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Scrooge McDuck

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   Scrooge McDuck
   Image:BarksScrooge.jpg
   "Scrooge McDuck, the Richest Duck in the World", by Carl Barks
   First appearance Donald Duck Four Colour #178 Christmas on Bear
   Mountain, 1947
   Created by Carl Barks
   Voiced by Alan Young
   Background Information
   Aliases The Richest Duck in the World, The Billionaire of Dismal Downs,
   The Buckaroo of the Bandlands,The King Of The Klondike, The Last of the
   Clan McDuck
   Relatives Donald Duck (nephew), Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck
   (great-nephews), Fergus McDuck (father), Downy O'Drake (mother),
   Matilda McDuck (sister), Hortense McDuck (sister)
   Friends Gyro Gearloose, Emily Quackfaster, Gladstone Gander, Elvira
   Coot, Launchpad McQuack, Webby Vanderquack, Donald Duck, Duckworth the
   Butler, Bentina Beakley, Daisy Duck, Fenton Crackshell, Bubba the
   Caveduck, Mickey Mouse
   Rivals Magica De Spell, Flintheart Glomgold, John D. Rockerduck, the
   Beagle Boys, Argus McSwine, Phantom Blot,and sometimes Donald Duck

   Scrooge McDuck or Uncle Scrooge is a fictional Scottish character
   created by Carl Barks who first appeared in Dell Comics Four Colour
   Comics #178 Christmas on Bear Mountain in December 1947. Over the
   decades, Scrooge has emerged from being just a supporting character of
   the Donald Duck Universe, spawning his own comic book series, Uncle
   Scrooge with subsequent appearances in various television specials,
   films, and video games. The popular 1987 animated series DuckTales
   follows the adventures of Scrooge, his nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie
   Duck and their life situated in the fictional city, Duckburg.

   Scrooge's name is based on the miserly Ebenezer Scrooge, a character
   from Charles Dickens's A Christmas Carol. Scrooge, along with several
   other characters of Duckburg, has enjoyed international popularity,
   particularly in Europe, and is frequently translated into other
   languages.

Comics history

First appearance

   Scrooge, maternal uncle of previously established character Donald
   Duck, made his first named appearance in Christmas on Bear Mountain in
   December 1947, a story written and drawn by artist Carl Barks.
   Scrooge's appearance was probably based on a similar-looking, nameless
   Scottish character from the 1943 propaganda short The Spirit of '43.

   In Christmas on Bear Mountain, Scrooge was a bearded, bespectacled,
   reasonably wealthy old man, visibly leaning on his cane, and living in
   isolation in a "huge mansion". Scrooge has always been a somewhat
   bitter character, but the sharpness of his misanthropic thoughts in
   this first story are quite pronounced: "Here I sit in this big lonely
   dump, waiting for Christmas to pass! Bah! That silly season when
   everybody loves everybody else! A curse on it! Me—I'm different!
   Everybody hates me, and I hate everybody!"

   In the story, Scrooge plans to entertain himself by inviting his nephew
   Donald Duck and grand-nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck to his
   mountain cabin and then scaring them to derive schadenfreude. Though
   this was his his first appearance, the first Uncle Scrooge comic was
   Only A Poor Old Man

As a recurring character

   Barks would later claim that he originally only intended to use Scrooge
   as a one-shot character, but then decided Scrooge could prove useful in
   further stories. Barks continued to experiment with Scrooge's
   appearance and personality over the next four years.

   Scrooge's second appearance, in " The Old Castle's Secret" (first
   published in June 1948), had Scrooge recruiting his nephews to search
   for a family treasure hidden in Dismal Downs, the McDuck family's
   ancestral castle, built in the middle of Rannoch Moor in Scotland.
   "Foxy Relations" (first published in November 1948) was the first story
   where Scrooge is called by his title and catchphrase "The Richest Duck
   in the World".

First hints of Scrooge's past

   "Voodoo Hoodoo", first published in August 1949, was the first story to
   hint at Scrooge's past with the introduction of two figures from it.
   The first was Foola Zoola, an old African sorcerer and chief of the
   Voodoo tribe who had cursed Scrooge, seeking revenge for the
   destruction of his village and the taking of his tribe's lands by
   Scrooge decades ago.

   Scrooge privately admitted to his nephews that he had used an army of
   "cutthroats" to get the tribe to abandon their lands, in order to
   establish a diamond-mining colony. The event was placed in 1879 during
   the story, but it would later be retconned to 1909 to fit with
   Scrooge's later-established personal history.

   The second figure was Bombie the Zombie, the organ of the sorcerer's
   curse and revenge. He had reportedly sought Scrooge for decades before
   reaching Duckburg, mistaking Donald for Scrooge. Bombie was not really
   undead and Foola Zoola did not practice necromancy.

   Barks, with a note of skepticism often found in his stories, explained
   the zombie as a living person who has never died, but has somehow
   gotten under the influence of a sorcerer. Although some scenes of the
   story were intended as a parody of Bela Lugosi's White Zombie, the
   story is the first to not only focus on Scrooge's past but also touch
   on the darkest aspects of his personality.

Precursors to later stories

   "Trail of the Unicorn", first published in February 1950, introduced
   Scrooge's private zoo. One of his pilots had managed to photograph the
   last living unicorn, which lived on the Indian part of the Himalayas.
   Scrooge offered a reward to competing cousins Donald Duck and Gladstone
   Gander to whoever would be the first to capture the unicorn for his
   collection of animals.

   This was also the story which introduced his private airplane. Barks
   would later establish Scrooge as an experienced aviator. Donald had
   previously been shown as also being a skilled aviator, with Flintheart
   also being shown as such in later stories. In comparison, Huey, Dewey
   and Louie were only depicted having taken flying lessons in the story
   "Frozen Gold" (published in January 1945).

   "The Pixilated Parrot", first published in July 1950, introduced the
   precursor to Scrooge's money bin; in this story, Scrooge's central
   office building is said to contain "three cubic acres of money". Two
   nameless burglars who briefly appear during the story are considered to
   be the precursors of the Beagle Boys.

Scrooge as a major character

   "The Magic Hourglass", first published in September 1950, was arguably
   the first story to change the focus of the Duck stories from Donald to
   Scrooge. During the story, several themes were introduced for Scrooge.

   Donald first mentions in this story that his uncle practically owns
   Duckburg, a statement that Scrooge's rival John D. Rockerduck would
   later put in dispute. Scrooge first hints that he was not born into
   wealth, as he remembers buying the Hourglass of the story in Morocco
   when he was a member of a ship's crew as a cabin boy. It is also the
   first story in which Scrooge mentions speaking another language besides
   his native English and reading other alphabets besides the Latin
   alphabet, as during the story, he speaks Arabic and reads the Arabic
   alphabet.

   The later theme would be developed further in later stories. Barks and
   current Scrooge writer Don Rosa have depicted Scrooge as being fluent
   in Arabic, Dutch, German, Mongolian, Spanish, Mayan, Finnish, and
   various dialects of Chinese. Scrooge acquired this knowledge from years
   of living or traveling to the various regions of the world where those
   languages are spoken. Later writers would depict Scrooge having at
   least working knowledge of several other languages.

   Scrooge was shown in "The Magic Hourglass" in a more positive light
   than in previous stories, but his more villainous side is present too.
   Scrooge is seen in this story attempting to reacquire a magic hourglass
   that he gave to Donald, before finding out that it acted as a
   protective charm for him. To convince his nephews to return it, he
   pursues them throughout Morocco, where they had headed to earlier in
   the story. Memorably during the story, Scrooge interrogates Donald by
   having him tied up and tickled with a feather in an attempt to get
   Donald to reveal the hourglass's location. Scrooge finally manages to
   retrieve it, exchanging it for a flask of water, as he had found his
   nephews exhausted and left in the desert with no supplies. As Scrooge
   explains, he intended to give them a higher offer, but he just could
   not resist having somebody at his mercy without taking advantage of it.

Final developments

   "A Financial Fable", first published in March 1951, had Scrooge
   teaching Donald some lessons in productivity as the source of wealth,
   along with the laws of supply and demand. Perhaps more importantly, it
   was also the first story where Scrooge observes how diligent and
   industrious Huey, Louie and Dewey are, making them more similar to
   himself rather than to Donald. Donald in Barks's stories is depicted as
   working hard on occasion, but given the choice often proves to be a
   shirker. The three younger nephews first side with Scrooge rather than
   Donald in this story, with the bond between granduncle and grandnephews
   strengthening in later stories.

   "Terror of the Beagle Boys", first published in November 1951,
   introduced the readers to the Beagle Boys, although Scrooge in this
   story seems to be already familiar with them. "The Big Bin on Killmotor
   Hill" introduced Scrooge's money bin, built on Killmotor Hill in the
   centre of Duckburg.

   By this point, Scrooge had become familiar to readers in the United
   States and Europe. Other Disney writers and artists besides Barks began
   using Scrooge in their own stories, including Italian writer Romano
   Scarpa. Western Publishing, the then-publisher of the Disney comics,
   started thinking about using Scrooge as a protagonist rather than a
   supporting character, and decided to launch Scrooge in his own
   self-titled comic. Uncle Scrooge #1, featuring the story " Only a Poor
   Old Man", was published in March 1952. This story along with " Back to
   the Klondike", first published a year later in March 1953, became the
   biggest influences in how Scrooge's character, past, and beliefs would
   become defined.

   After this point, Barks produced most of his longer stories in Uncle
   Scrooge, with a focus mainly on adventure, while his ten-page stories
   for Walt Disney's Comics and Stories continued to feature Donald as the
   star and focused on comedy. In Scrooge's stories, Donald and his
   nephews were cast as Scrooge's assistants, who accompanied Scrooge in
   his adventures around the world. This change of focus from Donald to
   Scrooge was also reflected in stories by other contemporary writers.
   Since then, Scrooge remains a central figure of the Duck comics'
   universe, thus the coining of the term " Scrooge McDuck Universe".

Scrooge's wealth and personality

Wealth

   Scrooge is the richest duck in the world, rivaled by Flintheart
   Glomgold, John D. Rockerduck and, less prominent, the maharaja of the
   fictional country Howdoyoustan, having worked his way up the financial
   ladder from humble immigrant roots.

   He keeps a portion of his wealth, that money he has personally earned
   himself, in a massive Money Bin overlooking the city of Duckburg. A
   shrewd businessman and noted tightwad, his hobbies include diving into
   his money like a dolphin, burrowing through it like a gopher, and
   throwing coins into the air to feel them fall upon his skull. He is
   also the richest member of The Billionaires Club of Duckburg, a society
   which includes the most successful businessmen of the world and allows
   them to keep connections with each other. Glomgold and Rockerduck are
   also influential members of the Club. His most prized possession is his
   Number One Dime.

Estimated Net Worth

   The sum of Scrooge's wealth is disputed. According to Barks' The Second
   Richest Duck as noted by a TIME article, Scrooge is worth one
   multiplujillion, nine obsquatumatillion, six hundred twenty-three
   dollars and sixty-two cents. Don Rosa's the Life and Times of Scrooge
   McDuck notes that Scrooge amounts to five multiplujillion, nine
   impossibidillion, seven fantasticatrillion dollars and sixteen cents.
   The series DuckTales states that he is a quadzillionare.

   Another sum given, "three cubic acres (of money)" is more succinct, but
   just as hard to estimate in net worth.

   In 2002, Forbes magazine named Scrooge McDuck history's 4th richest
   fictional character but moved him down to sixth place in 2005. Scrooge
   McDuck was attributed 8.2 billion dollars which he obtained through his
   mining endeavors. See Forbes' Fictional 15.

   It should be noted that Forbes attempts to measure his wealth by
   calculating the amount of money in the Money Bin. Several stories,
   however, show that most of Scrooge's money is invested in his
   properties and businesses around the world, and that the Bin only has
   the money he earned himself, personally, and thus each coin there has a
   special meaning to him. In one story by Don Rosa, he even mentioned
   that the Bin "is full of memories, not money".

Education

   Scrooge is not formally educated, as he quit school at an early age.
   However, he has a sharp mind and is always ready to learn new skills.

   Because of his secondary occupation as a treasure hunter, Scrooge has
   become something of a scholar and an amateur archaeologist. Starting
   with Barks, several writers have explained how Scrooge becomes aware of
   the treasures he decides to pursue. This often involves periods of
   conducting research in various written sources in search of passages
   that might lead him to a treasure. Often Scrooge decides to search for
   the possible truth behind old legends, or discovers obscure references
   to the activities of ancient conquerors, explorers and military leaders
   that he considers interesting enough to begin a new treasure hunting
   expedition.

   As a result of his research, Scrooge has collected an extensive
   personal library, which includes many rare written sources. In Barks's
   and Rosa's stories, among the prized pieces of this library is an
   almost complete collection of Spanish and Dutch naval logs of the 16th
   and 17th centuries. Their references to the fates of other ships have
   often allowed Scrooge to locate sunken ships and recover their
   treasures from their underwater graves. Mostly self-taught as he is,
   Scrooge is a firm believer in the saying "knowledge is power".

   Scrooge is also an accomplished polyglot, having learned to speak
   several different languages during his business trips around the world,
   selling fridges to eskimos, wind to windmill manufacturers in the
   Netherlands etc.

Morality and beliefs

   Both as a businessman and as a treasure hunter, Scrooge is noted for
   his need to set new goals and face new challenges. As Carl Barks
   described his character, for Scrooge there is "Always another rainbow."
   The phrase later provided the title for one of Barks' better-known
   paintings depicting Scrooge. Periods of inactivity between adventures
   and lack of serious challenges tend to be depressing for Scrooge after
   a while; some stories depict this phase to have negative effects on his
   health.

   As a businessman, Scrooge often resorts to aggressive tactics and
   deception. He seems to have gained significant experience in
   manipulating people and events towards his own ends. As often seen in
   stories by writer Guido Martina and occasionally by others, Scrooge is
   noted for his cynicism, especially towards ideas of morality when it
   comes to business and the pursuit of set goals. This has been noted by
   some as not being part of Barks's original depiction of the character,
   but it has since come to be accepted as one valid interpretation of
   Scrooge's way of thinking.

   However, Scrooge does seem to have a personal sense of honesty that
   offers him an amount of self-control. As a result, he can often be seen
   contemplating his course of action, while divided between adopting a
   ruthless pursuit of his current goal and using tactics which he
   considers more honest. At times, he can sacrifice this goal in order to
   remain within the limits of this sense of honesty. Several fans of the
   character have come to consider these depictions of him as adding to
   the depth of his personality because based on the decisions he takes
   Scrooge can be both the hero and the villain of his stories. This is
   one thing he has in common with his nephew Donald Duck. Scrooge's sense
   of honesty also makes him different from his rival Flintheart Glomgold,
   who places no such limitations on his own actions.

   Scrooge has a nasty temper and rarely hesitates to use violence against
   those who provoke his anger; however, he seems to be against the use of
   lethal force. On occasion, he has even saved the lives of enemies who
   had threatened his own life but were in danger of losing theirs.
   According to Scrooge's own explanation, this is in order to save
   himself from feeling guilt over their deaths; he generally awaits no
   gratitude from them. Scrooge has also expressed his belief that only in
   fairy tales do bad people turn good, and that he is old enough to not
   believe in fairy tales.

   Carl Barks gave Scrooge a definite set of ethics that was in tone with
   the time he was supposed to have made his fortune. The robber barons
   and industrialists of the 1890–1920 era were McDuck's competition as he
   earned his fortune. Scrooge proudly asserts "I made it by being tougher
   than the toughies and smarter than the smarties! And I made it square!"
   It is obvious that Barks's creation is averse to dishonesty in the
   pursuit of money. When Disney filmmakers first contemplated a Scrooge
   feature cartoon in the fifties, the animators had no understanding of
   the Scrooge McDuck character and simply envisioned Scrooge as a duck
   version of Ebenezer Scrooge— a very unsympathetic character. In the end
   they shelved the idea because a duck who gets all excited about money
   just was not funny enough. Many of the European Scrooge comics have
   created their own Scrooge McDucks as well, usually involving McDuck in
   slapstick adventures.

   In an interview, Barks summed up his beliefs about Scrooge and
   capitalism:

     I've always looked at the ducks as caricatured human beings. In
     rereading the stories, I realized that I had gotten kind of deep in
     some of them: there was philosophy in there that I hadn't realized I
     was putting in. It was an added feature that went along with the
     stories. I think a lot of the philosophy in my stories is
     conservative—conservative in the sense that I feel our civilization
     peaked around 1910. Since then we've been going downhill. Much of
     the older culture had basic qualities that the new stuff we keep
     hatching can never match.

     Look at the magnificent cathedrals and palaces that were built.
     Nobody can build that sort of thing nowadays. Also, I believe that
     we should preserve many old ideals and methods of working: honour,
     honesty, allowing other people to believe in their own ideas, not
     trying to force everyone into one form. The thing I have against the
     present political system is that it tries to make everybody exactly
     alike. We should have a million different patterns.

     They say that wealthy people like the Vanderbilts and Rockefellers
     are sinful because they accumulated fortunes by exploiting the poor.
     I feel that everybody should be able to rise as high as they can or
     want to, provided they don't kill anybody or actually oppress other
     people on the way up. A little exploitation is something you come by
     in nature. We see it in the pecking order of animals—everybody has
     to be exploited or to exploit someone else to a certain extent. I
     don't resent those things.

   This is Barks most outright defense of capitalism and the indictment of
   any political system that "tries to make everybody exactly alike",
   which is the Marxist philosophy of equality in all things. Accordingly,
   Scrooge McDuck is both morally righteous and has to exploit people
   (such as his nephews and Donald at 30 cents an hour) to accumulate his
   fortune. Scrooge McDuck is a noble capitalist as conceived by Barks.
   Other cartoonists generally fail to capture the nuanced morality and
   ethics held by Scrooge.

Scrooge McDuck Universe

   The Scrooge McDuck Universe refers to Scrooge's collective adventures
   and life experiences as told by numerous authors. Based on writer Don
   Rosa's The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, a popular timeline
   chronicalling Scrooge's adventures was created consisting of the most
   important "facts" about Scrooge's life. See Scrooge McDuck Timeline
   according to Don Rosa. However, Rosa left out important factors like
   the old lady Miss Penny Wise -- according to Scrooge, the only one who
   could ruin him, because he is in debt to her. Rosa also left out 'The
   magic hourglass', because Rosa doesn't believe Scrooge owes his fortune
   to a magical hourglass. However, in Barks' story it is never said
   whether or not the hourglass actually works as a lucky charm and
   provided Scrooge with good luck and fortune.

   In addition to the many original and existing characters in stories
   about Scrooge McDuck, authors have frequently led historical figures to
   meet Scrooge over the course of his life. Scrooge has most notably met
   U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt and Scrooge would meet
   each other at least three times: in the Dakotas in 1883, in Duckburg in
   1902, and in Panama in 1906. See Historical Figures in Scrooge McDuck
   stories.

Trivia

     * A possible prototype for Scrooge was a character (with no name)
       with a scottish accent who was featured in the Disney-produced
       World War II propaganda film, The Spirit of '43 in 1943).
     * Scrooge made a very brief appearance in the current storyarc of Bob
       and George, showing up bouncing on his cane as he does in the
       DuckTales video games in the webcomic's Hand-Drawn Universe to
       scare George, only to be fried by George afterwards. His appearance
       is explained in-comic as the Universe's local scientists
       experimenting with dimensional portals to different dimensions, the
       DuckTales video game being one of them.
     * Dagobert Duck is the German and Dutch names. Dagobert Duck was also
       the alias used by German extortionist Arno Funke.

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