Studio: Walt Disney Productions
Distributor: RKO Radio Pictures
Produced by: Walt Disney
Short Synopsis
Donald Duck sets off on a camping holiday by canoe, strumming a guitar. Where the river is too shallow, his legs poke through the bottom and he walks the canoe over the rocks. Still playing, he drifts through a small waterfall and comes out spluttering with a fish in his guitar, then over a big waterfall, and surfaces carrying the canoe on his back like a turtle shell. At the campsite he pulls a lever that ejects all his supplies, turns the canoe into a tent and puts up a sign: "Camp Peaceful". Then he tries to set up a folding deckchair with an umbrella. The chair fights back. It folds up on him, traps him, catapults him into the lake, and every attempt to sit in it ends in a new tangle. When Donald finally dozes off in it, a band of chipmunks carries off his food. Two of them jab him with a pineapple; he wakes, sees the theft and gives chase, still half-trapped in the chair. The racket wakes a grizzly bear, which eats Donald's food; Donald, mistaking it for a chipmunk, grabs its snout, then runs for his life. The bear chases him across a log and claws the bark off the tree he climbs. Donald finally breaks camp in a hurry and paddles his canoe back up the waterfall and away.
Why It Matters
- The deckchair routine is the heart of the film: a long, escalating battle between Donald and a piece of folding furniture, a classic example of the man-versus-object comedy the Disney story team built around Donald's temper. Every new failure gets a bigger explosion of rage.
- It comes from 1940, when Donald had become Disney's busiest star, more popular than Mickey with many audiences, and his films were moving towards the outdoor-comedy formula that would carry his series for years. The chipmunks, silent and working as a group, are sometimes seen as forerunners of Chip 'n' Dale.
Notes and Trivia
- See also: Bone Trouble (1940), Old MacDonald Duck (1941).