Dinky Duck

{{short description|Terrytoons animated film character}}

{{Use American English|date=December 2022}}

{{Use mdy dates|date=December 2022}}

{{Infobox character

| name = Dinky Duck

| series = Terrytoons

| first = The Orphan Duck (1939)

| creator = Paul Terry

| voice = Allen Swift

| species = Duck

| gender = Male

}}

Dinky Duck is a Terrytoons cartoon character who first appeared in the 1939 animated short The Orphan Duck.{{cite book |last1=Lenburg |first1=Jeff |title=The Encyclopedia of Animated Cartoons |date=1999 |publisher=Checkmark Books |isbn=0-8160-3831-7 |accessdate=June 6, 2020 |url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9780816038312/page/72/mode/2up |page=73}} Unlike fellow Terrytoons characters Mighty Mouse, silly Gandy Goose and the magpie duo Heckle and Jeckle, Dinky never became popular, appearing in a total of only 15 cartoons between 1939 and 1957.{{cite book |last1=Rovin |first1=Jeff |title=The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Cartoon Animals |date=1991 |publisher=Prentice Hall Press |isbn=0-13-275561-0 |accessdate=June 6, 2020 |url=https://archive.org/details/illustratedencyc00rovi/page/66/mode/2up/ |page=67}}

For most of his appearances, Dinky is a young black duck who lived on a farm with other ducks, chickens and other typical farm animals. Sometimes he was an orphan who simply wanted a place to call home; on other occasions, he would perform some heroic deed and help restore calm to the barnyard when adult animals quarreled.

The early Dinky Duck cartoons presents Dinky making a sharp quacking noise, while the later ones gave a young voice to Dinky, performed by actor Allen Swift. Several of the cartoons had a singing chorus that gave an introduction to the upcoming story.

Dinky's final appearance was in It's a Living, a CinemaScope cartoon, in which he sheds his cute farmyard duck persona and instead takes on the role of a disgruntled animation actor who quits his cartoon character job to try his hand in television commercial acting.

Dinky was going to have a cameo in Who Framed Roger Rabbit, but rights to the character could not be obtained in time.

Dinky appears as a supporting character in the 1999 pilot Curbside. Here, he was voiced by Dee Bradley Baker.{{Cite web|url=https://www.bcdb.com/cartoon/101602-Curbside|title = Curbside (Nickelodeon)}}{{dead link|date=January 2024|bot=medic}}{{cbignore|bot=medic}}