Walt Disney Treasures: The Chronological Donald, Volume Two 1942-1946

With apologies to Trump, there is only one “The Donald!” The excitable duck, who made his scene-stealing debut in the 1934 cartoon "The Wise Little Hen" (included on Volume One), soon supplanted Mickey Mouse as Disney's top ‘toon star. He even rated his own very special episode of the Disneyland TV series, "A Day in the Life of Donald Duck," just one of the extras that feather the nest of this two-disc set. As host Leonard Maltin observes in his introduction, the mallard's manic personality resonated with wartime audiences, for whom these cartoons provided a much-needed morale boost. A "From the Vaults" section on the first disc contains eight World War II-themed cartoons, some of which demonized Axis enemies with caricatures that today do not pass PC muster (Maltin provides the parental advisory). The most notable of these is the Academy Award-winning "Der Fuehrer's Face," in which Donald has a Nazi nightmare. This collection includes some of Donald's best cartoons, including the Oscar-nominated "Donald's Crime"; "No Sail," which costars Goofy; "Trombone Trouble," in which the duck gods grant Donald electrical powers to silence a noisy neighbor, and "Duck Pimples," which has the surreal feel of a Tex Avery cartoon, and features Donald as an increasingly unnerved mystery reader. As with all the Walt Disney Treasures sets, The Chronological Donald can be enjoyed by cartoon-loving kids as well as serious Disneyphiles, who will appreciate such extras as an interview with Tony Anselmo, the current voice of Donald Duck; a war-era Disney timeline; a profile of Donald Duck animator Carl Barks; and the vintage WWII community service short "The Volunteer Worker." Highly recommended. (D. Liebenson)