“Inferior Decorators”

It’s not exactly a secret that I wish Donald Duck would die in a fire, a fate he has literally come close to bestowing on his own nephews on at least one occasion. The issue is the cruelty, which extraordinary amounts of Disney fans seem to forget about him. But seriously, Donald Duck is cruel. He went from being childishly cruel to cruel in a more adult manner, but he started his Disney career as cruel nearly a century ago now and hasn’t much improved in the years since then.

Donald is wallpapering a room with a pattern of single large flowers. This attracts the attention of Spike the Bee, who decides that he’s going to get in there and go after the flowers. This doesn’t work, because of course it doesn’t, and his efforts to gather pollen and nectar from the wallpaper attract Donald’s notice. This being the Old Days, he has a bucket of wallpaper paste, which he traps Spike in. He toys with Spike for a while, then ends up stuck to his own ceiling with wallpaper.

I mean we’ve established before that Spike should not be male and that stinging Donald should kill him. And like. This is just a fact. That said, there is something deeply satisfying to an entire line of bees, just dozens and dozens of them, winding around the house, waiting for their turn to sting him. And this should also kill Donald, because even if you’re not allergic to bees, that many stings is going to kill him. And, you know, I’m okay with that.

There are a lot of cartoons about wallpapering a room. A lot of them involve shenanigans with paste, because from everything I can tell wallpaper paste was a horrible nuisance and you might as well just paint. Honestly I cannot remember if Donald is one of the cartoon characters who has suffered through this, but it’s very much in his wheelhouse. And I would prefer that cartoon. I would always prefer to watch Donald struggle against inanimate but still malign forces.

I actually watched this on Disney+. Let’s give them a round of applause. I’ve long been saying that more of the shorts need to be available on the service, and I think I’ll finish out the month with just stuff that’s there, to reward them. So okay, my feelings about Disney shorts aren’t generally as strong as my feelings about Warners shorts. That’s okay. It’s a way of Disney’s acknowledging their past and honouring their history, and we should all be rewarding that. Well done, Disney.