>In 1994, American Family Association president Donald Wildmon filed a complaint with retail giant Wal-Mart over the Disney compilation VHS "Cartoon Classics: Fun on the Job" which among other things contained the classic 1937 Disney theatrical short "Clock Cleaners" which featured Donald Duck, Goofy, and Mickey Mouse encountering various mayhem as they attempt to clean a clock tower. The complaint involved Donald's fight with a stubborn mainspring. Donald yells at the mainspring "Says who?" The spring replies back "Says I!" to which Donald calls it a "snake in the grass." Because of Donald Duck's less than intelligible voice, it sounded like he was saying "Fuck you" and "Son of a bitch."
>Although Disney issued a statement arguing that Donald is obviously saying "Says who?" because of the mainspring's reply, they nonetheless became nervous about it especially since Wal-Mart was a major retailer of Disney home videos and merchandise, and reissued the "Cartoon Classics: Fun on the Job" video with the offending line redubbed into "Aw nuts" from a different Donald Duck feature.
>Some DVD compilations of classic era Disney shorts had the redubbed version of "Clock Cleaners" but airings on the Disney Channel have kept the original dialog.
>Because of Donald Duck's less than intelligible voice, it sounded like he was saying "Fuck you" and "Son of a bitch." It sounds like they heard what they wanted to hear
John Evans
There are still people who claim he says nigger in Roger Rabbit. Like they would put that in a film.
It really does sound like "fuck you", I wouldn't blame them if they thought that's what it was.
Jayden Edwards
I can't fully hear it cause he clearly makes an S sound at first, but I can kind of hear the "ck" part
Dylan Thomas
I miss when Christian fundies were the guys who complained about everything instead of dye-haired hambeasts.
Bentley Thomas
Oh the pearl clutchers still complain about a LOT of shit, they're just not as internet savvy as tumblr crowd so it's easier to ignore them these days. Same thing with people claiming to hear secret messages on backwards records.
Eli Gutierrez
Heh, yeah, it actually does kind of sound like he's cursing. At the very least, I can't make out what he's saying.
Connor Perry
What you mean to say is, Christian fundies don't have the support of major corporations behind them the way dye-haired feminists do so they don't get as much representation on Facecuck and Twitter.
Thomas Ward
Since this was in the 90s, everyone involved in making that short was pretty much dead--only a couple of elderly animators were still around so it's not like Clarence Nash or somebody could have gone lyl that's not what Donald is saying please clean out your ears.
Tyler Gutierrez
Maybe it's because I grew up with Donald and thus by now I've got tons of experience with Duck speech but not only does that not sound like cursing, you can even listen to what the spring says and that makes things clear.
I love that a spring is clearer to understand for most folks than Donald. Lon live the duck.
Asher Barnes
Both are annoying as fuck. Why can’t people chill?
John Howard
IDK, those Golden Age Disney shorts are always a bit weird to watch. Maybe because like most of us I was used to seeing Warner and MGM shorts on TV as a kid and just didn't have much exposure to the Disney stuff. The animation and general aesthetics look similar enough to the other two, but it's it's like Mirror Land in Rugrats. It all seems so familiar and yet completely foreign at the same time.
Chase Powell
>read the comments >someone mentions the Ducktales promo for the episode that came out a few weeks ago, in which he sounds like he’s saying “Holy Shit”
They actually got one in in this short from the 50s.
Levi Jackson
Donald Wildmon was a pretty consistent antagonist of Disney back in the 80s-90s, he often accused them of promoting degenerate ideologies.
Ethan Ward
YOU LITTLE BICTH
Luis Baker
>Cock Cleaners
Ethan Walker
Yeah they're always too tame and unsatisfying to watch compared with the Warner/MGM stuff. If I had to pick a classic Disney short I really couldn't stand, probably Goofy & Wilbur. Seriously, it's like an animated Hallmark card. Pass the barf bag.
Also CN reruns of Warner shorts cut out expletives which weren't as uncommon as you'd think--they made quite a sport out of Hayes Code baiting.
Eli Hughes
>If I had to pick a classic Disney short I really couldn't stand, probably Goofy & Wilbur The postwar Mickey shorts are generally pretty bad, but Mickey's Birthday Party is the absolute nadir.
Ryder Rivera
Warner didn't have comparable animation quality to Disney's shorts until about 1943. Warner shorts from 1937 were still black and white and had janky animation. Disney was a good five years ahead of everyone else.
Justin Mitchell
I love Disney shorts but you definitely have to dig around to find the best stuff; a lot of material is ridiculously slow paced. Cartoons that in theory should bring good laughs sabotage themselves for being so slow.
Or as mentioned by the second user, too syrupy Wilbur is definitely one of the worst offenders, which is funny because it started the Goofy series, which ended up being the wildest and funniest of the lot by far, thanks to director Jack Kinney; he had such fast paced witty mayhem that Tex Avery himself wanted to snatch Kinney for his crew (Disney raised Kinney's salary to what Avery was offering and Kinney stayed).
That said there is definitely a lot of good stuff, just not as frequently or consistently as LT or T&J. A lot of the Goofys are quite worth the watch, as are several Donalds. Pre-war Mickey has various winners too. Stuff like The Band Concert, the trio cartoons, Thru the Mirror or Brave Little Tailor are grand in a way unlike anything LT or T&J.
Jayden Gray
MBP has Donald Duck in a sombrero smoking a huge cigar while laying on Clara Cluck's back. Nothing with that on it can be the nadir of anything.
CN didn't rerun anything from before 1940 either so most of you have never seen stuff like
Oliver Wilson
Warner had used color since 1934, two years after Disney but many of their shorts were black and white until 1940 and Disney also had an exclusive monopoly on the three strip Technicolor process for a while which limited other studios to the lesser two strip process. Remember that Disney had quite a bit more advanced technology than the competition which even included a spectrometer to measure colors. Since colors would also not show up on camera the way they appeared in real life, the studio had a huge wall chart posted up in it as a guide to how colors would appear on camera.
For some reason Bob Tashlin kept using the "fat" Porky long after everyone else had quit. The intro for this short has the "thin" Porky though so apparently they got on him about it.
Bob Clampett came up with the familiar Porky design we all know. Before that time they had no consistency at all and different directors had different interpretations of how he was supposed to look.
Jose Green
Disney was too overprotective of their properties and thus while you had T&J, Popeye, Looney Tunes, etc. on TV all the time back in the days before cable you could only see Disney cartoons when Disney themselves dictated it. It was even worse before the Disney Channel as the only time kids would actually see the shorts was during those rare times a Wonderful World of Disney would run them on ABC on Sunday nights. Combine all this and you had this sort of 'Disney cartoons are perfect' thing going on as it was actually super rare to actually see them until the Disney Channel came into being (and back in the 80s and early 90s the channel actually showed Disney shorts on a regular basis). Now that the cartoons are more widely available it's easy to see that most of them are about the level of Looney Tunes on their good days and much worse on their worst, especially the more boring musical ones.
Levi Nelson
It was true that Disney animators often did feel jealousy over Warner's edgy cartoons and wished they could do that.
