Donald's Ostrich

I say this as a big fan of Disney and Donald Duck as I have said several times. Donald's Ostrich is certainly not a terrible short, it has great animation with the characters well-drawn, the backgrounds crisp and the colours vibrant, the music is very pleasant on the ear and is full of energy and helped by Clarence Nash's impeccable voicing, Donald's easily frustrated and temperamental persona works well with him. However, Donald would have fared even better if he had a strong character to work with. Unfortunately Hortense is not really that compelling, animated great but not very funny(in fact sometimes annoying above all else) and the chemistry with Donald is rather bland. The gag where anything in sight is eaten is a good one to work with, but is undermined by the fact that it gets repetitive fast. Also the premise of Donald's Ostrich is simple, not a bad thing, the real problem is that it all feels routine and not much is done with it. Of the gags, the only one that I really found more than amusing in effectiveness was the one where the radio as a device is used, a very inventive gag and used well. Overall though, didn't work despite some good points. 5/10 Bethany Cox