I don’t think Donald’s schtick was so much rudeness/viciousness as it was that he had no control over his temper and had horrible luck. I remember cartoons opening with him being perfectly pleasant but then getting more and more unhinged as the cartoon goes on and things go wrong for him. To the point of homocidal destruction of everything around him.
He was a character that earned what happened to him after it happened, in his response to it.
Though this was also in a world where a lot of cartoons were casually extremely violent. Like Elmer Fudd was constantly trying to kill Bugs and Daffy, who each tried to get him to target the other or tried to get him, and then they’d casually discuss it at various points during the show. Mickey and Pete had a similar at times homicidal relationship, though Disney seemed to have more “I’m so angry I could kill you” while Looney Tunes had more “Trying to kill you is just what I do”.
I don’t think Donald’s schtick was so much rudeness/viciousness as it was that he had no control over his temper and had horrible luck. I remember cartoons opening with him being perfectly pleasant but then getting more and more unhinged as the cartoon goes on and things go wrong for him. To the point of homocidal destruction of everything around him.
He was a character that earned what happened to him after it happened, in his response to it.
Though this was also in a world where a lot of cartoons were casually extremely violent. Like Elmer Fudd was constantly trying to kill Bugs and Daffy, who each tried to get him to target the other or tried to get him, and then they’d casually discuss it at various points during the show. Mickey and Pete had a similar at times homicidal relationship, though Disney seemed to have more “I’m so angry I could kill you” while Looney Tunes had more “Trying to kill you is just what I do”.