The Clock Watcher is an animated Donald Duck short that was released on January 26, 1945.
Synopsis
Donald takes a job as a gift wrapper in a department store.
Plot
Donald Duck arrives late to work at Royal Bros Gift Wrapping department. He clocks in by using a magnet to move the minutes to make it seem like he arrived early. He walks by the Manikin woman statue and his head turns into wolf as he howls at it. The work begins with the song "Royal Loyal" work song which annoyed Donald Duck who threw a tantrum at the end of the song. Then the work begins as the toys come down the line zooming very fast creating a whirlwind which strips Donald's shirt and hat leaving him undressed. He quickly retrieves his shirt and hat and puts them back on.
Donald then plays with the toys while pretending to work. He first grabs the fishbowl and rolls it down the table in gift wrapping like a bowling ball bowling the perfume bottles off the table and stamps the fishbowl fragile only to start shattering it into pieces. He plays the trumpet and tries to fit it into the box but then decides to use the clamp and shapes it into a french horn and puts it into a box. He puts the ring into the football box, but as he tries to fit the football into the ring box, he deflates it with a screwdriver. Then Donald Duck plays with the pendulum clock on the wall.
As Donald Duck pulls out his lunch, he pours coffee into his cup, but gets attacked by the boss speaker horn, which spills the coffee all over Donald's face, causing Donald to throws a temper tantrum and the boss demands that Donald Duck say sorry which Donald did but he makes faces at the speaker pipe. He then wraps the gift very quickly and sloppy and he plays with the perfume. Then the boss makes an announcement which makes Donald excited for a money raise saying that "Production has increased in every single department" except the Gift Wrapping Department which makes Donald Duck mad and he plays with the speaker pipe.Donald Duck wraps the Rocking Chair with him in it. Then a rush order box comes and Donald quickly gets out of the chair and gets the wrapping paper out.
When Donald Duck opens a box, Jack-in-the-box comes springing out, so he plays with him. When his boss tells him not to play with the toys. He gets angry and quickly wraps the Jack-in-the-box and sits down on the box to eat his lunch, unaware that the box in the gift wrapping bulges up and breaks open sending Donald sliding down the assembly line through the gift boxes until his beak hits the grain hopper toy and causes sand to dump on his face.
He then tries to use a vise clamp to hold the box down and becomes exhausted. The speaker pipe talks to Donald, who gets annoyed and shoves the rubber ball into the speaker pipe. The speaker shoots out the ball while Donald is trying to eat his pie and quickly dodges the ball but hits the vise clamp causing the Jack-in-the-box to spring out and hits his head into the pie causing him to wear a pie hat before Donald throws a temper tantrum.
Donald Duck decides to tie down the Jack-in-the-box and hold it down by hammering stakes into the floor, but hears the Jack-in-the-box breaking free through the floor. So Donald looks down out the window and is surprised that he went through. He then runs down the stairs, and pulls on Jacks head until the box comes out of the floor and ends up pulling poor Donald into the box and gets him trapped inside where he wrestles inside the box until he finally gets free. He now sees that Jack-in-the-box steals Donald's blue shirt and blue hat while Donald Duck is wearing Jacks accordion clown costume and nightcap.
Donald complains until his boss announces it's quitting time. Donald Duck is happy and excited and runs up the stairs, only to hear that the boss tells him to stay and wrap a few more packages. Donald Duck gets angry and runs upstairs to beat up his boss and breaks the speaker pipe in the process which likely got him fired.
Characters
- Donald Duck
- Speaker Pipe
Voice Characterizations
- Clarence Nash - Donald Duck
- Mel Blanc - Speaker Pipe
Trivia
- The scene in which Donald makes the speaker talk like a stereotypical black man is often edited out in TV airings.
Releases
Television
- The Mickey Mouse Club, December 14, 1956
- A Disney Christmas Gift
- Good Morning, Mickey, episode #15
- A Disney Channel Christmas
- Donald's Quack Attack, episode #50
Home video
VHS
DVD
- Walt Disney Treasures: The Chronological Donald, Volume 2
- Walt Disney's Classic Cartoon Favorites, Vol. 8: Holiday Celebrations with Mickey and Pals
Gallery
