Donald Duck turns 90 this year, and the celebration is bringing events and new merchandise to Disney theme parks, but perhaps most excitingly, a new animated short starring the irascible bird – his first new Donald Duck short in 63 years. The currently available “DIY Duck” (see above) is the brainchild of longtime Disney animator Mark Henn, who will officially become a Disney Legend later this summer. In fact, Donald's birthday wasn't even on his mind when he began work on the short.
“As happens often in a studio's production cycle, there are ups and downs. Sometimes it's busy, sometimes it's not and sometimes it's busy again. Essentially, this cartoon was born out of that downtime,” Heng said. The animator, who has a long and impressive career with the company, has always held the Sensational Six (Mickey, Donald, Pluto, Minnie, Daisy and Goofy) in high regard.
One of his first jobs at the company was animating Mickey Mouse in 1983's “Mickey's Christmas Carol,” and he went on to animate many of the Disney Princesses, leading former film chief Jeffrey Katzenberg to call him the “Julia Roberts of animation.” He also helped oversee Disney's Florida animation unit and appeared as himself in an episode of “Full House” where the Tanner family visits Walt Disney World. He's been there, and he has a unique affinity for Disney's classic staples.
In fact, during the downtime, he was thinking not only about “How to Stay at Home,” a short film he worked on with Eric Goldberg during the pandemic that featured Goofy grappling with the new reality of lockdown, but also about Walt Disney Animation Studios' recent launch of a traditional animation training program that tapped five young, aspiring animators.
“I came up with the idea of a short project that would give them a chance to gain some production experience,” Heng said. “I thought: Well, Donald hasn't been doing it for a long time.With so many huge projects underway at the studio, director Henn described the production of short films in the words of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland, “just putting on a show.”
In fact, the team had animated one scene before Heng and his trainees were called in to work on another project, Trent Corley and Dan Abrahams' “Once Upon a Studio,” a nine-minute short that required a lot of new hand-drawn animation. Heng and his team got to work right away.
They started working on Donald's short films again, but had to pause again, presumably for some additional legacy projects for the theme parks. Henn said he often animates and re-animates scenes for things like the theme park's nighttime projection shows. “I think this whole thing took about nine months in total, considering there were a few starts and stops,” Henn said.
Henn, an animator and animation historian, said he didn't even know 2024 was Donald's birthday (June 9, specifically).
“When I told him I was thinking about this idea, someone said, 'You know, he's going to be 90 in 24,' and I thought, 'Oh, perfect,' and it just happened,” Henn says. “The studio hadn't asked for it.”
Henn borrowed from Donald's past to anchor his own future, using the audio of Donald's original voice, Clarence “Ducky” Nash (who died in 1985 at age 80 and, like Henn, became a Disney Legend in 1993), and the music on “DIY Duck” is a charming mishmash of elements from early Disney scores, including “Alice in Wonderland,” “Sleeping Beauty” and “Cinderella.”
“I really liked the idea of doing a traditional Donald Duck short film, and as I was doing my research, I discovered that the last Donald Duck short film was made in the early 1960s,” Henn said. He noted that while Donald had appeared in films like Mickey's Christmas Carol and Fantasia 2000, there had never been a Donald-only short film. “I just wanted to have fun and create a storyline that had a classic feel, but with a modern storyline that people could relate to today. Donald is a timeless character and I think people can definitely relate to him.”
Initially, Henn came up with the idea of Daisy giving Donald a list of things to do around the house, but that was too complicated, so Henn simplified it so Donald just tries to change a light bulb. “In typical Donald fashion, things get out of hand,” Henn said.
Part of the short's “classic” nature is that Henn had to “identify what era we wanted the look to be.” Donald, like other characters, has evolved physically over the years. Henn decided the “sweet spot” for the character was the 1940s and '50s. Gone are the long duck bill and sleek costumes seen at the beginning.
“We simplified the costumes and got rid of buttons on the tunic,” Henn says. This also helped the animators. (Donald originally had four buttons.) Henn watched those early shorts to get a sense of how intricate the production was and how many effects there were. “I probably threw myself into Donald boot camp more than the kids did,” Henn says of his young animator apprentices.
What makes “DIY Duck” even more special is that it's Heng's final film with Disney; he retired from the company earlier this year, shy of his 66th birthday. “I had retired from the industry at this point, and then I came back,” Heng said, referring to Disney's move into computer animation in the early 2000s and his subsequent work on projects such as 2009's “The Princess and the Frog” and 2011's “Winnie the Pooh,” both of which Heng worked on.
“I'm looking forward to getting out of the game again,” he added, but acknowledged that there are some things he needs to do first before he can get out completely. He'll be screening “DIY Duck” at the Annecy Animation Festival later this week — a surprising first for the festival — and becoming a Disney Legend at this year's D23 in Anaheim. He'll join Disney Legends such as Harrison Ford, James Cameron, Angela Bassett, and Imagineers Joe Rohde and John Williams.
“It's a little surreal,” Henn said of his time at Disney finally coming to an end. “Sometimes I'm sad that it's over.” He said he sometimes thinks back to when some of Walt's “Nine Old Men” came to Disney in the early 1980s, when he was still overseeing the remnants of the legendary animation department, including Frank Thomas, Ollie Johnston and Erik Larson.
“At some point they decided to pass the baton to our generation, and they were happy to take it on, and now I'm in that same position in a way,” Henn said. “It's bittersweet. I'm very happy with what I had to do at Disney Animation, and I'm very proud of what I accomplished and what I was a part of, but it's a little sad to think that it's behind me now, because in a way I'll always be a part of it. And it's just been such a joy to be able to finish this short, and then hopefully get it out there for everyone to enjoy.”