Directed by Jack King Story by Harry Reeves
Rex Cox Initial release 1945 Music director Oliver Wallace Producer Walt Disney | Produced by Walt Disney Music by Oliver Wallace Director Jack King Production company The Walt Disney Company | |
 | ||
Voices by Clarence Nash
Hans Conried Animation by Jack Hannah
Bill Justice
Judge Whitaker
Don Towsley Voices Clarence Nash, Hans Conried Similar The Vanishing Private, Drip Dippy Donald, Donald's Crime, Donald's Tire Trouble, Sleepy Time Donald | ||
The Clock Watcher is a 1945 American animated short film produced by Walt Disney Productions and released by RKO Radio Pictures. The cartoon follows Donald Duck as he works at the Royal Bros. department store, where he goofs off by breaking gifts and wrapping them poorly.
Plot
Donald Duck arrives late to his job at Royal Bros. as a gift wrapper. He clocks in, uses a magnet to set the time back a few hours, then situates himself at his work table. To Donald's left is a loudspeaker from which his boss gives him orders.
The shift begins as "The Royal Loyal" work song plays next to him. Toys come zooming down past Donald Duck, creating a whirlwind that strips his clothes off. He quickly retrieves them and makes his way over to the pile of gifts. Donald plays with the toys and pretends to work at the same time. He then pulls out his lunch and pours coffee in his cup. The boss's speaker horn spills the coffee all over Donald's face and he throws a temper tantrum. The boss scolds him and Donald apologizes. After pretending to work and playing for a while, his boss announces that "Production has increased in every single department" except for the gift wrapping department. This makes Donald angry.
Donald wraps a rocking chair with him inside it. A rush order box comes and he gets out of his rocking chair and gets the wrapping paper out.
Donald opens a box and it turns out to be a Jack-in-the-box; he proceeds to play with it. When the boss tells him not to play with toys, he gets angry and has trouble with the Jack-in-the-box in various ways and has trouble wrapping it. He uses a vise clamp to hold the Jack-in-the-box down. He gets annoyed by the speaker horn and solves the problem by shoving a rubber ball in the speaker. The speaker shoots out the ball as Donald is trying to have his pie and quickly dodges the ball, but the ball hits the clamp and the Jack-in-the-box springs out hitting Donald into his pie piece. He then decides to tie down the Jack-in-the-box and hold it down by hammering stakes in the floor. But the Jack-in-the-box breaks through the floor and Donald looks out the window and is surprised that it went through the floor. He then tries to pull the head out but he gets pulled into the Jack-in-the-box and gets trapped inside and wrestles in it until he finally gets free, but the Jack-in-the-box steals Donald's blue shirt and blue hat while Donald Duck is wearing Jack's clown accordion costume and his nightcap.
He complains until the boss announces that it is quitting time. This excites him, but the boss tells Donald that he has to stay and wrap a few more packages. Donald gets angry and runs upstairs to beat up his boss. He breaks the speaker pipe in the process, possibly resulting in being fired.