Funny / Donald Duck

Alive since 1934 and still at it... Disney's Bible dictates: "Duck does not live by rage alone; he must have a laugh for every groan!"

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Carl Barks's Comics

• Donald's angst in "Gladstone's Luck", AKA "Golf Luck"
  Donald: Goodbye, boys! I'm going to lock myself in the broom closet and stay there for the rest of my life!
  Don's nephews: It's Gladstone Glander that makes you notice your bad luck! He makes everyone feel like jumping off a cliff!
  Donald: Go away and let me enjoy my misery!
• It Makes Sense in Context, sure, yet...◊
• "Donald Tames His Temper". Using her purse, Daisy sweetly convinces Don of keeping his cool by bashing his skull against the floor. When his nephews take excellent advantage of their uncle's softened self, it's not long before the Duck's Berserk Button is finally pushed beyond what he's willing to tolerate, so he calls his girlfriend for advice:
  Daisy: Why, spank them, of course! Be firm with them, but don't show anger!
  Donald: Glory be! Then it's okay to whale the BLAZES out of 'em - If I do it with a smile!
  • Yoo Hoo, boys! Come and have a pleasant chat with 'ol unca' Donald!◊...The whole last page, natch.
• Any given story that pits Donald against Neighbor Jones. For instance, that time where they agreed to address each other with impeccable manners; in this scene◊, they do just that.
  Donald: Nice leaky roof yah got there, Jonesie, ol' snake!
  Jones: No leakier than yours, Duckie, ol' louse!
  Donald: I wonder how your oriental rugs are standing this?
  Jones: They're standing it better than your collection of rare books!
• Donald planting a two-dollar sapling in "Gopher Goof-Ups" and eloquently envisioning the future:
  "Under this mighty tree of shade...I'll sit and sip my lemonade...''
• In "Turkey with all the schemings", a hungry Don looks around his kitchen on Christmas Day, only to discover the awful truth:
  Oh, me! Oh, my! I've spent ALL of my money, and there's nothing in the house to eat but a can of BEANS! This is a TRAGEDY worse than the burning of Rome!
• The entire beginning of "The Secret Of Atlantis" may be the most hilarious exchange Barks ever wrote. Scrooge sends Donald to collect a debt from someone, promising to pay him half the debt as commission. Donald's thrilled, thinking of how big half a debt owed to Scrooge McDuck ought to be. Unsurprisingly, when he gets to the address Scrooge gave him, he finds he's at his own house — the "debt" was a dime Scrooge loaned him years ago. Donald goes back, pays his uncle with a quarter, and demands his change plus his promised nickel commission. After Scrooge gives it to him, Donald celebrats how he just "settled" a ten-cent debt for only five cents and is probably the first person ever to get a nickel from Scrooge McDuck... until he gets out to the street and realizes Scrooge paid him with a worthless, foreign nickel. Scrooge admits it, but reminds Donald that he specifically said that coin "settled the debt," so Scrooge doesn't owe him anything more. Donald sulks until he gets home and his nephews reveal the coin is a rare antique worth five dollars. Naturally, the very next panel is Donald gloating in front of his uncle:
  Donald: Have you ever been took! You didn't give me five cents, you gave me five dollars!
  Scrooge: (in tears) For the ninety-ninth time, have a heart!
• "Donald's Love Letters"- The preposterously mushy title letters, which contain such gems as "Yumsie wumsie little sugar plumsie."
  Donald: Great groaning guzzards! Did I write that kind of stuff? I must have been out of my head!
• From "Terror of the River", we have the motivation behind the operator of the giant sea serpent submarine, who's been terrorizing people up and down the Ohio River. Is he trying to scare people away from the location of a hidden fortune, or illegal activities? Nope - he just likes scaring the hell out of people with the thing. That's his entire motivation.
• In "Trail of the Unicorn", Donald's Wrong Genre Savvy attitude towards the Unicorn they're searching for. When they find the creature's remote Himalayan refuge, Donald believes that unicorns are probably very shy, delicate creatures, and coaxing it out will be difficult - only for the unicorn to charge out of a nearby cave at top speed, try and impale everyone in a frenzied attack, split a boulder in two with its initial charge, and nearly kill everyone until Huey gets lucky and offers it a bite of moss on a rock. Arguably doubles as Nightmare Fuel.

Don Rosa's Comics

• Don's obsession with singing "Lydia the Tatooed Lady" in Don Rosa's "The Treasury of Croesus"
• In "Metaphorical Spanking", the nephews complain about having to study stylish writing techniques such as "alliteration" or "simile". Their uncle puts them on their place:
  Donald: I don't know from alliteration or simile, but if you lazy little loafers don't get to school, I'll peel you like spuds!
• The ending of "Return to Plain Awful," land of all things square-shaped:
  Donald: Admit it — they got the best of both you old birds. And now you have something in common with them.
  Scrooge: Like what?
  Donald: Well, they made their billion by being tougher than the toughies and smarter than the smarties. And you know what else...
  Scrooge: Oh, no, nephew, don't say it! Please!
  Donald: ... They made it SQUARE!
• In "The Island at the Edge of Time", upon discovering how their jet went past the "international dateline" so that it's now Tuesday instead of Monday, Donald decides to use that fact to his advantage by telling Scrooge that he owes him another day's pay. Instead, Scrooge pays him "imaginary pay" for "imaginary time".
• The capybara imitating Mickey Mouse in "The Magnificent Seven (Minus Four) Caballeros".
  • Also, José and Panchito's reactions to Donald accidentally doing things right and mentioning of finding El Dorado, the lost mines of the Incas, a lost world of living dinosaurs, Atlantis, and King Solomon's Mines, as an afterthought.
  • This exchange between Donald and an evil Indian chief.
  Indian chief: "In civilization what I learned was greed and avarice!"
  Donald: "You became a lawyer?"
• There's a Hidden Mickey in The Black Knight Glorps Again, in one of the showcases in the museum. The note underneath says "Ancient Demon Worship". Don Rosa preferred Donald to Mickey, if it wasn't obvious.

Other comics

• Paperinik stories. Even the darker ones will have funny moments... Like that time two cops tried to arrest him and burst in the bedroom of a house in which they had seen him enter...
  Cop #1: "Hands to the sky!"
  Cop #2: "Police!"
  Man in the bed: "What?!"
  Cop #1: "That's the chief of the police..."
  Cop #2: "We're doomed..."
  • Sometimes the fun is provided by the sheer audacity of what Paperinik does. In the first story he stole Scrooge's bed while he was sleeping on it, and in the fourth he threatened the whole population of Duckburg with a ray gun made of chocolate.
  • Paperinik has saved his prankster neighbour (not Jones, he never appears in Italian stories) from getting lost in the jungle, and told him that Donald sent him. The neighbour wants to repay Donald, but how? Easy: three months of suffering Donald's pranks without retaliation.
  • Paperinik's punishment for the Beagle Boys accidentally finding his home with the Duck version of Google Earth: swap the pictures so they barge in the home of three American football champions, while he and the police enjoy the show.
  • On one occasion, Paperinik was jokingly wearing a monstrous plastic mask, he glued it at his face-and then found out he was out of anti-glue, and can't procure more soon. End result: by the final confrontation of the story he's wearing a domino mask over a Rockerduck mask over a Paperinik mask over the monster mask, and gets rid of them because he caught a cold and starts sneezing them on the Beagle Boys' faces. Then, the annoyed Beagle Boys plug his nose when he's wearing only the monster mask-that explodes.
  • On one occasion, Donald had to go to a masked party, but forgot about it until the last moment, and his attempts to procure a costume were interrupted by emergencies he had to deal with as Paperinik. In the order, the emergencies were: a fire; a hostage situation in a bank; and a mad scientist with an invulnerable Godzilla-like Humongous Mecha.
    • How did Paperinik defeat the mad scientist? Easy: after failing to damage the mecha with his weapon, Paperinik surrendered and sent the police to get the money the scientist wanted to not destroy the city, and as they waited, he convinced him to play a few poker games-and won the mecha.
  • In one story Paperinik had Gyro invent a gun that sends the target a hour forward in time. A good weapon to deal with criminals, a shot and then he calls the police telling them where the criminal will be in a hour-But that's not why he had Gyro invent it, it's to get Daisy to be late at her dates with Donald and not be pissed with him anymore because he gets late due his 'job' as Paperinik. After finding out, Daisy got enraged... Then she decided it was very romantic.
  • The stories of the series "Quando Paperinik Mangia Pesante" ("When Paperinik Eats Too Much") have our hero eat too much and then have a completely absurd Acid Reflux Nightmare. Ridiculousness defies description.
  • In one occasion, Paperinik had to babysit a depressed Santa Claus while the latter moonlighted as a superhero to prove himself that he was still capable. And narrated everything he did while talking in third person.
  • One of his takes on Mook Horror Show: he films what he does to criminals he captures, then goes at homes of outsider criminals who plan to move to Duckburg and shows it to them. The one time this was shown, it took only three painful arrests to convince the crook he was better staying away from Duckburg.
• In "Donald and Reginella's Wedding" Donald is summoned to the planet Pacificus to defeat the Mighty Bongo and his army, who have enslaved the locals and are forcing Reginella to marry Bongo. Donald does it single-handedly with a shotgun... And a boombox playing a horrible song. And the song won an international award.

Film

• Saludos Amigos: With Donald attempting to survive the suspension bridge coming apart, the Interactive Narrator reminds the audience that one must "never lose one's temper".

  Donald: Shut up, ya big windbag!

• Fantasia 2000: When Donald finally realizes just how screwed up the laws of the Disney universe can get.◊
• Who Framed Roger Rabbit: The entire Donald vs. Daffy nightclub battle, but particularly when Donald rises from his piano armed with a cannon and a (literally) devilish grin on his face.

Classic Disney Shorts

• "Orphan's Benefit" marks the first time Donald shows off his famed temperament, and it's a sight to behold. He also manages to survive a surprising number of bricks to the head.
• Sure, "The Band Concert" may be billed as a Mickey Mouse cartoon, but the Duck steals the show as far as comedy is concerned, playing a moderated screwball whose never-ending supply of fifes drives Mickey crazy!
• "Modern Inventions" gives us the amusing Running Gag of the robot butler constantly taking Donald's hats, and the climatic Humiliation Conga where Donald winds up in the hands of an automated barber, who trims his tail and puts a bowler hat on it, while shoe-shining his face! And once that's over, the robot yet again takes his hat, sending Donald off the edge.
• In "Donald's Snow Fight", there's a scene where the nephews fire a snowball at their uncle, knocking his pompous captain's hat off and leaving him with a ridiculous hairdo. He's not amused.
  THAT'S UNCONSTITUTIONAL!
  • Donald's fur coat is hilarious by itself, being that it is at least three times as wide as him. Doubled when his nephews make a snowduck of him using a large rock as the snowduck's body.
• Gollum has nothing on Don's absolute lust for gold in "Donald's Gold Mine".
• "Sea Salts". Donald cannot reach a coconut's meat, so he urges his companion Bootle Beetle to retrieve it for him. The beetle goes inside of the coconut, ignores Don's hunger and has a feast. Don catches on, and demands to receive the remaining piece a.s.a.p. Said piece is too big to fit through the coconut's holes, so Bootle bites the sides so it gets smaller, to the point it becomes a pathetic, minuscule piece. Aware of his comrade's temper, he shrugs at the audience, throws the piece through the hole, and covers his ears. Cue Donald's furious squawking. Here.
  • In the same short, a now-elderly Donald learns he can't dance anymore...The hard way.
• "Clown of the Jungle", featuring Donald vs. the Aracuan Bird. Basically the closest thing to a Tex Avery short to ever come out of Disney.
• In "Canvas Back Duck" Donald is roped into boxing "Peewee" Pete.
  Crowd Member: "Ah, the guy's yellow!"
  Nephew: "He is not!"
  Donald: "I am too. Let's go home."
  • It begins with Donald roaring out of the corner and beginning to jab... the referee. The best part is the referee calmly reacts to Donald punching him with only slight annoyance.
  Donald: "Geronimo!" (runs out of corner and starts jabbing)
  Referee: (gesturing with his thumb) "Not me, him."
  • Also acknowledged as a Moment of Awesome, Donald actually beat Peewee Pete with a tiny tap to his jaw with his bare fist.
• "Donald's Tire Trouble". The entire short is just watching Donald change a flat tire, but you'd be surprised how much his Hair-Trigger Temper makes it into such a huge ordeal. It gets especially funny when Donald gets trapped inside the tire.
  • The rubber tire thing letting out air like bagpipes.
  • And when all four tires go flat, well...
  Donald: RETREADS!!
• "Mooo?"
• The Wartime Cartoon "The Vanishing Private" is all pretty funny as Donald, after accidentally becoming invisible, makes life hell for Pete, who is his commanding officer. However, there are two moments that are especially hilarious.
  • First, there is the priceless expression on the general's face, quickly shifting from anger to concern, when he shakes his head no after Pete asks him if he has seen Donald:
    Pete: Did you see a little guy that you can't see?
  • Second is the closing scene: Pete is in a prison cell wearing a straitjacket, with the now-visible-again Donald guarding him!
    Pete: I ain't crazy. You know I ain't crazy! Go tell the general that I ain't crazy!
    Donald: Do you think I'm crazy?
• "Wide Open Spaces" has many hilarious moments.
  • The motel Donald arrived at is named "Hold Up Motel" complete with a handgun sign.
  • Donald reacting to having to pay $16 to sleep on a cot on the porch at said motel^note $16 in 1947 is the equivalent to $185.32 in 2020. Even though Donald is a penny-pincher, he knows when he's getting ripped off! and then tying the motel manager's arm up in a knot.
  • Donald inflating an air mattress with a pump...becomes an ordeal when everything starts to work against him.
  • Donald finally gets the mattress inflated and begins to go to sleep. He notices he is laying over a rock. He angrily tosses the rock up a hillside. The rock starts a chain reaction of loosening ever-increasingly larger rocks until a giant boulder is thundering down the hillside towards Donald. Donald flees the runaway boulder in his high-performance 1940's sports car. The boulder eventually crushes the sports car against a tree, somehow turning it into a 1910's Ford Model T-like car. All Donald does at this point is walk away sleepily from the whole scene.
  • Donald returns to his mattress and falls asleep on his stomach. As he's snoring, the mattress inflates at his feet until his face is on the ground. He then continues snoring, literally walking on his beak with each snore, and still somehow staying asleep. Donald beak-walks all the way off a cliff into a lake. We then pan down to see Donald still asleep at the bottom of the lake, sharing his blanket with a large sleeping fish, who inhales Donald's head each time it snores. The fish and Donald then begin fighting over the blanket, causing Donald to wake up and drowsily get his bearings looking around underwater. The fish also wakes up soon after. When their gazes meet, both do a wild take and Donald zooms out of the scene. This description does not do the scene's utter hilarity justice, so watch it here.
  • Donald sleeping soundly, and inhaling a tree branch over his mouth several times, at one point making a hilarious gargling sound before exhaling the tree branch so high it snaps down right onto Donald's face, giving him a rude awakening.
  • Donald, after propping the tree branch up, falls back asleep. The force of his snoring blows the stick propping up the tree branch, and it snaps down on the air pump attached to his air mattress, inflating it to a ridiculous size, and then separating from the pump, sending Donald, who's still asleep through the whole thing, soaring through the air, landing on the cot on the porch of the Hold Up Motel. His right foot rings the doorbell, and the motel manager charges Donald $16.98 (even more than the first time!), which Donald pays in his sleep.
• "Donald's Ostrich" has many funny moments thanks to the obliviousness of Hortense, the titular Ostrich who eats anything.
  • Hortense, being a female, begins flirting and kissing Donald, and practically wrapping herself around him. It's no wonder Donald was so apprehensive to her advances.
  • Donald's radio is so much a character in of itself, moving on its own depending on the radio program it is playing. When Hortense sees it and begins to eat it, the radio is playing a campy radio show about a lady being attacked by an assailant. It is as if the radio is reacting towards Hortense trying to eat it.
  Lady on radio: Step closer, and I'll scream!
  (Hortense tries to eat the radio)
  Lady: (screams)
  (Hortense drops the radio in shock)
  Assailant on radio: (laughs evilly) I'll fix you! (evil laugh) Get in there!
  (Hortense picks up the radio again and swallows it)
  Lady: (inside Hortense) Help! Help! Let me out!
  • After eating the radio, each time Hortense hiccups, the radio changes stations, and Hortense acts out whatever radio broadcast is playing. When a boxing match is broadcast, Hortense takes up a boxer's fighting stance, etc.
  • Shortly after Hortense swallows the radio, Donald comes out with a cache of weapons to scare her with, and we get this:
  Radio: Drop that, you rat! Reach for the ceiling!
  (Donald drops all of the weapons and reaches for the ceiling)
  (Hortense hiccups, and the radio changes to a band playing. Donald, looking confused, grabs Hortense's beak and opens it, increasing the volume of the band, and then closes it. Donald then opens Hortense's beak again, as Hortense hiccups and changes the station again.)
  Radio: Shut that door, you sap!
  (Donald jumps backwards about a foot.)
  • The episode ends with a major crash (courtesy of the radio changing to a broadcast of a race). After the dust settles...
  Radio: Boy, what a crack-up! But nobody was hurt!
  (Donald's head pops out of the rubble, showing he has two black eyes.)
  Donald: Oh, yeah?
  • After the Running Gag of Hortense having hiccups throughout the short, Donald ends up getting hiccups to end the short.
• Part of what makes the Mickey-Donald-Goofy short "Moving Day" so hilarious is Donald's constant fight with a plunger that seems to end up constantly stuck on his rear end. But the truth is, it's not the plunger sticking that's funny about it; it's that every time it happens, Donald has to look at the camera and then mutter "So!" to himself. Over and over again. By the end of the short, he's screaming it at the thing.
• At the end of "Out On A Limb", as Donald tries to mow Chip and Dale, they end pulling the leaf curtains, leading him to mow on an electric cable, where he stops at a sign saying "High Voltage". Donald then turns to the camera with an epic "Oh, Crap!" Smile and a nervous laugh. Cue the electricity going up, resulting in a huge explosion, leaving a charred Donald with a dazed smile and a charred-up mower which turns to charcoal dust as he falls into a leaf patch.
• "How to Have an Accident at Home" has J. J. Fate going over how fast accidents happen. He slows down a scene where Donald Duck slips on a throw rug, outlining every amusing injury. Then, he reverses a detail where Donald slips on a bar of soap.
  J. J. Fate: Hold it, we missed one! Let's try that again!
  • Later on, Fate going over the many different ways one can fall down stairs with Donald demonstrating each.
  J. J. Fate: Now, Mr. Duck doesn't take chances. He's just careless.
  (Donald leans against the guardrail which collapses under his weight and he falls to the floor below)
  J. J. Fate: Oh, yes! That's one I forgot to mention!
• "Lion Around" has Donald dealing with a mountain lion in his cabin, thinking it's his nephews pulling a prank on him. When he finds out, the look on his face is priceless.
  Huey: Hey, Uncle Donald! (holds up lion suit) Look!
  Donald: Aw, shut up! Now, come out of he—Huh?
• Donald beating up his unseen boss in the end of "The Clock Watcher". Sure, he'll be fired from his job, but that's what he gets for making him overwork.
  • Also, early in the cartoon, Donald was making the clock go really really fast, laughing in enjoyment at this. You just can't help laugh along with him.
  • "Royal Brothers aren't HAPPY!" "Yes, sir! And they's gonna do somethin' 'bout it!"
  • Donald Duck also shoves a ball into the trumpet's "mouth", causing him to make muffled grunts before spitting it out. Donald dodges the ball, but the jack-in-the-box he sealed up was hit by the ball, triggering it to hit him in the back and making him splat into his pie, having the pie crust part of his head as he yells out.
  "WAAAAK! WHY DON'T YOU BE MORE CAREFUL?!!"
• The twist ending of "Truant Officer Donald": when Donald and his captured nephews reach school, Donald notices in shock that school was closed for the summer holidays. As Huey, Dewey and Louie give him angry glares, Donald literally shrinks from embarrassment over his mistake while stuttering and his voice becomes increasingly squeaky in the process.

House of Mouse

• "Music Store Donald". The titular Duck and Pete ask Daisy about her opinion on romantic music. She sings 'effin Pop Goes The Weasel, and Donald's reaction is priceless.◊
• Donald's sublime source of help for Mickey in "Mickey's April Fools". Takes place between 3:35 and 4:01.
• "Double Date Don" is loaded. Let's see...Donald's innocent dream when Daisy asks him if he'll do anything she wants, Clara Cluck deluding herself into thinking of Don as Mr. Fanservice, the duck having an Eye Pop at the sight of a "sensual" Clara, and last but no least, Clara's attempted suicide and Donald's not-so-heroic motivations for rescuing her.

Disneyland

• Donald's small role in Disneyland's "Mars & Beyond".

Walt Disney World

• In Mickey's Philharmagic, how does a little flute decide to make Donald miserable? By playing The Mickey Mouse Club March. Over. And over. And over.

Non Official Work

• Right Wing Radio Duck. AKA Donald Duck meets Glenn Beck. Brilliant editing of several Classic Disney Shorts along with the right cues from Don and Glenn result in a political cartoon that plays out wonderfully. Don't miss this one!
  • Oh, by the way, before you even ask, yes, Glenn Beck has seen this video. His reaction... Pretty much what you'd expect it to be.