User Reviews

Donald is now quickly learning the drudgery of the Army (um...isn't this supposed to PROMOTE it?). He's now singing his little song anymore and is quite miserable. His platoon are on some kind of marching mission. A long, long, long trek across valleys, mountains and deserts.

He's last in line and is not coping as well as the other troops. And when they finally make a camp Donald misses out on supper because he cannot make his tent.

It is rather funny and I always have sympathy for Donald when everything goes wrong (then why am I laughing?) and the music is rather creative, making the most of beats, drums and the marching motif. Quite infectious.

Another of the WW2 Donald Duck pictures, though there's no combat here, and not even Pete this time as his adversary (in a number of them he was, like The Vanishing Private and the Old Army Game). The elements here are gag-related, but it's all about some fundamentals for this Duck, and so director Jack King puts our beloved fowl into a series of increasingly frustrating scenarios. Of course he directed a ton of Donald Duck shorts, probably his forte at the studio, and this sounds like nothing new. But the genius here is to make it all pretty basic, and for things to actually start out kind of light compared to what's to come; Donald's just walking, going through the various elements of cold, heat, rain, scalding heat, dust... and then it's time to eat, but he can't until he makes up his tent. This struggle becomes fruitless - it's the middle of the night once he gets it - and then he can't sleep.

It's the battle of the elements, in other words, and that struggle of the soldier to have to keep it up. It's not even that this Duck is all that much of a light-sleeper (there's actually another cartoon, I forget the name, where a similar situation happens but in Donald's own home). The conflict and the great bounty of gags comes in just seeing how this duck can't find the moment to go to sleep - the other soldiers with their noisy feet on the drums or the snores that sound like cannon-fire certainly don't help - and that it's easily relatable. There's no clear villain here, only the problem of trying to live a decent day-to-day existence. That sounds trite or too simple, but the animators do fantastic work in bringing you on this Duck's side, keeping you there, and making it funny, moment to moment and beat to beat.

What makes this particular cartoon great is that everyone watching it can empathize with Donald.

Donald portrays a WWII army soldier in training. He and his platoon go on a 40-plus mile hike.

He goes through all of the emotions which many of the GIs would have experienced. Even if you weren't a soldier, the idea of continually doing something until you're past exhaustion is something we can all relate to. It also shows the folks back home some of what training was like.

The animation, especially the backgrounds spoofing John Ford films, is beautifully done.

If you'd like to see more cartoons of this type, check out "Walt Disney on the Front Lines." This DVD collection includes over 30 short animation films. In addition, it includes the full-length feature "Victory through Air Power."

A Walt Disney DONALD DUCK Cartoon.

It's just FALL OUT-FALL IN for poor Private Duck, whose Army experience is becoming nothing but one long march.

This World War Two era cartoon features better than average animation and a funny performance from the Duck. Clarence Nash provides Donald with his unique voice.

Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by pictures & drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew comic figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Dumbo, Bambi & Peter Pan. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that childlike simplicity of message and lots of hard work will always pay off.

This is a funny little cartoon where Donald Duck is serving in the military as a private, out on a very long training march. It's funny seeing him grow exhausted as he treads through the desert and snow until he and his fellow solders finally reach their camp. When Donald must follow orders to pitch his tent first before dinner, the tent won't cooperate and results in classic funny Donald frustration. Even during bed time, Donald has trouble with the uncooperative tent and the loud snores of his fellow soldiers. Funny stuff here and it's just classic and hilarious how Donald deals with his mishaps. At the end, Donald shows some great endurance as he almost gets no sleep and is told to march on - strong-willed like a real soldier!

Grade A

Fall Out-Fall In doesn't see Donald getting easily frustrated, temperamental or annoyed and the situations going on around him, which is where his personality is at his best. But we do feel sympathy for him, an approach that has either worked or hasn't, and luckily it does work here. And this sympathy isn't mild or anything, we genuinely feel for him and can really identify with this situation. Fall Out-Fall In with or without this is still a quite outstanding short. The animation is very detailed and beautifully coloured, with the backgrounds particularly evocative. The music has a lot of character and the orchestration is very creative without overpowering. There are some neat gags, mainly revolving around Donald and too many noises. Seeing as I'm having problems with noisy neighbours at night at the moment, I can definitely relate to Donald's trouble with sleeping through all the noise. Donald marching through the seasons is another nice touch, we also feel sympathy for him here and that is not because the short is telling us to. All in all, outstanding and while Donald is against his usual persona he and his situations evoke genuine sympathy. 10/10 Bethany Cox