Review: Mickey Mouse – “Donald The Sailor”

Spoilers Below

Donald is chilling out on his boat when, suddenly, Mickey, Minnie, and Daisy show up for an unplanned boat trip. However, there is a problem. The duck doesn’t actually know how to sail a boat. It turns out that Daisy bought him the uniform he wears because she likes a man in uniform. One would think that she would share that information with the mice but she doesn’t. Mickey doesn’t find out until the boat is already far from land.

The mouse tries to get Donald to fly up the mast to release the sail but the duck can’t fly either. Instead, Mickey builds pedal-powered paddles so Donald can basically bicycle the boat back home. That plan falls apart when a shark takes a bite out of the boat’s backside and chases Donald across the ocean.

Donald escapes by running up the mast. Now he can release the sail and they can get back home. Unfortunately, Donald starts celebrating first. He gets stuck by lightning, which burns both him and the sail to ash. As the rest of the storm rolls in, Mickey notices that Donald’s shirt is billowing, not unlike a sail. He grabs the rope that Donald is clinging to, using the poor duck as a kite to drag them out of the storm and back into the marina.

In the end, the gang gets back to land. The boat sinks into the ocean and Donald’s suit is ruined. Luckily for him, Daisy has a pilot’s uniform for him to wear.

I liked that this episode gave us another facet of Donald’s personality. I don’t think anyone has ever explained why he wears a sailor suit. On top of that, Minnie had a throwaway line about Daisy dumping Donald if he didn’t stop lying and throwing temper tantrums. While this wasn’t my favorite episode, I am finding that I prefer the episodes that give the “sidekicks” the brunt of the story. Don’t get me wrong, I like Mickey Mouse. We’ve just heard his story way too many times. It’s nice to let everyone have a turn being the lead. Especially Minnie Mouse. More Minnie-centric episodes please!