1936 THE LOVE NEST

Synopsis: Mickey, Goofy, and Donald work as interior decorators in Minnie's house, but they get the paint colours as well as the wallpaper paste mixed up.

Comments: Barks contributed a variety of sketchy, explanatory drawings carrying several notes, which constitute the first cartoon sketches he made for Disney. They were all just jotted down very quickly as rough ideas with little detail. That's the way they wanted it in the studio, Barks later explained.

1936 TIMID ELMER

Synopsis: The non-heroic Elmer Elephant rescues his love Tillie Tiger from a mad gorilla.

Comments: Barks was a driving force behind this project - that was meant to be a follow-up to the newly released Elmer Elephant from 1936 - as he made numerous gags and sketches for the fight between Elmer and the attacking gorilla. Also, he wrote a full-page, rather detailed, synopsis for the project, which, by the way, received several work titles. Barks' suggestion was Elmer's Light o' Love.

1936 NORTHWEST MOUNTED

Synopsis: Black Pete kidnaps Minnie Mouse in Canada and tries to force her to show where a goldmine is. Mickey, as an officer in the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, intervenes.

Comments: Barks wrote the story and drew singlehandedly close to 400 storyboard sketches as well as modelsheets for Mickey and his horse Tanglefoot, a rickety animal that was first seen in the newspaper strip Mickey Mouse and his Horse Tanglefoot from 1933. See most of Barks' storyboard panels in CBL1 p.255+.
In 1938 Tanglefoot was supposed to be the dominating character in a horse race, where Mickey was competing, but the couple gets sabotaged by Black Pete. The story was never storyboarded and Barks was probably just involved because of his prior work with the horse character in Northwest Mounted.

1937 NIGHTWATCHMAN

Synopsis: Donald is a nightwatchman in a department store where he has to chase an escaped, lively monkey after he has irritated it.

Comments: Barks wrote and storyboarded most of the cartoon, but it was not readily accepted by Walt Disney, who never liked monkeys in his cartoons, because they quickly took the spotlight from the primary characters. Another contributing reason may have been that Donald was portrayed as a petty thief, as he went sampling some of the store's food with the cheerful remark ...an' I get paid for working here! The script was altered many times by other artists, but to no avail.