Can you do a good Donald Duck voice?

Missing "Impersonations are not lame and I really wish I could impersonate the inscrutable rasp of that angry duck and I can't" option

^^^ another write-in for that one

aw, sorry

sorry for editorilizing

i cannot. tho, i do attempt the Daffy Duck "suffering succotash"

this is learnable right? it's like people say you can't learn perfect pitch, but there's all these ads in guitar player magazine that say you can.

you can absolutely learn perfect pitch, it's the same type of deal as telling colors apart only people aren't as familiar with the vocabulary involved (and there is also tone-deafness analogous to color-blindness but IME for most people it's less that they can't actually hear the difference between two pitches as much as it is they were never taught how to name them)

That is a great question, Nunez! I think I would pay up to $100 to learn this; I have no idea what "learn Donald Duck voice" coach would pay but maybe I'm lowballing it.

what's the vocabulary that brings you to doing a perfect donald duck impression though? i feel like "glottal clenching" would be in the mix there.

being super pissed

i am another write-in. i am pretty decent w impressions usually but i don't even know where to begin w donald. i learned this the other day tho:

Donald Duck is very popular in Germany, where Donald themed comics sell an average of 250,000 copies each week, mostly published in the kids’ weekly Micky Maus and the monthly Donald Duck Special (for adults) ... Donald's dialogue in German comics tends to be more sophisticated and philosophical; he "quotes from German literature, speaks in grammatically complex sentences and is prone to philosophical musings, while the stories often take a more political tone than their American counterparts."

the true donald duck impressionist must be able to nail "weltanschauung"

hell yes I can do this shit. a talent that inexplicably blossomed when I became a dad - excellent for entertaining children

basically it's about filling your cheeks with air, keeping the tip of your tongue against the roof of your mouth, and using your lips to enunciate syllables

I just tried to do that and I sounded like a talking pile of oily garbage.

you have to keep your teeth together too

like, keep your jaw shut

this sort of works! you could make a mint off this. 'talk like donald with this 1 weird trick'

whoa

to do the angry-Donald-freakout-squawk do all of the above + shake your head from left-to-right rapidly, fast enough so that your cheeks wobble

I just tried to do that and I sounded like a talking pile of oily garbage.

An earlier draft of the character, Donald Talking Pile of Oily Garbage, was dear to Disney's heart but performed poorly among focus groups

My Donald Duck voice turned out to be the most useful skill I learned at school. Speaking like Donald got me out of some tight squeaks more than once on my travels. In the weeks following 9/11, for instance, I was in the Sudan, working undercover, gathering background on Bin Laden for a big story for the Highland Press and Journal. Well, just my luck, I fell into the hands of an al-Qaeda splinter group run by Ramzi Yousef's posh nephew Cerydwyn. They were going to torture me, fly in my children, behead them, make me eat their heads, then behead me and make my children eat my head. In that order.

I thought this was a bit excessive, so, putting on my best Donald voice, I said: "You won't ever get me to rat on a pal, you doggon snake in the grass!" Cerydwyn looked startled for a second, then clapped his hands and started cackling uncontrollably. Turned out he'd gone through a big Donald phase when he was at boarding school in Wales. He called off his torturers, got on the phone and cancelled the air tickets for my children. At no small expense to himself, I might add; the tickets were limited-flex with only partial refund functionality.

From that point on we were the best of friends. I even invited Cerydwyn to my wedding last year, where he finally met my kids from my first marriage. "To think I nearly cut your heads off!" he joked in his best Donald Duck voice. "Aw, phooey!"

those german translations have apparently been very influential among generations of subversive young german speakers, both for their content and for what's almost a school of equally violent translators that's emerged from it.

i don't think i can do the impression, but i'll try when my flatmates aren't around to hear me! if i try now they may think i'm having a seizure.

I can make a Donald Duck sound, but I have trouble turning it into words that aren't just wah-wah-wah.

The closest I have ever come to speaking in Donald Duck's voice:

In a Rage Most Fowl

These nephews of mine! I cannot control
what bubbles up in me
such - such uncontrollable

something as can only
(when my handle is lost)
send me flying, fowlly

flapping! Rage-engorged
my face, my feet slapping
side-by-side both up and

down and up and down -
twinned, as these triplet
nephews are my - death of me!

Apoplectic me! I have cracked
in three. I can only
Quack! Quack!

Quack! Quack! Quack!
Quack! Slap feet!
Beat again! I beeten!

Burst all to bits,
last feathers lost and floating.
My kvetch fatal.

Alas! Ack!

i haven't tried to do a donald duck voice since i was like 12!
which is kind of sad! i am pretty shy about doing impressions, as i rediscovered while walking in central park this spring with the pinefox, who excels at hilarious impressions

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