20 Days of Summer, Day 8: Beach Picnic

Day 8:  Beach Picnic (1939)
Starring: Donald Duck and Pluto
Setting: The beach
Plot: Donald and Pluto’s day at the beach gets threatened by a rubber horse and a tribe of hungry ants.

Tan Lines
The song Donald is singing to himself at the beginning is “By the Beautiful Sea” – a popular tune from 1914 by the Heidelberg Quintet.  We also heard the song 1931’s The Beach Party.

This is the second of six shorts to feature Donald and Pluto as a duo.  The first?  The aptly titled Donald and Pluto (1936).

Is Pluto Donald’s pet here or he just an independent dog hanging out on the beach sans owner?

If anything, Donald saves a napping Pluto from drowning by way of the rising tide.

The theme of lavish and exorbitant picnics continue!   Among the items Donald lays on his blanket is a pie, a baked ham, a plate of donuts, hot links, a cake, a can of tuna and a jar of jelly beans!!!

The ants appropriate the features and characteristics of an Indian tribe.

More bugs… lending credence to my theory that summer = bugs.
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Sitting by the Campfire
I’ve never been a huge fan of Pluto and the looong sequence of him tangling with Donald’s rubber horse is the main reason why.  His struggles are similar to what Donald and Goofy often face but without Goofy’s flair for physical comedy or Donald’s comical depravity.  Pluto is best sharing the screen with other characters like he eventually does with Donald towards the end of the cartoon.