Donald’s Better Self
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Schoolboy Donald is torn between his angel and devil sides, though in Donald’s case, the devil side isn’t hard to resist. But the smoking he’s encouraged to do turns him green and gives him regrets, and when the good side shows up and kicks evil’s butt, Donald cheers.
★★★☆☆
Curator’s rating
Donald as a schoolboy torn between an angel and a devil version of himself — one of the clearest statements of the studio's 1930s moral-instruction mode. The angel-and-devil device was later recycled almost wholesale into Disney's Canadian war-bond film, which makes this short the original of a template.
Includes a smoking sequence played for comedy, in the moralising style of its era.