Boy-oh-boy, does the duck have a lot of cartoons. Now in its third volume, The Chronological Donald series may be stretching it a bit thin with the bonus features (here they include a profile of a maquette artist), but at least we only have one more to go before the Donald�s full filmography will be completely available on DVD. (For the record, there are 37 left, but some of the later ones may end up on the rumored educational short collection.)

Thirty of the duck�s shorts are included on this latest set, culled from what Leonard Maltin calls Donald�s �fertile years�, 1947 to 1950. Included in this batch are three Oscar nominees (Chip an� Dale, Tea for Two Hundred and Toy Tinkers), plus Maltin�s personal favorite, Donald�s Dilemma, which has our hero crooning �When You Wish Upon a Star� like Frankie, plus Donald�s Dream Voice, which is pretty much the same story, except exchange Sinatra for Ronald Coleman (and if you don�t know who he is, ask your parents or grandparents again to explain).

Most of the cartoons in this collection find Donald facing off against various smaller nemeses such as the aforementioned chipmunks, Bootle Beetle, an intrepid bumblebee and, of course, nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie. Even the Aracuan Bird from The Three Caballeros shows up for a rematch.

The main bonus feature is a retrospective of Donald�s feature film and television appearances titled The Many Faces of Donald Duck. The duck has actually appeared in more feature films then Mickey Mouse, from Saludos Amigos to Fantasia 2000. Extensive art galleries and a bounty of Easter eggs (showing all ten of Donald�s Mickey Mouse Club intros) round out the set.

To paraphrase the old saying, it may have all started with a mouse, but that mouse followed in the footsteps of a certain bunny. Recently reacquired by the Disney Company after nearly eighty years, Walt�s first cartoon star is the star of this year�s final Treasures set, The Adventures of Oswald the Lucky Rabbit (originally planned as a Disney Legacy title).

As every true Disney fan knows, Oswald was Mickey�s predecessor, and this set gives ample proof that that was the case in more ways then one. As can be seen in the 13 surviving shorts (half of the rabbit�s output while under Walt, from 1927 to 1928; the other half are believed lost at this time), the two critters shared more then just a creator, as Oswald was roughly the early Mickey with long ears instead of round ones. He even had a Minnie-like girlfriend and a few Pegleg Pete-like villains.

The baker�s dozen presented here, including Oswald�s first (Trolley Troubles) and best (Oh What a Knight) works, have been restored as much as possible depending on the conditions of the available prints. And, since these are all pre-Steamboat Willie/pre-Flowers and Trees, they are all silent and in black and white, but they do feature newly recorded scores. They are, quite literally, �old school�, with lots of rollicking rubber hose characters and bending and squashing going on. Still, although certainly primitive for today�s viewers, they do possess a rough-around-the-edges charm and offer plenty of laughs.

With only 13 cartoons, one would think that the set must be filled with a lot of padding to fill up two whole discs, but the bonus features included are both informative and entertaining. Disc one�s Oswald Comes Home details how the toon star was traded for by Disney boss Bob Iger to NBC/Universal in exchange for sportscaster Al Michaels. And in addition to still galleries (mostly of promotional material) and audio commentaries on selected shorts (provided by Maltin and animation historians Mark Kausler and Jerry Beck), the existing footage of a 14^th short, Sagebrush Sadie, is also available.

As for disc two, it�s all about Ub. If you don�t know who I�m talking about, then you need to crack open a book on the history of animation to see that, in the eyes of most animation experts, it all starts and ends with Ub Iwerks. He was, quite literally in most cases, Walt�s right hand man. He not only designed and created the looks of both Oswald and Mickey, but also animated most of their early adventures by himself. As it is mentioned here, he could turn out over 70 drawings a day and finish a whole cartoon single-handedly in two weeks.

The second disc is mostly taken up by the DVD debut of the 1999 feature-length documentary, The Hand Behind the Mouse: The Ub Iwerks Story, directed by Ub�s granddaughter, Leslie Iwerks, who also directed the Oscar-nominated short Recycled Life and the recent The Pixar Story. The doc, narrated by Kelsey Grammar and featuring interviews by a host of familiar faces (John Lasseter, Roy E. Disney, Chuck Jones, Marc Davis, Ollie Johnston, Dave Smith, John Hench, Virginia Davis, Leonard Maltin once more), covers the life and career of the legendary animation pioneer, from his youth in Kansas City to his friendship with Walt to the early days of the Disney Brothers Studios in Hollywood.