May 9, 1941 – The Donald Duck Short Film A Good Time for a Dime is Released to Theaters
“Hurry! Hurry! Step right over here, folks, to the penny arcade, where you can have a good time for a dime! This is the place, folks, where your penny’s worth a million laughs!”
On May 9, 1941, the Donald Duck short film A Good Time for a Dime is released to theaters. One aspect of this film that reflects the time it was created is the machine playing movies in the penny arcade, which was a familiar sight in the 1940s. One machine would play a movie by a belly dancer named Little Egypt, which was the inspiration of Daisy dancing “Dance of the Seven Veils.” The short was directed by Dick Lundy.
Donald arrives at the penny arcade, and looks for a movie to watch, attracted to “Dance of the of the Seven Veils.” He begins counting veils, when the machine stops working right after the third veil. Angered, he declares he’s been robbed, but moves on to a crane machine, which has a camera as one of its prizes. Donald inserts his coin and goes after the camera, but although he is able to grab it, it slips from the crane at the last moment, leaving Donald with nothing. On his next attempt, he grabs a bottle of ink, with the crane taking off the top before dropping it down the chute, covering Donald with ink. Enough being enough, Donald decides to go for the magnet, using it to grab every other prize in the machine as he shakes it. All of the prizes fall out of the chute, except for one bottle of perfume, which the crane grabs and sprays out, making Donald sneeze hard enough to sneeze all the prizes back into the crane game.
Donald enjoys his ride on the plane in the penny arcade, but his ride is about to go sour
Donald next goes to a ride called “Enjoy the Thrill of Aviation,” and begins to fly a toy plane. As he enjoys the ride, it abruptly stops, letting him know his time is up. Angered, Donald beats the plane with the control stick before it starts again. Once it does start, Donald realizes he threw the control stick away, so the plane takes off wildly, out of his control. Once it crash lands to the ground, Donald slinks away, dizzied by the experience, and leaves the penny arcade, turning green from nausea, letting out a trademark, “Aw, phooey!”
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