Polar Trappers

"Walt Disney Presents Donald and Goofy" begins Polar Trappers (1938), an animated cartoon starring Donald Duck and Goofy. Directed by Ben Sharpsteen, it featured voices by Pinto Colvig, a vaudeville and radio actor, as Goofy, and Clarence "Ducky" Nash, as Donald Duck, a role he played for over 50 years.

Released on June 17, 1938, Polar Trappers ran 8 minutes and twenty seconds, with animation by Art Babbitt, Winfield Hoskins, Shamus Culhane, Ed Love, Al Eugster, Stan Quackenbush, Cornett Wood, Wolfgang Reitherman, and Bob Wickersham in classic Disney style.

Donald and Goofy are in the frozen north, living in an igloo, while supposedly earning a living at "Donald & Goofy Trapping Co." with the slogan "We bring 'em back alive." Tired of eating beans, Donald plans to trap and roast a penguin like a chicken, while Goofy tries to catch a walrus.

Polar Trappers (working title The Arctic Trappers) is significant because it marks the first time that Donald and Goofy appear in a cartoon without Mickey Mouse who was Disney's biggest "star," proof that Goofy and Donald were now big enough draws to carry a cartoon on their own. At the time, Disney films were created through the Walt Disney Studios and released through RKO Pictures.

SOURCES:

http://www.bcdb.com/bcdb/cartoon.cgi?film=3960
http://www.disneyshorts.org/shorts.aspx?shortID=272
http://disney.wikia.com/wiki/Polar_Trappers
The Internet Movie Database

By Lorraine LoBianco