Like you, I don't get the tie-in between Donald Duck and orange juice. All I can tell you is that Donald Duck Orange Juice is one of the oldest brands of frozen juice, (from concentrate), sold in the United States. When my grandparents lived with us in the early 1960's my grandma said that Donald Duck Orange juice was the first frozen juice she had ever seen. Before commercial refrigeration local juice sales were limited by geographical location. You only could by what was close to where you lived. So most juice was fresh squeezed from whole fruit brought from the grocery store. When I was a little boy most folks still had juicing bowls in the kitchen for oranges and lemons.

As one of the first frozen concentrate fruit juice products distributed nationwide, Donald Duck Orange Juice made citrus juice available year round, and no squeezing necessary.

Licensed under an agreement with the Walt Disney Company around 1938, "Donald Duck" is the oldest brand of the nation's largest citrus growers cooperative - you guys all know them by the name, Florida's Natural Growers Cooperative. That's the name you see when you by filtered, (NOT from concentrate), orange juice from the grocery store.

What I find interesting is Florida's Natural uses the "Donald Duck" name on frozen concentrate but uses "Florida's Natural" on its premium "NOT from concentrate" juice products. 

No - it tasted much worse!

The common practice for most of the 50's and 60's was processed concentrate from South American fruit blended with USA grown oranges. The process to extract water from the juice also resulted in excess heat with destroys the flavor.

Also, concentrate purchased outside the USA was prepared to meet a low price, not for taste. That's way processed orange juice used to add sugar to make it taste better.

So you see, I grew-up drinking some of the worst tasting orange juice - but it was reasonably priced.

Today I can buy great tasting orange juice because the "Not from concentrate" varieties are pasteurized at lower temperatures that don't destroy the flavor.