Donald and the Navy

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Donald wears a sailor suit, and lives on a houseboat in some cartoons (his debut film, "The Wise Little Hen", MouseWorks, and DuckTales '17)  but as far as I know, his connection to the sea, if any, has never been explicitly clarified. The only notable exception is DuckTales '87 and its spinoffs, where he is clearly shown joining the Navy (an idea continued in the Quack Pack episode "All Hands on Duck", which is out of place for that series in many other ways; I don't think the show made any other reference to Donald's naval career). However, I kind of like the idea of Donald having once been in the Navy, although not the way DuckTales '87 presents it, with him dropping HD&L off with Scrooge to enlist. I'm not sure, however, how best to bring that idea into the comics, especially the Barks/Rosa-based headcanon that I have. Maybe he was in the Navy before HD&L came to live with him? He'd have been quite young, but I don't think that concept would violate any Rosa-established facts. Perhaps he joined the Navy after his adventures with José and Panchito? Have any other comics ever shown Donald as a sailor or in the Navy? One example that comes to mind is the "Donald is 80!" comic where he's apparently was returning home from a sea voyage when Della drops HD&L off with him (at least according to the English translation I've read).

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

If he ever was a sailor, he did it before joining Mickey's gang.

If you want to follow Don Rosa-established facts, as you say, well...then you do not really need to make a sailor out of him. Because Rosa shows him as a kid dressed in a sailor suit in Life of Scrooge McDuck. So we can infer that Hortense just loved to dress his babies like that. Maybe that's why Donald keeps using that.

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Sept 16, 2017 21:02:46 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

If he ever was a sailor, he did it before joining Mickey's gang.

If you want to follow Don Rosa-established facts, as you say, well...then you do not really need to make a sailor out of him. Because Rosa shows him as a kid dressed in a sailor suit in Life of Scrooge McDuck. So we can infer that Hortense just loved to dress his babies like that. Maybe that's why Donald keeps using that.

Yes, I know, but I *want* to make him a sailor within the Barks/Rosa timeline. Maybe he decided to join the Navy because his mother insisted on dressing him up as a sailor when he was a little boy? Deep-seated, unresolved mommy issues? Psychologists would have a field day with that one ... 

[Ramapith]

In one of the more recent Mickey shorts, yet another reason is given—Donald had no natural interest in sailing, but at some point before current continuity, Daisy told him she liked a man in uniform and bought him his sailor suit, so he bought the houseboat to impress her.

In the cartoon, this leads to the obvious disaster when Daisy demands they finally take the boat on a long voyage; Donald has never done this before; he's of course a terrible sailor and Mickey, trying to help him, only makes things worse.

[Matilda]

Doesn't Rosa say that Donald is in his mid-30's in the vaguely 1950's "present"? So if the boys have been with him for, say, five or six years, that still leaves plenty of time for him to have served in the Navy (or the Coast Guard, which I would far prefer, myself). Isn't the normal minimal contract four years of active duty plus four years of inactive reserve? You could fit that in in his 20's, couldn't you? Even after four years of college. He could still have been on inactive reserve when HDL began to live with him, possibly. (Not that I really know a thing about the requirements of inactive reserve status.)

In my headcanon, Donald lived by himself in Duckburg for several years post-college in his 20's before the boys came to live with him. That's when he had Tabby and when Fethry came around to drive him crazy. That's also presumably the period during which he traveled south of the border and met Panchito and José.

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Ah, interesting! So you see Donald as having attended college?

As for Donald serving in the Coast Guard, you might be on to something ...

(Is this Taliaferro?)

[Matilda]

Yeah, I've thought about the college thing. When I said "even after four years in college," that "even" was meant to acknowledge that you might not think he went to college. I know some people can't see Donald in college. I end up thinking that he attended a local college, though. Partly that's just because everyone I knew growing up went to college of some kind (and I was a grade-school child in the early 1960's). Partly that's because I don't want him to feel *that* inferior to his book-smart (albeit school-avoiding) nephews. I could compromise on a two-year associate degree from a community college.

[RobbK1]

A few Tony Strobl stories showed Donald attending a local collage. It could have been a 2-year community college, or a small 4-year local college. I believe that he attended a local college. His stories showed Daisy also attending those schools.

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

Mh, you just made me discover that the "2-years long college degree" is not just a thing in France.
I heard the expression "community college" before, but I though it was just another way to call a local/public university.



Ok, let me try to put together all the suggestions seen so far:

Donald's mama always dressed him like a little sailor. By a (kinda spoiled) unconscious desire to satisfy his mother, Donald studied to become a naval technician in a community college. At the end of his two-years of studies, he finally get the chance to take the sea. But his tendency to create catastrophic situations was openly in conflict with the job. So he quitted. Or they kicked him out of it. 

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Sept 17, 2017 18:09:44 GMT RobbK1 said:

A few Tony Strobl stories showed Donald attending a local collage. It could have been a 2-year community college, or a small 4-year local college. I believe that he attended a local college. His stories showed Daisy also attending those schools.

That's interesting. Can you provide INDUCKs links? I'm not sure how canonical I'd consider those stories unless I get some idea of their quality. Are there any stories that show Donald as a sailor, or make it possible that he was in the Navy or the Coast Guard (other than DuckTales '87-related material)?
In DuckTales '17, Donald refers to his blue sailor suit as "his uniform", so I assume they'll be maintaining some kind of a connection between Donald and the sea.
I like the general timeline of Donald enlisting immediately after high school, perhaps in his late teens (as is usually the case), serving maybe 4-5 years, coming back home to Duckburg in his early twenties and having his Kinney/Hubbard adventures with Fethry and Tabby, traveling to South America to meet José and Panchito (or perhaps that happened when he was still in the Navy), then returning home to take custody of HD&L, meeting Scrooge a few years later on Bear Mountain. As Matilda said, you could still throw in a few years of college if you want, although I'm one of those who finds it a little hard to imagine Donald attending college. If this site is correct, less than 10% of men had college degrees in the 1940s (when Donald would be in his twenties by the Rosa timeline) so the odds are stacked against it.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Sept 17, 2017 18:55:38 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

Donald's mama always dressed him like a little sailor. By a (kinda spoiled) unconscious desire to satisfy his mother, Donald studied to become a naval technician in a community college. At the end of his two-years of studies, he finally get the chance to take the sea. But his tendency to create catastrophic situations was openly in conflict with the job. So he quitted. Or they kicked him out of it. 

Very good! (To this those who'd wish to can add Donald getting back into the navy for DuckTales.) May I point out that the Lockman/Strobl version of This is your life, Donald Duck! holds an additional clue as to how he got the sailor suit as a boy. A flashback shows how Grandma Duck took him on an outing to see a battle cruiser in the harbor when he was only a toddler, and Donald swiped a sailor's hat. The sailor, endeared at the little duckling, let him keep it. It's not hard to picture Hortense seeing Donald come back with the hat and deciding to buy the sailor suit to complement it.

[RobbK1]

I think one of the Strobl stories with Donald in college was "This Is Your Life Donald Duck". If this is the correct story, it showed Donald and Daisy attending a college, and both of them in the stands watching an American college football game, waving school pennants. I also remember something similar in another Strobl story (perhaps from 1959). Sorry, I can't remember the stories. Unfortunately, I'm not with my US comic books to check. It may have been in the US "Donald Duck" series, or 1957-61 "Daisy Duck's Diary", or, maybe "Duck Album".

I don't remember ANY Disney comic book stories showing Donald in The Navy.  There were a few with Donald as captain of his own boat (several by Barks), a few by Strobl (a ferryboat captain, merchant shipper, salvage scow captain, ice boat captain - postal service, fishing boat captain, etc.)

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

Sept 17, 2017 19:22:39 GMT RobbK1 said:

I don't remember ANY Disney comic book stories showing Donald in The Navy.  There were a few with Donald as captain of his own boat (several by Barks), a few by Strobl (a ferryboat captain, merchant shipper, salvage scow captain, ice boat captain - postal service, fishing boat captain, etc.)

Since I know that you appreciate the Jippes/Milton/Verhagen early stuff, there is also a good story by them where Donald and Gladstone compete on boats. Speaking of Verhagen and the early Dutch school, I also like this one written by Geradts. Well, then I suppose there are uncountable Italian and Danish stories with Donald on a boat for one reason or another...


On the Navy: one of the possible reasons for Barks dropping his job as Donald's writer at the studios in 1942 was (maybe, 'cause nobody really knows) that he disliked the idea of enlisting Donald in any component of the army for the war propaganda cartoons. Hard to imagine him giving that role to Donald a few years later in a comic book! Except for making fun of the army, something which Dell would have not accepted, I suppose...
(Once again let me repeat for safety: this is just my guessing, I do not know what was in Barks's head)

[RobbK1]

Sept 17, 2017 21:23:56 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

Sept 17, 2017 19:22:39 GMT RobbK1 said:

I don't remember ANY Disney comic book stories showing Donald in The Navy.  There were a few with Donald as captain of his own boat (several by Barks), a few by Strobl (a ferryboat captain, merchant shipper, salvage scow captain, ice boat captain - postal service, fishing boat captain, etc.)

Since I know that you appreciate the Jippes/Milton/Verhagen early stuff, there is also a good story by them where Donald and Gladstone compete on boats. Speaking of Verhagen and the early Dutch school, I also like this one written by Geradts. Well, then I suppose there are uncountable Italian and Danish stories with Donald on a boat for one reason or another...


On the Navy: one of the possible reasons for Barks dropping his job as Donald's writer at the studios in 1942 was (maybe, 'cause nobody really knows) that he disliked the idea of enlisting Donald in any component of the army for the war propaganda cartoons. Hard to imagine him giving that role to Donald a few years later in a comic book! Except for making fun of the army, something which Dell would have not accepted, I suppose...
(Once again let me repeat for safety: this is just my guessing, I do not know what was in Barks's head)

I know those Dutch stories very well.  I bought them back in the late 1970s.  Daan and Freddy are friends of mine.  I really doubt that Carl Barks would have had trouble with Donald representing his country in War propaganda films.  Carl did hate violence, and he didn't want his country's government arbitrarily sending its young men off tor foreign lands to fight.  But from my talks with him, I got that he understood what a dangerous man Adolph Hitler was, and was in favour of USA fighting with The Allies against The Germans in WWII.  He told me, and stated in interviews that he quit working at The Disney Studios because the air conditioning was making him ill.  Indeed, his actions just after quitting back up that comment, as hew moved to the desert (San Jacinto), to breath the clean air, and try to raise chickens.

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

Wait, you completely misunderstood my post! My bad, I admit it could be understood as you have, now that I re-read it.
I was not saying that Barks was against US entering WWII. I was just guessing that as a writer he could not like the constraints on story developments given by the imposed military setting of the cartoons. Less freedom to create stories, one more reason to quit (beside the well know one concerning the air conditioning). But I repeat, just a guess.