A Good Time for a Dime

In those days, the penny arcade was a real treat. You could watch movies, play games, and lots of other stuff. Of course, because the house always wins, those claw machhines were especially frustrating. Of course, our even-tempered duck is going to take it all in stride. He bellows, turns red, stomps. His world is one of confrontation. If I had one complaint, it would be that I couldn't make out what he was saying. Naturally, that is always a problem with Donald, but usually you can decipher pretty well. Needs just a bit of cleaning up.

This is a fun-filled cartoon that is classic Donald Duck. He visits a penny arcade and watches Daisy dance the Dance of the Seven Veils, mostly. He also gets into a love-hate relationship with a prize bin and the mechanical claw, and then gets the ride of his life in an airplane replica.

Everything with Donald's bad luck, misadventures, frustration and wacky personality is illustrated here, along with slapstick humor and laugh-out-loud comedy.

It's a Donald cartoon I remembered fondly from my childhood and is a great one for kids and adults alike.

Grade A

Even though Mickey Mouse was the mascot for Walt Disney pictures for many, many years (maybe still in a way, though Disney's so many things now), as a kid I always identified and liked Donald Duck more. As a kid you can get frustrated with things, especially if the world is unfair and doesn't really work properly, and if you see a cartoon like A Good Time for a Dime at the right age and more than once (I probably watched the Disney Classics VHS that had this and six other Donald Ducks countless times) it stays with you in a major way. Whether it's 'dated' doesn't really matter as its simply relatable how nothing ever really goes quite right; in that way it's like Louie or something, only with less outward, anxious aggression.

What happens here? Donald goes to a carnival and checks out various things: a viewfinder from that period ("DANCE OF THE SEVEN VEILS!") and a couple of rides, and they all seem to go very wrong for him. While the final ride may be slightly his fault, it's mostly about the universe being just continually unfair to him. Naturally it's hilarious, but there's some truth to the comedy that I just didn't see in too many of the Mickey Mouse shorts. Donald seemed more like an every-man, despite his overreactions to things (or maybe because of that to a degree, whether we'd admit it or not), and this, which is a splendid series of misadventures and mishaps, is a great example of that.

In that cartoon Donald Duck is visiting some kind of fair ground and stumbles upon a penny arcade. Inside he spots one of those slide-show machines with a film of Daisy stripping. He puts in his 1c only for the machine to break down before Daisy gets naked. Next he tries his luck at one of those awful claw-grab machines only for it to totally not work (come on, they NEVER work). Which, only irritates him further.

Finally, Donald comes upon a model plane on a gimble rig. For 1c it looks like a lot of fun and Donald sure enjoys mimicking a fighter plane. But thew ride only lasts for a few seconds. Angry, Donald bashes the plane which soon malfunctions and goes mental on him.

Funnier than it sounds, honest.

I have always loved Disney and Donald Duck, and A Good Time for a Dime is a classic in my eyes. The premise is simple, but the efficient pace makes it entertaining, likewise with often hilarious gags, especially with Donald and the plane. A Good Time for a Dime is also interesting for Daisy's appearance in a quite risqué parody of Dance of the Seven Veils. The animation is of the colourful, vibrant quality, and the music is energetic and always action-enhancing. Donald is wonderfully temperamental, which has always been part of his charm, and while her appearance is an unusual one Daisy also impresses.

All in all, this cartoon really is a good time. Highly recommended. 10/10 Bethany Cox