July 18, 1952 – The Donald Duck Short Film Uncle Donald’s Ants is Released to Theaters
“Cute little fellow.”
On July 18, 1952, the Donald Duck short film Uncle Donald’s Ants was released to theaters. It was directed by Jack Hannah, with story by Al Bertino and Nick George.
An ant colony starts taking food out of their ant hill, marching across the pathway in Donald’s front yard. Donald has just made a trip back from the grocery store, and hasn’t realized that his sack of sugar has been leaking and leaving a trail behind him. The last ant of the colony looks up just in time to see giant sugar crystal hurtling toward him. Donald turns and notices the ant, and gives a crystal to the ant before sidestepping him to reach his front door. The ant quickly takes the crystal back and and explains what happened, and the ants call all the other ant colonies in the nearby area to get more of this sugar.
Donald finishes making a cake, unaware of the chaos he has created by his act of charity
Inside his house, Donald is putting the finishing touches on the cake he’s been making, and thinks back to the little ant. Suddenly, he has a nightmarish vision of hundreds of ant storming his house for the sugar, and runs to the front door to see that his vision has come true. He runs back inside to hide his maple syrup, barricade the door and windows with masking tape, and wall up the chimney. He hears the whistle of the postman and rushes to the door, but remembers the ants and sneaks to the window to spy on his stoop. Seeing no ants, he takes the tape off the door and grabs the letter from his mailbox, but is angered that the letter only reads the words “BIG SALE.” He puts the letter down on a nearby table, unaware that the words have been comprised of the ants. The ants spy Donald’s cake, and distract him long enough to carry it away.
One ant finds himself in the cupboard where the maple syrup and the sugar cubes are stashed away, and calls some more ants to help him carry the sweet things out. Meanwhile, Donald is setting up traps to catch the ants, while the ants use macaroni to build an intricate plumbing system to send the maple syrup. Donald then stops the maple syrup flow by sending the flow into a nearby flower pot, but doesn’t count on the ants taking the entire jar of maple syrup. Donald chases after them, and when they hide in the garage, Donald gets a plan to pour gasoline down the other side of their macaroni pipe, then light it with a match. The ants, who have been counting on this, have already made a switch, and Donald opens the garage door to find that they’ve hooked the other end of Donald’s trap to the gas tank in his car. Donald’s car explodes, sending him sky high. All of the ants celebrate with maple syrup, safe in their colony once again.
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