November 26, 1943 – The Donald Duck Short Film Home Defense is Released to Theaters
“Hey, you! Attention! Display your chevrons! Surrender your weapons, gentlemen! You’re a disgrace to the service!”
On November 26, 1943, the Donald Duck short film Home Defense was released to theaters. It was directed by Jack King.
From his listening post, Donald is falling asleep while his nephews sleep soundly in their tent. Donald tries desperately to stay awake, but fails, dropping his trumpet while he falls to the ground. He ends up snoring into the trumpet, making it sound and waking his nephews, who are shocked to see Donald shirking his duties. They decide to play a prank on their uncle, and send a model airplane flying around the listening post. The sound wakes Donald up, and he believes that there’s a bomber right above them. The nephews then set up their guns, although Donald takes over and shoots the model plane down while the nephews laugh. Donald then sees some parachuters from the plane (another part of the nephews’ prank), and hides in a flowerbed while the nephews make sounds or battle.
Finding that his nephews tricked him, Donald takes away their chevrons and weapons, dismissing them from his service
After one of the dummies lands on Donald’s nose, he realizes the ruse and decides to get back at his nephews by dismissing them from his gun crew. He ignores the tears of his nephews as they march away sadly, and is left alone at his post. Later, he hears a bug buzzing around the post and believes that it’s his nephews playing another prank. When he realizes this isn’t the case, he believes that they are under attack, and quickly calls the boys to help. He restores them to the service, and they set up the cannon to be pointed at the listening post’s speaker, much to the surprise of the bug, who barely manages to escape. The nephews try to warn Donald before setting off the cannon, but Donald refuses to listen, and his ears are blown out from the cannon fire into the speaker. The nephews laugh as Donald throws a tantrum at his misfortune.
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