Donald Duck was not seen by audiences on this day in 1942, because he was covered with camouflage paint which made him invisible in The Vanishing Private. A private in the military, Donald is painting a cannon in a beautiful rainbow of colors, but his villainous commander Pete demands that he camouflages it. So Donald gets vanishing paint and ends up falling in the paint can, becoming invisible, with disastrous circumstances for Pete. Pete has been taunting Disney characters for many years. He appeared in Mickey Mouse’s first cartoon short, 1928’s Steamboat Willie, but also appeared in Alice comedies as early as 1925. Originally, he had a peg leg and was known as Pegleg Pete, but in later years, such as in The Vanishing Private, he had two legs of his own. At the end of the film, he tries to explain to the general that he is going after a little man that is invisible, but the general thinks is Pete is crazy and locks him up in a straight jacket, and Pete doesn’t have a leg to stand on.
