''Donald and the Wheel'' is a 17-minute

Donald Duck Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor shirt and cap with a bow tie. Donald is known fo ...

animated short directed by

Hamilton Luske Hamilton Somers Luske (October 16, 1903 – February 19, 1968) was an American animator and film director. Career He joined the Walt Disney Productions animation studio in 1931 and he was soon trusted enough by Walt Disney to be made supervising ...

, produced by

Walt Disney Walter Elias Disney (; December 5, 1901December 15, 1966) was an American animator, film producer and entrepreneur. A pioneer of the American animation industry, he introduced several developments in the production of cartoons. As a film p ...

and released on June 21, 1961. It is an educational-based film, and features a considerable amount of musical vocals. Disney described the cartoon as "Using the revolutionary Xerox and Sodium Screen Processes together for the first time, Disney and his director, Ham Luske, combine real people and objects in the same perspective as animated characters and objects."

Plot

Two "spirits of progress" are observing the potential inventor of the

wheel A wheel is a circular component that is intended to rotate on an axle Bearing (mechanical), bearing. The wheel is one of the key components of the wheel and axle which is one of the Simple machine, six simple machines. Wheels, in conjunction wi ...

. These spirits are never seen aside from their auras. One of these spirits is an adult (voiced by

Thurl Ravenscroft Thurl Arthur Ravenscroft (; February 6, 1914May 22, 2005) was an American actor and bass singer. He was known as one of the booming voices behind Kellogg's Frosted Flakes animated spokesman Tony the Tiger for more than five decades. He was al ...

) and is accompanied by his

beatnik Beatniks were members of a social movement in the 1950s that subscribed to an anti-materialistic lifestyle. History In 1948, Jack Kerouac introduced the phrase "Beat Generation", generalizing from his social circle to characterize the undergr ...

-talking son (voiced by Max Smith). The elder is trying to explain the importance of the wheel to his son. They observe a

caveman The caveman is a stock character representative of primitive humans in the Paleolithic. The popularization of the type dates to the early 20th century, when Neanderthals were influentially described as " simian" or "ape-like" by Marcellin ...

(portrayed by

) trying to haul his supply sled up a hill and into a cave. Donald is then chased out of the cave by a

Saber Tooth Tiger ''Smilodon'' is a genus of the extinct machairodont subfamily of the felids. It is one of the most famous prehistoric mammals and the best known saber-toothed cat. Although commonly known as the saber-toothed tiger, it was not closely rela ...

. He gets away, but the tiger tumbles down a hill wrapped around a rock. The spirits tell Donald that this should be the inspiration for his invention of the wheel. The film then goes into the evolution and widespread uses for the wheel, including those used by the Ancient Egyptians,

Ancient Greeks Ancient Greece ( el, Ἑλλάς, Hellás) was a northeastern Mediterranean civilization, existing from the Greek Dark Ages of the 12th–9th centuries BC to the end of classical antiquity ( AD 600), that comprised a loose collection of cultu ...

, and

Ancient Romans In modern historiography, ancient Rome refers to Roman people, Roman civilisation from the founding of the city of Rome in the 8th century BC to the collapse of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century AD. It encompasses the Roman Kingdom ...

. It introduces the

horse-drawn vehicle A horse-drawn vehicle is a mechanized piece of equipment pulled by one horse or by a team of horses. These vehicles typically had two or four wheels and were used to carry passengers and/or a load. They were once common worldwide, but they have m ...

s of the

Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire a ...

as well as buggies and

carriage A carriage is a private four-wheeled vehicle for people and is most commonly horse-drawn. Second-hand private carriages were common public transport, the equivalent of modern cars used as taxis. Carriage suspensions are by leather strapping an ...

s of the 19th century, culminating with the invention of the

steam locomotive A steam locomotive is a locomotive that provides the force to move itself and other vehicles by means of the expansion of steam. It is fuelled by burning combustible material (usually coal, oil or, rarely, wood) to heat water in the locomot ...

and the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

. The narrators also take time to explain various devices that use wheel-based parts, including gears like a

music box A music box (American English) or musical box (British English) is an automatic musical instrument in a box that produces musical notes by using a set of pins placed on a revolving cylinder or disc to pluck the tuned teeth (or ''lamellae'') ...

, a gramophone and a

jukebox A jukebox is a partially automated music-playing device, usually a coin-operated machine, that will play a patron's selection from self-contained media. The classic jukebox has buttons, with letters and numbers on them, which are used to selec ...

. Inside the jukebox, a tiny lady dances on the records contemporary jazz,

hoedown A hoedown is a type of American folk dance or square dance in duple meter, and also the musical form associated with it. Overview The most popular sense of the term is associated with Americans in rural or southeastern parts of the country, par ...

and classic ballet with Donald joining in with her. The last few segments enter the 20th century and the rise of

factories A factory, manufacturing plant or a production plant is an industrial facility, often a complex consisting of several buildings filled with machinery, where workers manufacture items or operate machines which process each item into another. T ...

and the

automobile A car or automobile is a motor vehicle with Wheel, wheels. Most definitions of ''cars'' say that they run primarily on roads, Car seat, seat one to eight people, have four wheels, and mainly transport private transport#Personal transport, pe ...

. They finally reach the present day, wrapping up with satellites. They also explain that the world itself is a wheel, and that the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

and planetary orbits act as wheels. After seeing into the future, Donald appears overwhelmed and bewildered, and decides against inventing the wheel. He claims it is "too much trouble" and does not want to bear the enormous responsibility. The Spirits of Progress accept that Donald may not be the true inventor of the wheel, but that "somebody did".

Voice cast

Clarence Nash Clarence Charles "Ducky" Nash (December 7, 1904 – February 20, 1985) was an American voice actor. He was best known as the original voice of the Disney cartoon character Donald Duck. He was born in the rural community of Watonga, Oklahoma, and ...

(voice) *

as The Spirit of Progress / Narrator (voice) *

The Mellomen The Mellomen were a popular singing quartet active from the late 1940s through the mid-1970s. The group was founded by Thurl Ravenscroft and Max Smith in 1948. They recorded under a variety of names, including Big John and the Buzzards, the Crackerj ...

(vocals)

Music

The music was composed by Buddy Baker, who also composed ''

Donald in Mathmagic Land ''Donald in Mathmagic Land'' is a 1959 American animated-live-action featurette produced by Walt Disney Productions and featuring Donald Duck. The short was directed by Hamilton Luske (with Wolfgang Reitherman, Les Clark, and Joshua Meador as ...

'' and sung by

Release

''Donald and the Wheel'' was released in theaters with the movie '' The Parent Trap''.

Home media

The short was released on November 11, 2008, on '' Walt Disney Treasures: The Chronological Donald, Volume Four: 1951-1961''.

References

External links

* {{Donald Duck 1960s educational films 1960s English-language films 1961 animated films 1961 short films 1960s Disney animated short films Disney educational films Films about ducks Donald Duck short films Films directed by Hamilton Luske Films produced by Walt Disney Films scored by Buddy Baker (composer) Short films with live action and animation Animated films set in prehistory Films about cavemen Animated films about cavemen Transport films American animated short films