Uploaded January 2025 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Was Donald Gets Drafted (1942) the only instance where Donald wears a drill sergeant hat in the headshot? No, it seems it was actually used one more time, in the following wartime Donald short, Sky Trooper (1942) – even though Donald actually wears a cap in the film itself.
This black and white print, on 1944 Kodak US stock, does not include the Donald Duck logo card or the closing titles – supposedly because it was a print supplied to the army and not distributed by RKO (and it obviously wasn’t in Technicolor either).
Since this is a very early print of Sky Trooper, I was curious to see whether the scene where Donald accidently pins the tail on Pete’s rear end would be left intact. It wasn’t – it’s exactly the same as in all other versions I’ve seen. I’ve included it here for reference, and if you haven’t noticed before, there’s a jump cut in the middle of the scene where Donald starts touching said body part on Pete; Donald starts opening his mouth and then there’s the cut. I have the feeling Donald originally said something ambiguous here, and it didn’t pass the censors (like “Yeah – this is where I’ll stick it”). Also, there is no sound effect when the painful action then happens, only Pete’s subsequent scream – possibly another intervention by the censors.
Was Donald Gets Drafted (1942) the only instance where Donald wears a drill sergeant hat in the headshot? No, it seems it was actually used one more time, in the following wartime Donald short, Sky Trooper (1942) – even though Donald actually wears a cap in the film itself.
This black and white print, on 1944 Kodak US stock, does not include the Donald Duck logo card or the closing titles – supposedly because it was a print supplied to the army and not distributed by RKO (and it obviously wasn’t in Technicolor either).
Since this is a very early print of Sky Trooper, I was curious to see whether the scene where Donald accidently pins the tail on Pete’s rear end would be left intact. It wasn’t – it’s exactly the same as in all other versions I’ve seen. I’ve included it here for reference, and if you haven’t noticed before, there’s a jump cut in the middle of the scene where Donald starts touching said body part on Pete; Donald starts opening his mouth and then there’s the cut. I have the feeling Donald originally said something ambiguous here, and it didn’t pass the censors (like “Yeah – this is where I’ll stick it”). Also, there is no sound effect when the painful action then happens, only Pete’s subsequent scream – possibly another intervention by the censors.
