Donald's Ostrich

Donald's Ostrich is an animated Short film produced in Technicolor by Walt Disney Productions and released to theaters on December 10, 1937 by RKO Radio Pictures. It was the third film in the Donald Duck series of short films, although billed at the time as a Mickey Mouse cartoon. It was the first of the series to be released by RKO.

Donald's Ostrich was directed by Jack King and features the voices of Clarence Nash as Donald Duck, Pinto Colvig as Hortense the Ostrich (hiccups), and Elvia Allman and Billy Bletcher as radio voices.

Plot
Donald is working along as a custodian at a whistle stop train station and is responsible for loading and unloading luggage. A train passes the station and dumps a large pile of luggage on Donald without stopping. Donald finds that one of the crates contains a live Ostrich and tied around the ostrich's neck he finds the following note: "My name is HORTENSE. Please see that I am fed and watered. P.S. I eat anything!"

Hortense begins to eat anything she can find at the station starting with the message. She then eats a concertina, a wind-up alarm clock and several balloons. This causes Hortense to have hiccups which Donald tries to cure by scaring her.

Finally Hortense swallows Donald's radio and her body begins to react to what is playing on the radio. Donald realizes Hortense has swallowed the radio and grabs a pair of forceps to pull it out. But when Hortense starts to react to a broadcast car race, Donald is unable to control her. Hortense finally crashes through a door which at last knocks the radio out of her, but also gives Donald the hiccups.

Hortense
While Donald's Ostrich was the first and only time that Hortense the Ostrich appeared in animation, she later appeared as a comic book character as Donald's pet. Her first comic appearance was in the first publication of the Donald Duck Annual in 1938.

Releases

 * Walt Disney Treasures: Wave Three: The Chronological Donald