons that had evicted both Mickey and his bird friend Tuppence out of their house, which even causes a plot-hole as well.
3. He even acts way more short-tempered than before, to the point that it becomes exaggerated and unfunny.
   • In fact, according to Mickey in the episode "Split Decision", his temper is so completely out-of-control that his girlfriend Daisy will dump him for good if he doesn't control his temper, and he has been (literally) "blowing his stack at a drop of a hat".
4. He can sometimes be angry for little to no reason at all.
   • In "The Adorable Couple", he and Daisy are grumpy and argumentative for no reasoning behind it which makes no sense, and could even cause a plot-hole as well.
5. His actions come off as abusive and sadistic rather than funny.
   • In the first episode "No Service", he is shown to be very crude, such as how he made a rather risque and tasteless joke about "hot buns" shortly after leaving Mickey naked outside, hence offending and embarrassing Mickey further.
6. He's not only mean-spirited to Mickey, but to his friends too.
   • In "Tapped Out", he acts extremely selfish and uncaring and outright refuses to help Mickey and Goofy who are being pummeled by Pete and only caring about his nachos being ruined and lashes out at Mickey for touching his nachos twice which is out-of-character for him.
   • In "Down the Hatch", he outright tried to kill Mickey and Goofy when they were shrunken and trapped in his body such as eating corn so it could fall on them.
   • In "Bronco Busted", he flat-out ditches his friends as he only accepted the millionaire's offer for the money to fix their car to be treated like a king and for money rather than actually caring about his friends' problem with the car. To make things worse, he will stay in the truck filled with horses, and implies that he will never come back until the Season 3 episode, "¡Felíz Cumpleaños!", seven episodes later.
7. Due to all these reasons, he comes off more like the secondary antagonist rather than the supporting protagonist of the show, and worse, he isn't even supposed to be an evil villain in this show unlike Peg-Leg Pete or Mortimer Mouse, which makes him even more unlikable.
   • Granted, Donald occasionally may had an antagonistic side at times due to his temperamental nature, especially in the original cartoons when he's paired with either Chip and Dale, his nephews or Spike the Bee, but not to this extent like how this show made him out to be.
8. Sometimes, he can be treated like a Butt-Monkey, even if he didn't do anything wrong to begin with.
9. His flanderization is almost as bad as Daffy Duck's (his Warner Bros. counterpart) during the DePatie Freleng and Seven-Arts eras of Looney Tunes, who was miscast as an evil villain.
10. Oftentimes, while Tony Anselmo does a good job voicing him, it can get obnoxious at times due to the fact that he yelled at a majority of his lines, especially when he is rambling just like Tom's Owner.

"Oh, Boy, Oh, Boy, Oh, Boy!" Qualities

1. He at least still kept his charm in the show.
   • He can sometimes be likable in some episodes, like in "Stayin' Cool", "Potatoland", "Captain Donald", "Workin' Stiff", "Flipperboobootosis", "¡Feliz Cumpleaños!", "Ku'u Lei Melody", "Swimmin' Hole", "Three-Legged Race", "Flushed!", "New Shoes", "The Fancy Gentleman", "Gone to Pieces", and the two TV specials "Duck the Halls: A Mickey Mouse Christmas Special" and "The Scariest Story Ever: A Mickey Mouse Halloween Spooktacular".
   • He still cares about his friends, especially Daisy.
2. He is still way more likable in all other media outside of this show and has massively redeemed himself since season 6.
   • At least he got flanderized only once, unlike his girlfriend Daisy who got flanderized for four times.
   • Moreover, Donald was considerably redeemed in Mickey Mouse Mixed-Up Adventures, and Mickey Mouse Funhouse.
   • Paul Rudish, who is the showrunner of The Wonderful World of Mickey Mouse, eventually learned from his mistakes and therefore undid his flanderization and returned Donald to his old personality when working on the series' sixth season onwards.
   • He is still quite iconic as he is still loved and popular, has appeared in video games, media other than Mickey Mouse, has comic books, appears in amusement parks, etc.
3. He gets his comeuppances in episodes where he's very unlikable for the most part, so we cannot clarify him as a Karma Houdini.
4. His voice actor Tony Anselmo still does a good job voicing him as always, at least whenever there is no angry yelling or rambling from him.
5. Like everyone else, his redesign in the show is cute and stays faithful to both his current and original designs.

Comments

Loading comments...