The effect was created by Disney sound designer Jimmy MacDonald for The Vanishing Private, a Donald Duck cartoon released on 25 September 1942. MacDonald's wet impact became part of the classic cartoon vocabulary and was later preserved in professional libraries, including a Hollywood Edge release catalogued as a splat with light impact. Its survival comes from that library circulation, letting editors reuse an authentic 1940s slapstick hit for modern cartoons, memes and short videos without recording a new splat each time.