That Time Donald Duck And His Nephews Committed Crimes In Yellowstone

Yellowstone National Park is the perfect place to simultaneously observe the wonders of nature and the short-sighted, ill-informed decisions of tourists and visitors. But there may never be a tourist as short-tempered, loud and willfully destructive as Donald Duck.

Donald Duck and his mischievous nephews visited Yellowstone in the Oscar-nominated animated short “Good Scouts,” produced by the Walt Disney Co. in 1938. A peaceful, law-abiding adventure in the Wyoming wilderness, of course, would not fit the Ducks’ modus operandi, and “Good Scouts” is anything but that.

For J.B. Kaufman, a film historian and co-author of the 2024 book “Walt Disney's Donald Duck: The Ultimate History,” a deeper look into “Good Scouts” reveals the rising star of Donald Duck in popular culture during a peak period in Disney’s history that threatened the future of Walt Disney’s most iconic creation.  

“For my money, this cartoon was made during the period when Donald Duck was at his very best as a character,” he told Cowboy State Daily. “It’s no secret he was threatening to eclipse Mickey Mouse, and ‘Good Scouts’ was one of his best showings.”

Ducks Amuck

“Good Scouts” starts with Donald Duck leading Huey, Dewey and Louie (in their second film appearance) across a long, precariously placed log stretched over “Devil’s Stew Pot” in “Yellowstone Nat’l Park.” Scoutmaster Donald is leading his nephews on a backcountry adventure.

After colliding at their campsite, Donald immediately admonishes Huey for attempting to cut down a too-small tree for firewood (with an axe he just happened to find nearby). Donald tries to cut down a much larger tree, only to discover it’s one of Yellowstone’s petrified trees.

This act is the first of Donald Duck’s many crimes committed in Yellowstone — and it won’t be the last.

After his nephews successfully put up a tent, Donald tears it down to demonstrate the “proper way” to erect a tent: tying a rope to the tiptop of a lodgepole pine, dragging it down to the ground, and tying it off on a rock.

Despite the complexity of Donald’s knot, the taut tree flings him into a backpack of provisions. The nephews laugh as their uncle is covered in flour, beans and tomato catsup (what they were planning to make with those ingredients is anyone’s guess).

Ever the manipulator, Donald covers himself with catsup to feign a serious, sanguine injury. Huey, Dewey and Louie immediately provide adept medical assistance to their uncle, bandaging everything except his hat and bill.

While still bandaged, Donald manages to dip his beak into a jar of honey and is soon smothered with it, which means it's inevitable that he'll run afoul of a grizzly. The nephews scatter, Donald runs for his life, and the grizzly gives chase.

Donald Duck finds an angry grizzly in less than five minutes. That's got to be some kind of record. 

Donald’s bandages save his life as he plummets over a cliff, but he manages to make a safe landing thanks, in part, to the grizzly. He taunts the bear from below until a rumbling under his tuchus prompts him to read the sign he’s sitting next to.

“Old Reliable Geyser,” he quacks. “Erupts at 12 o’clock.” And guess what time it happens to be ... 

Old Reliable erupts, launching Donald into the air on a perpetual water column. Luckily, his goose isn’t cooked, but this is when the crimes really start to add up.

Donald’s nephews try to force logs, sticks and stones into the vent of Old Reliable to stop the water. A massive boulder seems to stop it, but it only manages to create an even larger, more powerful eruption that conveniently places Donald at mouth level for the grizzly. 

The cartoon ends with Huey, Dewey and Louie cozily snuggled in a perfect tent near their campfire.

“Goodnight,” Huey says.

“Uncle,” Dewey says.

“Donald,” Louie says.

Donald can’t answer. He’s too busy relentlessly blowing his scoutmaster whistle in a perpetual chase with the grizzly, running in place on the spinning boulder hoisted atop the still-erupting Old Reliable.

What A Duck

“Good Scouts” was the seventh cartoon in the Donald Duck film series that started with “Don Donald” in 1937. The cartoon’s success and subsequent Oscar nomination were signs of the character’s growing prominence in popular culture.

Donald Duck first appeared in the 1934 Silly Symphony cartoon “The Wise Little Hen.” The character was conceived around the unique vocal performance of Clarence Nash, who provided Donald's quirky quacks from 1934 to 1985.

The response to Donald was immediately positive, but Silly Symphonies weren’t known for having recurring characters. Audiences wanted more of Donald, and animators wanted to do more with Donald, so he made his first appearance as a temperamental comic foil to Mickey Mouse in “Orphan’s Benefit,” released the same year.

Mickey would share a lot of screen time with Donald in the 1930s, often as part of a comedy trio with Goofy. According to Kaufman, Donald came into his stride right when Mickey was losing his.

“By the mid-1930s, Mickey had been pretty much typed as a nice guy,” he said. “It was part of his DNA, but it got harder and harder to come up with good story material for him. It’s an old truism that the essence of drama is conflict, and it got harder to initiate a conflict for Mickey to fill out a storyline.”

Animators often pitched gags for Mickey that Walt Disney, who also provided Mickey’s voice in cartoons from 1928 to 1962, would veto. Kaufman said Walt had “a specific sense of (Mickey’s) personality” that dictated how far the character was allowed to go in most scenarios.

“It’s not that Mickey never got pushed too far or didn’t confront the bad guys,” Kaufman said, “but he didn’t go around looking for a fight because he was such a nice guy.”

There were no such foibles with Donald Duck. There was always anger simmering just under the surface, he wasn’t afraid to speak his mind, and the slightest inconvenience could turn into an all-out brawl.

Whatever Disney’s animators couldn’t do with Mickey Mouse, they could do with Donald Duck. With more cartoons and more screentime, Donald quickly started upstaging Mickey in cartoons where the mouse was the headliner.

Reliably Faithful 

Kaufman studied the production notes of “Good Scouts” while researching  for “Walt Disney's Donald Duck: The Ultimate History.” He found a lot about the animation and characterization but no research specific to Yellowstone.

However, there’s no doubt that the cartoon was meant to take place in the actual Yellowstone National Park. Kaufman knows that because of its copyright synopsis.

“They registered the synopsis with the copyright office and specified that it’s Yellowstone,” he said, “but there’s nothing at the Disney Archives about special research at Yellowstone or anything like that.”

Disney's promotion of the cartoon read, "With the release of 'Good Scouts', a Disney with Donald Duck and his three nephews on high adventure in Yellowstone National Park ... lookit!"

Nobody at Walt Disney Productions may have visited Yellowstone for research, but the animators definitely did their homework for “Good Scouts.” The cartoon evokes the park’s aesthetic and incorporates several Yellowstone-specific references.

There has never been a thermal feature named “Devil’s Stew Pot” in Yellowstone, but there is a “Devil’s Inkstand” near the Washburn Hot Springs, Devil’s Kitchen near Mammoth Hot Springs, and several other thermal features with “Devil” in their name. Furthermore, “Devil’s Stew Pot” has the characteristic look and sounds of a mudpot.

Donald’s futile attempt to cut down a petrified tree indicates he led his nephews into the area between Tower Junction and Specimen Ridge, where several fossilized redwoods are preserved and some still standing.

Then there’s the obvious analogy between Old Faithful and Old Reliable. There’s even the allusion to how forcing objects into geysers permanently alters their behavior, although it’s doubtful that’s what the animators were going for.

Gag On It

Bugs Bunny and Elmer Fudd faced off in “Jellostone Park,” and nearly every episode of Yogi Bear takes place in “Jellystone Park. " However, Warner Bros and Hanna-Barbera weren’t as faithful to the real Yellowstone as Disney’s “Good Scouts,” probably a result of the animation standards set and overseen by Walt.

Nevertheless, Kaufman said the reason to send Donald Duck to Yellowstone was the same reason Bugs and Yogi ended up there.

“The main point was that they wanted to wind up with gags involving the geyser,” he said. “They specifically wanted to build to that gag with Old Faithful, even though it’s not called Old Faithful.”

Story ideas for cartoons were circulated throughout the studio. The story crew could spend months nailing down the storyline before directors could assign animators to specific sequences.

Gags meant money at the Disney Studio. Kaufman said if any of Walt’s animators submitted an idea for a gag that made it into the final film, that animator would receive a $5 bonus per gag.

“It doesn’t sound like much, but $5 could always come in handy in the 1930s,” he said.

The Duck Men

By 1937, Donald was popular enough to support his own franchise without the friendly foil Mickey Mouse. The Donald Duck series of shorts were directed and animated by a team of directors and animators known as “The Duck Men.”

“They had some animators who specialized in animating that waddling walk of his and his mercurial changes of temperament,” Kaufman said. “This short was directed by Jack King, who quickly took over as the top director in that unit that was specialized in animating Donald Duck. What you're seeing are the early results of this specialized Donald Duck unit.”

Free of Walt's restrictions on Mickey, “The Duck Men” had the freedom to do what they wanted with Donald Duck. In addition to the stand-alone cartoon series, an incredibly popular comic series starring Donald (and where Huey, Dewey, and Louie made their first appearance before transitioning to animation) was published simultaneously and pioneered by legendary cartoonist Carl Barks, “The Duck Man.”

Kaufman thinks “Good Scouts” is one of Donald Duck’s best outings.

“For me, 1937 to 1942 was the peak period for Donald Duck,” he said. “They’re defining his personality, largely based on his terrible temper but adding other traits, and the animation and background paintings have an extravagant look with a high level of production gloss.”

Everybody loved Donald Duck. They loved him so much that Walt might have watched “Good Scouts” with some apprehension about whether the duck or the mouse would be the top dog at Walt Disney Productions.

House Of Mouse Or Duck Dynasty?

By 1938, Walt Disney Productions was in its prime. The studio’s cartoon shorts were doing well and, in Kaufman’s opinion, reached their highest quality in terms of story, characters, and animation.

Furthermore, the studio made history the year before with Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, Disney’s first theatrical-length animated project. Adjusted for inflation, the film made over $2.29 billion worldwide and is still among the highest-grossing animated movies ever.

Nevertheless, Mickey Mouse was at a crossroads. By 1938, Donald Duck was no longer a sidekick to Mickey’s antics – he was becoming a bigger draw.

“It's not a secret that by the mid-1930s, Donald was threatening to eclipse Mickey,” Kaufman said. “Donald was a much more usable character, which made so many more stories possible. That was a threat to Mickey's supremacy at the studio.”

Kaufman knows what he’s talking about. He and co-author David Gerstein published “Walt Disney's Mickey Mouse: The Ultimate History” in 2020.

As early as 1936, Walt and his animators were trying to bring Mickey Mouse back to the forefront of Disney’s growing empire. Kaufman said this was explicitly referred to as “a comeback” for the character to get him out of his increasing obscurity and emerge from the belligerent shadow of Donald Duck.

“They were actually using the word ‘comeback’ to figure out how to keep Mickey before the public and ensure that he didn't get under the rug of history,” Kaufman said.

Other studios might have embraced the popularity and let Donald Duck usurp Mickey Mouse, but Kaufman said that wouldn’t happen under Walt’s watch.

“Other producers might have gone with the box office and discarded Mickey for Donald,” he said. “Walt didn't have any aversion to the box office, but he had a special affection for Mickey, and he didn't want him to get lost like that.”

Crowing Comeback

The first phase of Mickey Mouse’s comeback debuted the same year as “Good Scouts.” Mickey starred in “The Brave Little Tailor,” considered one of Mickey’s and Disney’s best.

“It's a short that looks like a feature, and that wasn’t an accident,” Kaufman said. “They poured everything into that cartoon as a special showcase with unique story material exclusively for Mickey, and now it’s one of the all-time classics.”

The next phase of Mickey’s comeback was another short based on Johann Wolfgang von Goethe's 1797 poem "The Sorcerer's Apprentice," incorporating a score by composer Paul Dukas. That short became the genesis of 1940’s Fantasia, which is considered one of the best films in the Disney canon and among the best ever made.

The comeback succeeded, and Mickey Mouse transcended from cartoon character to corporate icon. It might almost seem incredible that he ever faced a threat to his supremacy, let alone one from his inner circle of cartoon companions.

Going For Gold

“Good Scouts” was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Fim at the 11th Academy Awards, as was “The Brave Little Tailor.” Neither Donald nor Mickey took home the gold that year, losing to “Ferdinand the Bull” – another Disney short.

That year, four of the five nominees for Best Animated Short Film were produced by Disney. That wasn’t surprising, as the category was added to the 5th Academy Awards specifically so the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences could give an award to Disney.

“The 1932 Silly Symphony ‘Flowers and Trees’ was Disney’s first technicolor cartoon,” Kaufman said. “It was the first cartoon to get an Academy Award, and the president of the Academy was quoted as saying they created that category just so they could give an award to ‘Flowers and Trees.’”

Ironically, Donald would beat Mickey to the podium after a hilarious collaboration with the Third Reich. 

Several Donald Duck and Mickey Mouse shorts were nominated for Best Animated Short Film during the 1940s. The only short that won was 1942’s “Der Fuehrer’s Face,” which famously depicts Donald in a Nazi nightmare with plenty of swastikas and cameos from Hitler, Mussolini, and other Axis figureheads from World War II.

There was no way Mickey would ever find himself shouting “Heil Hitler” at any time or place. Donald, however, shouts it dozens of times in his Oscar-winning short.

Good Scouts, Bad Tourists

“Good Scouts” is a notable entry in the Disney canon, outside of its Oscar nomination and context in the Mickey-Donald power struggle. It further cemented the status and personalities of Donald’s nephews, was the first film to showcase Donald as a leader (albeit not a very good one) and was immensely popular for its deliberate homage to the Boy Scouts of America, which was used to promote the film.

“There’s a lot in ‘Good Scouts’ that’s very fresh in concept and design,” Kaufman said. “I always find that interesting.”

Kaufman also noted that “Good Scouts” is unique in that it is set in a real-world location: Yellowstone National Park. That’s a rarity for cartoons overall, but especially for early Disney cartoons.

“Disney tended not to get specific about authentic locales,” he said. “It is pretty unusual that they would set the plot in a place that was a real place in the real world.”

In that case, Donald should be grateful he was a fictional character who can’t be cited for his egregious conduct in Yellowstone. Otherwise, he’d face serious fines and a substantial stint in the jail of the Yellowstone Justice Center at Mammoth Hot Springs.

“I've got him for tying the tent off to the tree, improper food storage, disturbing wildlife by hitting the bear, littering, entering a thermal feature, and creating a hazardous condition,” said retired National Park Service law enforcement ranger Greg Jackson “If they use the ax for cutting down the tree there's another one, but I didn't see them do that. I'd need more information about the campfire and whether they were fully asleep or leaving it unattended.”

That’s assuming he had the permits for backcountry camping while ignoring the child endangerment charges he could easily face after abandoning his nephews to escape a grizzly.

Of course, Donald could get off scot-free. He might not even have to apologize like Pierce Brosnan did when he pleaded guilty to thermal trespass last year, which was just one of Donald’s many crimes.

But it’s not because he’s a celebrity.

“You can’t cite a duck,” Jackson said.

Mickey Mouse would never be so irreverent in Yellowstone National Park. Donald Duck could and probably would cause a scene, which is why he’s endured as one of the most popular characters in Disney’s expansive history.

“Donald was already ready for a fight if somebody provoked his temper, which wasn’t hard to do,” Kaufman said. “‘There were so many story possibilities with Donald Duck, and “Good Scouts” is seeing the character at what is very nearly his best.”

Contact Andrew Rossi at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com

Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.