On June 9, 1934, kids in movie theaters across America sat through a short Disney cartoon called The Wise Little Hen - and met a sailor-suited duck who could barely speak a full sentence without spitting. He waddled in, refused to help the hen plant her corn, and stomped off in a temper. He had only a few seconds of screen time, no name on the poster, and a voice that sounded like an angry kazoo. That duck was Donald.
His voice belonged to a young actor named Clarence "Ducky" Nash, who had once made his pet duck quack along for laughs at a radio audition. Walt Disney heard him and said, "That's our talking duck!" Donald Fauntleroy Duck was born. Audiences loved him because he was everything Mickey Mouse was not - grumpy, stubborn, a terrible loser at almost every game. He stomped, sputtered, and tied himself in knots when things didn't go his way. By 1937, Donald was getting his own cartoons. By 1942, he was even more popular than Mickey at the box office.
Over the years he picked up a girlfriend named Daisy, three mischievous nephews named Huey, Dewey, and Louie, and a rich uncle named Scrooge McDuck who would star in his own adventures. Donald has been turned into video games, Disneyland rides, comic books in dozens of languages, and even a real U.S. Army mascot during World War II. He has lasted more than ninety years - proof that sometimes being a little cranky is the perfect recipe for being remembered.
