The Final Episode #67: Donald Duck (Family Planning - 1967)

 

I had fun when I discussed The Final Looney Tunes Cartoon of the Golden  Age. I even had fun yelling at how much I hate Casper The Friendly Fucking Ghost. I don't know why I haven't done more Final Episodes on the Golden Age of Animation but I have a lot of stuff that I want to talk about. I literally want to talk about at least every damn thing that ended between 1960 and 2000. It's a lot of stuff. Even stuff that only had 13 episodes. I'm weird and I like doing this so I've decided to discuss the Final Donald Duck Cartoon today. I decided to do it because Donald Duck is my favorite Disney Character.

I won't be doing an entire damn look through of everything Disney did because I will be returning to this well again and again, but during this little look at Donald Duck I found out that there was a 30 year gap between Mickey Mouse cartoons. The Final Golden Age Mickey Mouse Cartoon happened in 1953. That's like 19 or 20 years before the Golden Age of Animation ended. That's quite a bit of time man. I just find that interesting. The Final Disney Cartoons of the Golden Age involved Donald Duck, Goofy, Uncle Scrooge and Winnie the Pooh. I'll save what the Final Disney Cartoon Short of that era was until I decide to talk about it. Or you could just look it up on Google and RUIN THE SURPRISE. I bet some of you will do that now. Jerks.

Donald Duck is fucking hilarious. I was given a Chip N Dale cartoon cassette when I was a child. I'd like to own all those VHS tapes but I'd also like to have some where to place them so people can go "WOW YOU REALLY LIKE TO WASTE MONEY" and I'll be like "Yeah, I don't know what will happen when I die so I might as well enjoy spending it. So shut up jerk" I don't know why I make the fake people I talk to so antagonistic. And also don't know why I make myself so antagonistic. Either way, Uh. back to the VHS tape my uncle bought me in like 1985 for my birth. It had two great cartoons in it. One called The Lone Chipmunks, which I think is actually the last Chip N Dale cartoon so I won't say any more. The other was called Chips Ahoy which is one of the best Donald Duck AND best Chip N Dale cartoons. Ever. There's one scene that will forever crack me up whenever I think of it or see it. It's beautiful.

Anyway Chips Ahoy was the last regular Donald Duck cartoon. You know one with an actual plot. The rest were PSAs. One was about math. one was about fire safety. one was about accidents in the home and another one was about work accidents to make sure your dumb ass doesn't hurt yourself. One which I actually thought was the last Donald Duck cartoon was about Littering. One was about The Steel Industry called Steel and America about the manufacturing of well Steel.  One is about who may have created the Wheel and what the Wheel does. The Final Cartoon however was about Family Planning. Yeah the 1960s was a weird time for Donald Duck. Uh so Family Planning was a joint production by Walt Disney Productions and The Population Control. 

It starts with Donald Duck trying to put together one of those art stands for painters. I'm sure it has a name but I also don't care enough to look it up. I think you can tell already that this is gonna be one of those Final Episodes that I don't really like very much and feel it was a failure. So that's kinda pretty sad ya know? Donald of course messes it up and gets angry. The animation isn't all that great and clearly it's more about Family Planning then creating wild comedy for children. Paul Frees of like 92,000 cartoons and voice over jobs does well the voice over where he talks about how wonderful Family Planning is. I'm pretty sure this was just made for parents because this cartoon talks about death and poverty and people dying in some pretty fucking wild ways and some art (like actual seriously drawn stuff that is probably the best drawn stuff in  the cartoon) would have freaked me out at like 7 years old. I guess Les Clark who was the first of Disney's Nine Old Men still had something in him but that's like the only scene that I liked because it was pretty well drawn.

They talk more about Family Planning and I wish I had just pretended that Chips Ahoy was the last Donald Duck cartoon even though it really wasn't. This wasn't even theatrical. I don't even know how the hell you viewed this cartoon. Did you go to a Family Planning clinic? This cartoon is just depressing and it feels like Donald Duck was just shoehorned into it. I wonder if the rest of the Donald Duck PSA cartoons were like that. I'm gonna go ahead and guess yes because PSAs are weird like that. I like that I get to bring this to you because I think it's pretty weird and people should know about it. I just don't think it's fun weird like Webster. It's weird but also kinda dull. Weird doesn't always mean a good time people.

FINAL VERDICT: The next time I do a Final Golden Age of Animation Cartoon look back I must find one that's actually pretty good because this really isn't. Donald Duck was in like 128 cartoons and  I doubt any of them were as bad as this one. The Final Casper cartoon was better than this. Yeah I said that. I was very disappointed but it's still kinda interesting to find out what was the last one. I don't know what character or studio I plan to do next but we will find it all out.