It seems, based on media of a certain era, that small children were often used as chaperones. Self-appointed or otherwise—in Cheaper by the Dozen, the original book, the younger siblings routinely pestered their oldest sisters when beaux came courting. There’s a M*A*S*H episode where I believe it’s BJ mentions paying a girlfriend’s brother to go for ice cream. Here, it’s not even that the nephews are chaperones. They seem to be interested in Daisy themselves, I think? It’s weird. Certainly the ice cream trick does not work on them.

Donald (Clarence Nash) is getting ready for a date. He’s all spiffed up and has a bouquet of flowers handy. Then Huey (Clarence Nash), Dewey (Clarence Nash), and Louie (Clarence Nash) appear, likewise spiffed up and toting flowers. Donald dances them into a closet and goes off to meet Daisy (Clarence Nash). They manage to meet him there. He tries to buy them off with ice cream—and they come back with it right away. He dances with Daisy, and they butt in. He pushes them off, and they make him swallow a whole ear of popping corn, which continues to pop and forces him to dance wildly around the house.

In point of fact there’s not a whole lot of “stepping out” going on. Because that kind of implies that he goes anywhere other than Daisy’s living room. Which he does not. Possibly he and Daisy had further stepping out planned, but if they did, we don’t see it. Don’t get me wrong; it’s more than possible to have an entertaining time together even if all you’re doing is hanging out in a living room. It’s just weird they’d call the short that. I guess it’s possible that it’s a slang term for “goes on a date,” though.

I’m aware, of course, that children can have crushes on adults. Even adults of their acquaintance. I’ve got stories; I’m sure most of you do as well. The question there is how the adults responded to it, if they knew. Possibly Daisy is just humouring the boys, but you’d expect her to say at some point, “Okay, I’m spending time with your uncle now.” This is one of those rare situations where I don’t really blame Donald for being upset. In fact, he never really has much of a full-blown tantrum here. He actually acts the way a frustrated adult would be when three younger relatives insist on interrupting their plans.

All in all, the weirdest part is that literally everyone is voiced by Clarence Nash. The idea that Donald and Daisy had basically the same voice is one that wouldn’t linger. In part I guess because it’s weird. Daisy doesn’t even really seem like a “feminine version” of Donald. She just sounds like Donald. Despite not, at least one hopes, being related to him. I could get behind a “duck accent,” if Disney had decided to go that way, but maybe they just didn’t find a woman who could do the Donald voice and gave Daisy a more comprehensible voice after this.

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