Sometimes the best way to avoid an accident is to see what causes one. That’s precisely the point behind the Donald Duck cartoon short How to Have an Accident at Work, which crashed into theaters on this day in 1959. Elderly duck J. J. Fate serves as the narrator with Donald Duck portraying a loving husband and father. At work, through his own carelessness, Donald finds himself the victim of multiple accidents. When the nurse asks our poor hero, “Why does everything happen to you?” Donald replies, “It’s fate. That’s what it is. Fate.” This displeases the film’s small onscreen narrator, Fate, who does not appreciate being blamed. Incidentally, this was not the narrator’s first film appearance. As Fate would have it, he first appeared in the 1956 cartoon short How to Have an Accident in the Home.
