Corn Chips (1951)

Corn Chips (1951) *** 1/2 (out of 4) After some hard work shoveling snow from his driveway, Donald goes into his home to enjoy a book and eat some popcorn but Chin 'n Dale show up, steal the popcorn and soon it's a battle over the snack. Once again we're treated to a very funny and highly entertaining animated short from Disney that manages to keep you entertained throughout the running time. Donald, Chip and Dale were a perfect comedy team as they always made for some fun battles and that's especially true here. The highlight has to be the sequence where they try out-smarting one another as they keep stealing popcorn. Fans of the series will certainly enjoy this one.

This is not a bad little cartoon that will get you enjoying a bowl of popcorn at night. Donald pops some popcorn on a winter's day after shoveling snow off his walkway, tricking Chip 'n' Dale into shoveling snow on his walkway instead of the snow on their tree branch. So, the chipmunks sneak into Donald's house and help themselves to some popcorn. What results is more of the same vs. battles, with the characters tricking and humiliating each other. It's quite funny at times and, as always, the animation is great.Donald gets the brunt of the bad luck in this one, again, but it's not as bad as some of the other cartoons.Grade B-

I have always loved the Disney shorts, and Donald Duck is one of my favourite ever cartoon characters. Corn Chips is a classic from him and Chip 'n' Dale the chipmunks. Donald is very funny and cantankerous and Chip 'n' Dale cute and antagonistic, managing to work with Donald as well as they did with Pluto. The story is routine like with a few other shorts of theirs, but is a lot of fun and crisply paced regardless. The animation is beautifully done, Corn Chips is energetically scored, wittily written and very funny in the visual gags, with part when chip and dale say bye bye when they take Donald's bowl of popcorn out the door and thank you when he tips his head up into the bowl being the best. All in all, a classic, and reminds me of the good old days with Disney. As often as I do revisit the silly symphonies and Disney classics on video and on youtube, I can't help missing the good old days and wish they'd come back and replace the (on the most part) predictable, unfunny overacted situation comedies that we have now. 10/10 Bethany Cox

A Walt Disney DONALD DUCK Cartoon.The two tiny CORN CHIPS (Chip 'n' Dale) turn Donald's snowy front yard into a battlefield as they fight him for control of his popcorn.Here is another routine Duck versus Chipmunks film, but the antagonists are always a pleasure to watch. Clarence "Ducky" Nash supplies Donald's voice; the Chipmunks are often unintelligible.Walt Disney (1901-1966) was always intrigued by drawings. As a lad in Marceline, Missouri, he sketched farm animals on scraps of paper; later, as an ambulance driver in France during the First World War, he drew figures on the sides of his vehicle. Back in Kansas City, along with artist Ub Iwerks, Walt developed a primitive animation studio that provided animated commercials and tiny cartoons for the local movie theaters. Always the innovator, his ALICE IN CARTOONLAND series broke ground in placing a live figure in a cartoon universe. Business reversals sent Disney & Iwerks to Hollywood in 1923, where Walt's older brother Roy became his lifelong business manager & counselor. When a mildly successful series with Oswald The Lucky Rabbit was snatched away by the distributor, the character of Mickey Mouse sprung into Walt's imagination, ensuring Disney's immortality. The happy arrival of sound technology made Mickey's screen debut, STEAMBOAT WILLIE (1928), a tremendous audience success with its use of synchronized music. The SILLY SYMPHONIES soon appeared, and Walt's growing crew of marvelously talented animators were quickly conquering new territory with full color, illusions of depth and radical advancements in personality development, an arena in which Walt's genius was unbeatable. Mickey's feisty, naughty behavior had captured millions of fans, but he was soon to be joined by other animated companions: temperamental Donald Duck, intellectually-challenged Goofy and energetic Pluto. All this was in preparation for Walt's grandest dream - feature length animated films. Against a blizzard of doomsayers, Walt persevered and over the next decades delighted children of all ages with the adventures of Snow White, Pinocchio, Bambi, Peter Pan and Mr. Toad. Walt never forgot that his fortunes were all started by a mouse, or that simplicity of message and lots of hard work always pay off.