A Duck’s View: Disney’s Logo Is a Foul Fowl

On the banks of Burbank, beside a tranquil blue-green pond, they shook droplets of water from their faux-feather coats and sunned themselves dry beneath a tree. The eldest, called Scrooge by some, wiped the lenses of his spectacles with his sleeve. The loudest, Uncle Donald, who had gone swimming sans pants, was in a typically foul mood. When his mischievous young nephews handed him something to read, they plugged their ears with their fingers, waiting for the inevitable squawk.

Sure enough, the fur flew.

”!&*! *!$!?” he said.

Almost unintelligible in his rage, Uncle Donald muttered oaths unfit for his nephews’ ears and gestured wildly as he waddled to and fro, almost cartoon-like in his animation. From a nearby doghouse on the sprawling Disney studio lot, a napping long-eared hound reared his head, momentarily startled by the commotion, but promptly went back to sleep.

One of the nephews, Louie, finally made out what his uncle was saying.

“Is this supposed to be me?”

He was riled.

“Is this supposed to be me ?”

Again and again.

Waving the paper, alternately shouting and mumbling under his breath, Uncle Donald ultimately stood still long enough for the others to snatch the now-crumpled sheet free from his grip. Scrooge smoothed it out and adjusted his bifocals.

Inked onto the paper was a drawing of a duck, a schematic design from the neck up that did not particularly flatter the species. The duck in the illustration did not appear to be having a very pleasant day. He looked baleful and belligerent; in fact, downright hostile. His bill was downturned into a frown that bordered on a grimace. He looked like Donald with a hangover. “What’s wrong, Unca Donald?” a second nephew asked.

About all Dewey’s uncle uttered in reply was something on the order of: “Wak! Dirty rotten frickin-frackin-dig-dag-nabbit!” So about all any of the others could do was wait for him to simmer down. The two chipmunks sitting on the tree branch merely shrugged their shoulders. They had seen Donald go off this way before.

It turned out that what steamed him this time was a likeness created by the Disney studio’s art department for a new professional hockey team that was in the works for next winter in a toon-town an hour down the road, not far from the Disneyland gang’s regular hangout. Ever since that proud day when the moniker of Mighty Ducks had been bestowed upon the team, Donald had fully expected the studio to feature his internationally famous face on the front of their uniforms, as was clearly stipulated in his exclusive long-term contract.

He couldn’t believe what they had come up with instead.

This . . . ugly duckling.

“Back to the drawing board, boys,” Donald said with bitter sarcasm, staring at this preposterous impostor.

Donald got his agent on the phone within minutes.

“Ovitz! Wak! Dirty rotten frickin-frackin-Eisner-dig-dag-nabbit!”

Then he slammed down the phone, accidentally on his thumb.

A beautiful young woman with a ribbon in her hair, passing by in a long flowing gown in the company of seven extremely short men, blushed at the language she heard. With her hands she covered the enormous ears of the dopey-looking one.

Donald thought the hockey team’s corporate image would flatter him, like that one up at that college in Oregon. He expected his sweet, warm, adorable, cheerful face to adorn all the merchandise to be sold at the new “Pond” arena and in shopping malls everywhere.

But wak! What was this thing? This wasn’t a happy cartoon duck. This was the duck from heck. It looked like that window decal with that woodpecker who smokes the cigar. It looked like Donald’s passport photo. Like he hadn’t bathed or shaved for a week. It was uglier than Alf.

“Oh, I don’t know,” a woman’s voice said. “I think it looks kind of sexy.”

Donald spun around and spotted his girlfriend.

She was studying the illustration and nodding with admiration. “I like it, I like it,” she kept saying.

“You do?”

“I do,” Daisy said. “It’s a whole new you. It gives you kind of a ‘bad duck’ look. It’s hot.”

“It is?”

“It is,” Daisy said. “Now this is a drake my friends would pay a million bucks to spend a night with.”

Donald took another look at the picture and said: “Wak! That’s what I think, too.”

He took Daisy by the arm. Then they called up that crazy duck from Warner Bros. and went over to Universal to catch that new dinosaur movie.