Oft Off Topic
Scrooge McDuck Pt. 2: A Dark Day for Clan McDuck
Part two of our series on Scrooge McDuck is here. This episode we follow Scrooge through the Klondike on his search for gold and find out how he helped found the City of Duckburg. We then witness a "Dark day for Clan McDuck" as Scrooge does the unthinkable in Darkest Africa.
All this plus a bunch of fun facts about the places Scrooge visits on this episode of Oft Off Topic!
Feel free to check out our website for links to our YouTube channel and more!
https://oftofftopic.com/
Our host Nathan also does art in addition to this podcast, including having is own sticker store. Please check it out and purchase anything that strikes your fancy.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/stickersbytownsend
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review us on your favorite podcast platform. Even if you didn't like the show, please do it, we appreciate it. You can also email us at OftOffTopic@gmail.com and let us know what you like or don't like, maybe we will even read your email on our show!
Thanks for listening and stay tuned for more Oft Off Topic!
Part two of our series on Scrooge McDuck is here. This episode we follow Scrooge through the Klondike on his search for gold and find out how he helped found the City of Duckburg. We then witness a "Dark day for Clan McDuck" as Scrooge does the unthinkable in Darkest Africa.
All this plus a bunch of fun facts about the places Scrooge visits on this episode of Oft Off Topic!
Feel free to check out our website for links to our YouTube channel and more!
https://oftofftopic.com/
Our host Nathan also does art in addition to this podcast, including having is own sticker store. Please check it out and purchase anything that strikes your fancy.
https://www.etsy.com/shop/stickersbytownsend
If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, rate, and review us on your favorite podcast platform. Even if you didn't like the show, please do it, we appreciate it. You can also email us at OftOffTopic@gmail.com and let us know what you like or don't like, maybe we will even read your email on our show!
Thanks for listening and stay tuned for more Oft Off Topic!
Part 2 of our series on the life and times of Scrooge McDuck. In our first episode we talked about the fascinating lineage that Scrooge was born into and the events that brought him to America and beyond in search of treasure. In this episode we follow Scrooge to the Klondike as he continues on his quest to become the richest duck alive. Scrooge gets a job shoveling coal on the SS Southern Cross out of Pert and he's on his way to Skagway, alaska, which he reaches in 1896. Once there, he runs into none other than White Earp, who's currently running a saloon up in Nome making money off the Gold Rush. Wyatt immediately recognizes Scrooge as the buckaroo of the Badlands, the maverick of the Montana Cattle Wars, the pison of Pison Bluff and the terror of the Transvaal, and also is the ornest cussed in the outback Meeting someone even more clout than himself.
Shaun:Wyatt Earp invites Scrooge for a drink at the saloon and while there at, gunslinger shows up and man's to dude's scrule Wait, let's try that again. But old Wyatt refuses to believe he's there to duel anyone but him and the scuffle ensues. The saloon gets trash and Wyatt Earp gets his toe shot off. The sheriff shows up and escorts the two away, leaving Scrooge to foot the damages to the saloon Cost him $100 all the money that he had. And now Scrooge is once again broke. That was the Scrooge lot. Shows up in place with some money, winds up broke instantly.
Nate:Or shows up in place, gets a ton of money and then just so happens something to happen where you lose everything but Back to square one he goes.
Shaun:Now that he's broke, scrooge decides he must now resort to what he calls dirty and shameful means. He needs to take out a loan. Naturally, the only person you can find to give him money is a crooked loan shark named Soapy Slick. How crooked is he? Well, soon as Scrooge signs the loan papers, soapy says hey, see that gap right there between the 10 and the percentile mark. Well, I'll leave that there so I can sneak it an extra zero. Nya ha, ha, ha, ha ha ha. Now you owe me 100% interest every month, not 10%. Uh, by the way, this Soapy Slick guy he's actually based off of a real life person, uh, who basically traveled around the Old West and well, managed his way up to Alaska eventually, and he was basically a crime boss who went around screwing over people and being a hustler and giving out fake loans and this and that Basically the way he was in this comic and he's mainly known for having.
Shaun:He got the nickname Soapy by selling bars of soap. He would have individually wrapped bars of soap and he would claim there's prizes inside of each of those and he would have, like you know, plants in an audience come up and be. They'd be the one like look, I won $20 out of this bar of soap and you basically get bidding. War is going on. Like bars of soap, they're essentially useless, but he'd be able to sell them for massive amounts of money and then hop in his coach and then just speed off to the next town. Did that all over again.
Nate:How was he not murdered over and over again?
Shaun:Because they get the hell out of town before people realize what's going on.
Nate:Yep.
Shaun:Just as it was.
Nate:he could easily kill someone and get away with it, Just as easy to escape and never be seen again.
Shaun:Yep, back then it was like, hey, I'm going to start a new life, I'm going to abandon my family, my job and everybody I know. And they do that by moving like two miles out of town and nobody ever sees them again. It's like what the hell? A lot easier to disappear back in the day, I'm guessing, oh yeah. Oh, scrooge realizes that if he just tries to fight soapy with a letter of the law, it's just going to take up valuable mining time. So he decides his best just to get gold as quickly as possible and pay off that loan as soon as he can. So Scrooge takes off up Chilcute Pass.
Shaun:And this was the actual path that miners had to take to get to the Klondike, and it actually involved 1500 steps carved into ice, going nearly straight up the mountain. These were known as the Golden Stairs. So everybody wanted to get in on the Klondike gold rush up there. But to make sure people weren't dying left and right, the Canadian government mandated that all miners heading into the area proved that they have one ton of supplies to make it through the harsh environment. Half the weight was to be in food and the other half to be in supplies, you know, like mining equipment and such, and since the paths and stairs were so narrow, only one person in time could make it up the pass and typically you could only carry 60 to 100 pounds at a time.
Shaun:So you had to carry one ton of equipment, 60 to 100 pounds at a time up. What was it? 1500 ice stairs going through this giant frozen pass and you could actually. You saw that comic panel in the where there's that huge long line of people going up the Chilcute Pass. Yep, that's based off of a real photograph and that's how long the line was. People would just stand in line for hours and hours and hours just to move a few feet up that pass, fuck that.
Shaun:Yeah right. However, basically at one point somebody said, hey, I've got a lot of money, I can fix this. And they actually built a cable, a horse powered cable car tram that could take you up the down the mountain and refraction of the time without moving, lifting the muscle. And you're able to do that if you had a 1.5 cents per pound fee to pay. So basically, if you're really, really rich, you could just pay to head up there that way, which also the guy who built the tram was making $150 a day with that system. That was a lot of money back then.
Nate:Oh, back then, Absolutely.
Shaun:Yep, because yeah, if you weren't taking that tram, then basically you had to bust your ass climbing up those big ice stairs and basically sweating yourself to death and freezing at the same time. And also one of the bad things that happened up there is the light was so bright off that snow people would go snow blind trying to make it up there, and also sunburn too.
Nate:Man, that would really suck.
Shaun:Yeah right.
Nate:I mean it's better getting stuck and eating your family, just still.
Shaun:Yeah, that's true. Well, at least if you're eating your family, you got food. I mean more loving act is there than to consume your family for your own life?
Nate:Sorry, grandpa.
Shaun:You were old and tough, however, grandpa's a little gamey, yeah, and also two up in the Klondike. Everything was super expensive at first to make it over that pass, because everybody was like marking up the supplies super high. But then, as more and more people looked at what you had to do and say F this apparently, the cost of supplies like plummeted, because people were like you want to buy my ton of equipment for pennies on the dollar, but still again, making up those stairs not fun, oh. I can't imagine Scrooge, however, being a smart duck. He was used, his skills he learned in Australia to make his life a lot easier. See, it turns out the mating call of a moose is almost identical to that of an emu, so just a little bit more nasally. So Scrooge pulled as did you redo and got himself a lonely pack moose to help him get across the pass. So Scrooge gets to the end of the mining trail and he finds himself in the town of Dawson, which at this point is nothing but a lumber mill, in a saloon run by the one and only glittering, goldio Gilt, who had soon become a major part of Scrooge's life and the only woman he would feel affection for.
Shaun:Scrooge heads out to stake his claim, decides to check out an ice cave. No one else dares to reverse due to the fact there's a monster in it. Ooh scary. Scrooge is undeterred and heads on in and finds out this monster is in fact a frozen woolly mammoth. It's through this cave that he finds White Agony Valley, a place that is so far undiscovered by man. So Scrooge figures out where the gold is and decides to build a cabin right then and there. And then, after he's, you know, kind of all, settled in and sitting there admiring the beauty of the unspoiled nature in front of him, he all of a sudden realizes that wait a minute, enjoying nature is for suckers and proclaims that he will. Now, once he finds his fortune, he's gonna drain that creek for all his gold and strip the land of all its lumber and somewhere.
Shaun:Captain Planet gets a cold chill when he says that Scrooge would occasionally return to town for supplies, and each time he did it was exponentially bigger. It was once just a saloon, went from a small sized town with many buildings to this basically giant metropolis, just completely full of people, including our friend Soapy, opening a casino and a loan store, and eventually he would open up a riverboat casino that basically said right on the front of it get fleeced while you float. And people still went there. I don't know if I'd go to a casino that openly brags about fleecing people.
Nate:Yeah, I probably like avoid that.
Shaun:Yeah, you would think so. But when Scrooge starts going back to town he realizes people hate him there. Why? Because of his penny pinching ways, scrooge would refuse to buy more than the bare minimum when he came to town, and those times it was basically expected for miners to blow all their income on booze, gambling and women, and if he didn't do that, people would basically harass you over it. In fact, back then it was a real thing for local business owners and saloon owners to hire gangs of people to go around and just basically bully people into spending their money in town, basically ensuring that pretty much everything that the miners made would just get spit right away and they'd just kind of wind up broke that's jacked up.
Nate:I mean again, just like we were talking about earlier, where you know you murder someone to get away with it and disappear. I mean, what are you going to do if the whole town has this thing where, like, okay, anybody who doesn't spend all their money harass them? Who are you going to go to? You're the sheriff. Hey, they're making me spend money here.
Shaun:You're like, oh no. And then you'd be like, well, maybe if you spent money they wouldn't harass you now, wouldn't they?
Nate:Right yeah, now give me 20 bucks.
Shaun:Yeah, because basically all the saloon owners and the casino owners, they had all the money in those towns and they could just buy off the sheriff's if they wanted to.
Shaun:Oh absolutely, or they were purchased originally, so yeah, yeah, we installed our own sheriff into this town. Yeah, don't want to spend money in that town, going to get yourself a beating. In fact, the only person that actually seemed to respect Scrooge for all this penny pinching ways was glittery Goldie, but also she wants some some of that hot ducktail out of the deal too. So, hmm, eventually the townspeople had enough of Scrooge's skinflint ways and decided, hey, if he ain't going to spend his money, let's just kill him and take his claim, like what we were talking about earlier, why not? So, led by a soapy and a typical villain fashion, they knock out Scrooge and tie him up to the smokestacks of the casino ship, and there they mock him and make fun of him and even go so far as to go through his things and start reading the letters from home he had just picked up and mocking him the entire time while they read them.
Shaun:And see, he also has Scrooge's learns that his mother had died.
Nate:And see, look just I mean note to bad guys, I don't mean to cartoon bad guys you knock him out and then like he's knocked out in front of you Damn on the throat, don't tie him to something and then like taunt him so he rips down the whole casino with his herculean strength, like shoot in the face. He's right there.
Shaun:Get him. That's because you're not old school villain like the Red School, where you know you tie somebody to the railroad tracks and you know tick, talk, tick. Yeah, well, that was actually pretty buggy sweet.
Nate:That's a pretty good argument for that, because, man, that speech, woo, that was an amazing speech that honestly convinced me like, oh, that, actually, you know what.
Shaun:I'm convinced that that's a pretty decent I am so tie up people and throw them on the train tracks. That's the best way to do it. Just make sure you have a train schedule handy so you know when the train comes by, and they're not like laying there for eight hours.
Nate:Right. Oh, they have Red Day, Redemption 2 where you lay down like God damn it. I gotta say it was fucking train Ha.
Shaun:Just said they're whistling and whittling away while you wait for a train.
Nate:I waited so long I almost waited as long for that train when I played the game. Then I did on that hit man blood money where I stayed in the fucking closet waiting for that show up.
Shaun:I mean I just sit there with controller in your hand just waiting to be like is this what my life has come to? Learning, in the most inappropriate way possible, that his mother died? Scrooge now goes into another fit of psycho ducky rage. What happens next, most people will say, was a combination of weak smokestacks and a boiler exploding at the same time, but others would say it was the wrath of Scrooge McDuck pulling down the smokestacks and bringing down hell upon Sophie Smith and his men.
Shaun:Sophie slick actually, sophie Smith was the real dude yeah, scrooge hauls Sophie to the mountains with evidence of him being behind a rash of claim jumping and gets Sophie arrested. And then he just says well, my job here is done, I'm going to go back out and claim my fortune, which wouldn't take long at all, because shortly after that he finds would be the item that he builds his empire upon A solid gold nugget the size of a goose egg. So in case you're wondering, a goose egg is about 3.5 inches long by two inches in diameter, and if it was gold, it weigh approximately 32.1 troy ounces. Well, that means scourge?
Nate:really small, because he's holding his hand like Lord. It looks huge.
Shaun:Yeah, I know, apparently goose eggs in reality aren't quite as big as they show in that comic. I was kind of disappointed by that.
Nate:Well, but it also makes total sense because you think about how big a goose is and you look at how big of this gold I mean geese would be dying the moment they lay their first egg. They split in half. I felt one egg in the nest and a fucking duck looks like it exploded by a firecracker from the inside.
Shaun:The moments later that egg hatches and the baby comes out and just eats the mother, they explode. It, mother.
Nate:Yeah, the population of geese never goes up or down. Just stay steady because you know, for every one born, one dies.
Shaun:So um oh yeah, as for the value of 32 ounces of gold, I guess it would be around $70,000. But also we gotta consider the value of that nugget. If it's just one solid nugget the size of a goose egg, that makes it a lot more valuable than just like 32 ounces of loose gold. Anyways, I tried to figure out the value of that gold egg and it's not easy.
Nate:How much was?
Shaun:it.
Nate:But you did not figure it out.
Shaun:What I would say is 32 ounces of gold would be about $70,000, but also, you know, if all that 32 ounces is in like actual one nugget, that makes the value worth more.
Nate:And the value of the nugget.
Shaun:Also the first giant nugget found in the Klondike makes it worth more money.
Nate:Right, you know, rounded up for the rarity, let's say $100,000, but even then, like $100,000 for back then, that's still a pretty decent start to a fortune.
Shaun:No, actually I think that was converted. So it'd be like $100,000 by today's. Oh really, that was converted.
Nate:It's still you know what. Fuck it. I mean, if I got $100,000 right now, I'd be that's a pretty good start $100,000.
Shaun:It's not worth the trouble. Keep your money. This nugget instantly made Scrooge the richest miner in the Klondike. First thing he did was pay off the loan with soapy, and that would be the only loan Scrooge would ever take out in his life. But he wasn't done. Scrooge continued mining and saving every dime he could and in two years he had roughly he had made his first million dollars, which would be roughly $36 million in today's money. But once he made his first million dollars, about that time White Agony Creek was getting tapped out of gold. So Scrooge decided to do it. Pretty much all rich people say to do make your money work for you. That's what they all say to you. They're like hey, if you got money, make that, go work for you. You got $10, invest that into something. At the end of the year you'll have 10% money back. That's $11. You'll have that $10. Just made you $1 and you had to do nothing.
Nate:See, I've actually I thought about that. Like Jen and I were talking about that, we're just like if you're poor it's harder to make money, like you just sell your time and effort to get to bring in money. But if you're rich then you could just invest that money in certain things. And a lot of times you just don't do shit, like hey, I'm gonna throw it at this thing, and now I'm just getting money sent to me without like where's the check of her? Oh right, I've been investing this thing over here.
Shaun:All rich people say too is literally that it's like, once you get enough money, it's pretty easy to make money because you just send that money off to go do actual physical work for you. Basically, Right, you send that money off to go work at Walmart in the form of stocks and whatever, and then you just kind of let it happen. Yep, you just let it. The money just roll in effortless and easy peasy. We make it sound so easy, Anyways. So Scrooge opened himself a business buying gold, evaluating claims and financing miners to go mine these claims. This made him enough money to start branching out to other industries, and thus was born McDuck Lumber, McDuck Fish Oil, McDuck Shipping and the famed McDuck Lemonade Stand All big hits in Alaska. Famed, Famed, yes.
Shaun:But you haven't heard of it. Well, that's on you, buddy. A few years later, Scrooge is now a billionaire and to celebrate, he spoils his employees by buying the office of Woodstove, getting great praise by his employees. I remember seeing that line that little thing.
Nate:I'm like man, fuck you Scrooge. Yay warped. And then they were all. You're neglected. The panel had them all literally like part of the park in Alaska.
Shaun:Yep, they were all in an office in Alaska with no heat until he made his first billion. Then he's like I'll get you a Woodstove.
Nate:And he's like, oh, thank you such a kind man. He's like, yes, I'm generous, I like caring about the people. Like, fuck you, dude. Yeah.
Shaun:Right. Oh yeah, in case you're wondering, one billion dollars back there would be about 36 billion dollars in today's money. So Scrooge would be a 36 billionaire by now. With his fortune in America secured, scrooge decides to head back to Scotland and his family for good and also to finally visit his mother's grave. It's 1902, and when he first arrives back in Scotland, for the first time in 22 years, the Tad's people have gathered to see the return of Scrooge McDuck, not to praise him but to hate on him, calling him a robber baron, scolding him for ignoring his homeland and forgetting his roots and the such. Scrooge immediately fires back and basically tells him to eff off. And he's like hey, that's not the greeting I expected. To which they're like oh no, he's oppressing us. Boo, scrooge.
Nate:Right, they clutch their pearls Like dude fuck off.
Shaun:And I believe they even initially just started hooking tomatoes and stuff at him as soon as he got off his carriage.
Nate:Yeah, it's like. Well, what do you expect, man?
Shaun:I don't know, maybe kiss his butt, maybe get a job or something, or come up with an investment opportunity for him. That's what I would do.
Nate:Yeah, they should do. Immediately they started throwing tomatoes at me. He's like hey guys, how's it going? I'm returned. They're like whack you.
Shaun:Yep, we hate you. You've changed man. It should also be noted that he shipped all his cash along with him back to Scotland in Barrel so he could play in it, swim in it and burrow like a badger in it. And when he sees this, scrooge's dad exclaims my son is crazy as a loon, to which he's reminded that when you're rich, it's not called crazy, it's called eccentric.
Nate:Exactly.
Shaun:Ain't that the truth? Realizing he's lost touch with the common, scott, Scrooge decides he's going to enter the Highland Games and hires a young lad named Scotty McTairier as his trainer for the games. Scotty is super excited at first because, hey, I bet the pay is good with such a rich duck. But it's not. Scrooge offers him one farthing or roughly one pinion hour for his work, which is about the equivalent of 34 cents an hour in today's money. That's not great pay.
Nate:No, no, it's not. He was a sucker to take it.
Shaun:Yes, yeah, he was, Although it kind of worked out for him, as we'll see in a minute, maybe, maybe. Hammer toss, sheep, shearing, fishing, the caber toss, poetry and golf were the events at the Games this year and indeed those are actually real games at the Scottish Highland competitions over the years.
Nate:They completely screwed him out over. They completely screwed him over because, I mean, look at the panels. He does amazing. Like he throws the, like the was it the big ball? The hammer toss, yeah, the hammer toss. He throws it way further than anybody else, including himself too, which seems like it'd be harder that way. It stuck to his wrist and so he goes flying with it and they're only counted as far as from his wrist to the thing. Like, oh, fuck off, they shears the sheep. And like so fast he accidentally shears a little bit of the farmer to hold him. And like, no, you don't get points for this. There's like time and time and time again, like every single.
Shaun:I also feel like the sheep shearing thing. They wait until after he's done to explain the rules to him. It's like you couldn't, you know, told him beforehand.
Nate:Yeah, I mean from beginning to end he does really well and they're just like just screw him over time and time again.
Shaun:I feel like, well, technically, yeah. Yeah, I kind of felt bad for him on that one. In a way, it was also through this that I learned that a caber toss, where they pick up those giant poles and flip them over, that was originally for flinging logs across rivers from building bridges. That's kind of neat to learn. Also, it seems like a very hard sport to do.
Nate:All of it does.
Shaun:Yeah, poetry. Well, actually poetry would be kind of hard too.
Nate:Yeah, of course. Even the first thing I flashed to when I was reading this was the samurai jack hipster, where he get you know him and that Scotsman. They play those games together.
Shaun:Yeah, anyway, scrooge McDark participates and fails at all these events spectacularly. This is how he realizes that he has now become out of touch with his hometown, his fellow Scotch and indeed the common man in general.
Nate:But again, as we just said, he did not fail spectacularly, he did great, he just got fucked over.
Shaun:This is true. He fails spectacularly in the eyes of the Scottish people.
Nate:That, okay, I'll give you that one. Okay, yeah, okay.
Shaun:Learn that. Yes, in our eyes he succeeded quite well. Scrooge then decides it's time to relocate and shows his family a deed that he bought off a man named Casey Coot. That gives him a 10 acre hill in Western USA in a settlement called Duckburg in the state of Cali Soda. So DuckTales takes place in Cali Soda, in case you ever wondered.
Nate:I did not know that.
Shaun:Yeah, I think one point they like showed it on a map in DuckTales, but on that they never really brought it up. Anyways, it's Scrooge's goal to go here to Duckburg and build his empire. He wants to bring his whole family with with, but his father says nah, he's way too old to be tired to be traveling at this point. But he insists that the two sisters leave with their brother. The Scrooge hires Scotty McTairier as a caretaker for the estate and not saying how much you pay? To me they're probably nothing and Scotty McTair stays behind to help Scrooge's father out, while Scrooge, hortense and Matilda all hop in a carriage and head off into the sunset with their father waving them off goodbye. Then moments later the father would probably just die. Yeah, well, that's kind of what happens too.
Shaun:He's like literally waving at them from the balcony and then, like the next scene, he's just like going off to heaven with his wife.
Nate:I'm sure it is like, but I'm just looking and I guess, I guess it dawned on me like they walk through the wall, like they heavily imply it, like they not really heaven, but they just walk into the wall of the castle. I was like, bye, yep.
Shaun:And his body's there too.
Nate:His glasses there. So I guess did they see him waving off? They saw they did see him waving off.
Shaun:So they saw his ghost waving away because he's dead in bed, Just assumed you like wave to them and then as soon as they turned their back, you just like flop dead. Of course Scotty McTair had to find him with his valve.
Nate:I guess I didn't pick that up when I first.
Shaun:I didn't pick that up. When I first read it, You're like oh my God, he became psychic. You can walk through walls now.
Nate:Well, I actually thought he was dead the whole time, but clearly I missed, missed, yeah.
Shaun:Yes, yes, you did. That's a great thing about art, it's open to interpretation. Like Gruge and his sisters arrive in the great state of Cali, soda, driving one of them brand new new fangled cars, which Scrooge absolutely hates, we also learned at this point that Scrooge needs glasses because his eyesight got screwed up because of the bright snow in the Klondike which, like I said earlier, that was very much something that happened to a miner's up there. A lot of them wound up going blind. Kind of sad, it's kind of sad.
Shaun:Did you ever see the original sunglasses like the Inuit people used up there? No, basically like made out of bone, but basically just these big old eye covers with just the tiniest little slit in them to allow you to just the minimum light to get through so you could see they're really cool looking, actually Also Inuit people. You got to respect somebody who's lived in Alaska since the dawn of time. That takes some hoodspur, it does. I mean, at what point do you be like, hey, it kind of looks nicer over there. Maybe we'll go someplace a little less hostile.
Nate:Oh wow, that's pretty cool. Those no goggles they look, they look like a. I don't know I'm gonna say a villain thing, but yeah, they look yeah, they kind of do.
Shaun:Actually, they sort of look like something like a bad guy in a Marvel comic when well, I see is one kid looks like Geordie the forge. And also be kind of intimidating if, like all their warriors, were wearing that, coming running at you back. Oh god, dead, soulless eyes.
Nate:It's so sad. Well, I mean, it's also like I don't know, you think after a certain amount of time they would evolve like to eventually, you know, get their eye. I don't know, you know. But yeah, that's pretty ingenious. Oh, I wouldn't work, that would drive me crazy.
Shaun:But then again, I'm not walking around snow all the time it's about say I don't think they really wore it out. I had joy. I think it's more of a necessity kind of thing.
Nate:Yeah, and also.
Shaun:There's old man, nathan, blind because he didn't want to wear glasses, and you know I stand by that decision. Those things look stupid. Yeah, there's awesome. I was.
Nate:I was soon as a lot obstacles in, you know, the frozen tendra. We're here, I'm shippered over the couch, I'm trying to quit big right room.
Shaun:Oh, there's, just like snows and the occasional ravine you might fall into. So when they get to duckburg they meet up with the local landowners, the coots, which is Humber dink in Elvira coot, with their children Daphne, iter and quack more turns out quack more coot. The Sun has a horrible offer, awful temper, and he and Hortense immediately each other's throats and suddenly develop a fancy towards each other too, which Humber dink notices and quips. I shudder to imagine the kid that would come from that unholy Union. Hmm, they would eventually have a kid one, donald duck, donald duck, donald duck. The screw the coots give screws the lowdown on the area. What he bought was known as kill mule hill, which, uh, that's kind of scary sounding kill mule hill right.
Shaun:And at the top of it is Fort duckburg, where grandpa coot ran the woodchuck militia group from. However, the fort is now Run down and in shambles and is being used by the local boys club, the junior woodchucks, as their little hideout Grinch says. Well, those guys are freeloaders now and that's my place, so I'm gonna go kick them out. And he basically does too. Hey goes up into place a hey, kids, get out now or there will be trouble. And, um, you know, some tact might have helped in this situation, because being nasty was that junior woodchucks. He said that maybe they need to investigate this man kicking them out of their clubhouse. Well, pretty quickly word got across the country about a foreigner with lots of money that's laying claim to American soil. And when president titty Roosevelt hears about this, he says wait a minute. Foreigners taking on, though the fighting woodchucks I remember them back in the day. This is a travesty, must not stand. And he militarizes the entire army and navy and sends them off to Fort duckburg to fight off this foreign invasion of money.
Nate:I was a fucked up. Like that's totally legal. Like it is not illegal For someone to buy land, regardless of whether they're born America or not. Like and she's like no, we can't take this. I mean that that is straight up fucking exactly the kind of. It's not. That's not capitalism. What is that? That's fucking.
Shaun:Coming, not communism.
Nate:No, it's not coming. It's like dictatorship, I don't know like there. I'm sure there's something. We're nothing because I want to say communism but it's not.
Shaun:It's not us, we're. The government controls the means and supplies right, right.
Nate:So I don't you, I don't know what it is, but it's not capitalism total it's tourism, total Terianism Maybe. Sure, you know that that sounds right. I mean just, you can't come here because you're forward, like what the fuck you talking about?
Shaun:Later on we'll fire up civilization six and find it out. There you go. That's the only source I have for such information.
Nate:And what kind of power these fucking little brats have? They like complain their club, us take it away, right.
Shaun:Also, they might have just come. They might have just can be completely blatantly lying to. He showed up and he kicked us out and then molested us all and killed our dog in Front of us. Yeah, they pulled like an Eric Cartman, right, you need to come help us. There's me, sketchman, anyways. Well, the military is Mobilizing on work. Duckburg Scrooge is busy bringing all his money into the fort and naturally it's just him and his sisters trans. But transporting these giant barrels of coins, including making his sisters just roll these giant barrels of money uphill Kind of a dick move.
Nate:Yeah, yeah, I mean we, what do you realize? Again, he's like at some point you know where the comics started. He was like I want to say sympathetic. You know you kind of get behind them as it goes on, though. You're like oh no, man, some of these bad guys have a point, because this guy is being a total dick.
Shaun:Yep, it's like I can understand why your sisters are pissed at you, dude. You're like not paying them and making them do all the work. To his credit, he is doing work alongside of them, but still I mean.
Nate:Right, fair, I mean people, but he is trying like he is actually doing it as well. It's just come on, man, you know.
Shaun:Boy, oh yourself, hire some laborers, help the economy out. But who should catch wind of Scrooge McDuck and his fortune showing up nearby? Why the Beagle boys, of course. And Beagle boys gonna do as Beagle boys do and they go right after Scrooge's money once again, and I think they actually in. Anyway, there's like the second or third generation of Beagle boys to go after Scrooge, because I think there's like a slightly different group than what got him out on the Mississippi and the such, but still same genealogy, same Beagle boys but I mean, yeah, they look younger.
Shaun:Well, the Beagle boys this time do manage to get the drop on Scrooge and they take his sisters hostage, scrooge hostage and all that money. They take over Fort Duckburg entirely. Well, temporarily anyways. As that exact same moment Teddy Roosevelt shows up with the military in full force, chaos ensues as the military attacks the fort, allowing Scrooge the opportunity to go after the Beagle boys and whoop them right there. Right after that happens, teddy Roosevelt bust down the Fort wall ready to kick some butt, only to come face to face with his old friend Buck McDuck. Well, teddy realizes, right fast, what's going on, saying that like hey, fuck, mcduck can't be the bad guy here, there's no way. And he arrests the Beagle boys and spins the rest of the evening by can fire, sharing stories of their recent adventures and having a good old time of Scrooge.
Nate:Not not mentioning the whole, like you know, launching a fucking attack from the military to his home, to his private property.
Shaun:But it's all good, it's all good, that's a good. And also to how like to take to mobilize all that too, because as far as I know, ted Roosevelt was on, you know, the East Coast at this time. Yeah, that's seem like massive overreach of power to mobilize everybody.
Shaun:And also absolutely as they show to, a Hortense runs out there, basically kicks the entire military's butt to. At one point she runs out there just screaming. They're like, oh, we're not dealing with this, shoot her, yeah, huh, that would be the overreach of power right there, pfft, ha. So we jump forward six months in time and Scrooge's famous money bin is finally constructed. The money bin has three cubic acres of space to hold his wealth and he intends on filling it all the way to top His current billion he has there.
Shaun:Now. Just takes up the tiniest little spot in the middle of that money bin too. It's literally just like this little ploof in the middle of like five barrels or so. And in case you want a reference for the size of that money bin, well, if it's, in order to be contained about three cubic acres, the money bin would have to have about a 200 foot square foot base and a 200 foot tall, 208 foot tall, uh, walls. So just think of a cube. That's 208 feet on all sides. Or, if it helps you picture it a little better, roughly, it's the size of a square 15 story building. So take a 15 story building, turn it into a cube and you're in the neighborhood of what the money bin is size wise. That actually took a fair amount of effort to figure out too, by the way.
Nate:That's pretty impressive honestly yeah, yeah.
Shaun:I was down in Seattle a couple of weeks ago I was like that's a 15 story building right there. That's actually pretty if it big.
Nate:Yeah it. I mean, I don't know, for some reason I think 15 story building. I'm like, oh, that's tall, that's not too tall. But then I actually, you actually go see a 15 story building. It's, it's pretty impressive.
Shaun:You're always hearing like 50 and 100 story skyscrapers and stuff You're like well, obviously that's the average size of building. No, no, those are the outliers.
Shaun:Yeah 15 story, pretty decently sized, and Scrooge wants to fill up that entire thing with money. Oh yeah, also at this time, scrooge comes across the junior woodchucks who are asking for donations to build a new clubhouse for themselves. Being a Scrooge took theirs and he also knows the fact that they give the ones that got the military there and helped them out in the long run. Scrooge acknowledges that they helped out and he decides to donate to their new clubhouse. One used a doorknob. That is it. He's like here you go, build your clubhouse around this. I'm like I used doorknob. He's like yep, you're welcome.
Nate:Yeah, fuck off.
Shaun:Yeah, scrooge leaves his sisters in charge of the money bin and proceeds to travel the world to build up his financial empire. And after seven years of traveling the globe, he briefly returns home to check in on his affairs. His money bin is now at eight feet deep, putting him at the 74th richest person in the world, narrowly edging out famous hemp hater William Randolph Hearst. Determined to make number one, scrooge proclaims that he's going right back out into the world to finish making his fortune. His sisters, being tired of doing the thinkless job of running his day to day duties, demand that they get in on some of this adventure. Scrooge reluctantly agrees to take them along and they wind up putting Hortense's fiancee Quaxwell in charge of Scrooge's office. While the three are away, donald Duck's dad actually rents Scrooge's empire for a time. That's neat. It is neat Because, yeah, before this I didn't really know how Scrooge and Donald were related, to be honest.
Nate:I mean he just yeah, there's no real clear yeah.
Shaun:Everybody's just like uncle Scrooge. He's like he's everybody's uncle, I guess. Well, what do you mean? What do you?
Nate:mean great uncle Scrooge though.
Shaun:Because I mean, if Donald was an? Actual uncle, then yeah, but you and I would be great uncle. But I don't know great uncle's. Just a pain to say, I guess.
Nate:Well, you could do like Grunkle, but they did it.
Shaun:They could yeah.
Nate:Well, they did that on Gravity Falls, yeah.
Shaun:They called him Grunkle Grunkle Stan. Yeah, Grunkle sounds like Jim Henson made Monster from Labyrinth.
Nate:Absolutely.
Shaun:Grunkle. Anyways, scrooge, hortense and Matilda all head off to Africa and the year is 1909. And this is actually at the start of that horrible time known as the Belgian Congo, where African tribesmen had their hands cut off and they were used as currency. That is actually a real thing. I don't know if you know that or not, nate. That's messed up. Yeah, basically, the Belgian government was like hey, bicycles are this huge thing and we need rubber to make bicycle tires. Let's head down to Africa and like colonize this area. And essentially the king of Belgium just rode off on like mercenary groups and do whatever you have to do to get as much rubber as you can. And they went down there and they did some horrifying things.
Nate:I'm sure they did.
Shaun:Yeah, and literally one of the things was to they were actually like the mercenary camps were using like slave hands as currency. So if you caught a slave doing bad, you'd chop off their hands and go around showing it off and you could use it to trade for stuff. But that's where Scrooge is at right now. Good times you do better. Hmm. Duffel Ha. His sisters at first are super excited to see Scrooge's famed business moxie in action. And well, that excitement quickly turns to disappointment, as the first business exchange they see is Scrooge buying a diamond mine off a village chief for a mere quarter. Scrooge naturally calls this quarter a miniature portrait of the chief of my village to make it sound more valuable than it really is. He probably learned this trick from watching America buy lands at beads from the Native Americans. Oh, yeah.
Shaun:Yeah, probably where he picked that up. Hortense and Matilda are shocked at seeing Scrooge screw over the chief telling Scrooge that honesty is the best policy after all. Scrooge says that the chief was happy with the deal and that means the deal was fair and that's all that matters. He then rants about how playing by his own rules got him far further in short time than being fair and square did in the 20 years before. You can see he's starting to turn towards the dark side.
Nate:Yeah, especially since he, like you know, gets all the people like, yeah, chase them off and burn their villas down.
Shaun:Oh, we're getting there right now. Oh yeah, Using info from the first chief, the trio arrived to a remote Voodoo village that owns a huge grove of rubber trees that Scrooge very much desires. Scrooge meets with the Voodoo chief, Fula Zula demands that Fula sell his tribe's land. Fula refuses, saying that he ain't sold to all the other colonists and he ain't selling the Scrooge. Well, this gets Scrooge all pissy and as retaliation, Fula Zula and his tribe take Scrooge and stuff him in a pig carcass and paint his face and kick him out of a village, sending Scrooge into a whole new level of angry ducky.
Shaun:So what does Scrooge do? Well, he heads back to a nearby city and gets himself a group of armed thugs and heads right back to the Voodoo village and, despite the pleas of his sisters, proceeds to terrorize the people and burden the village to the ground. His sisters see this and claim that it is a dark day for Clan McDuck. Scrooge couldn't care less, though he is completely happy with these results. His thugs tie up the voodoo chieftain and Scrooge decides to get sneaky and puts on disguise and tricks the voodoo chieftain to selling his land. That way, Kinda one of those. Hey, that evil Scrooge McDuck is gonna try to take your land, sell it to me first and I'll take care of it. Ha ha ha. And then Scrooge like immediately pulls a Vince McMahon and whips out that outfit and is like it was me all along. Nya har har, it's like. You know, Scrooge, you could have just like walked around the corner and not yo.
Nate:Yeah, did you have to do it right then?
Shaun:Yeah right, I guess it was his way of being like haha, I got one up on you, dumb tribesman. Mere, mere, mere, mere. But Scrooge returns to his camp to find his sisters left him essentially writing a letter that says we don't like how bitter and conniving of a jackass you become and we're going back to Duckburg. Hopefully you're not such an ass when we meet again. That's not what the actual letter said. I'm paraphrasing, but pretty close.
Shaun:This sends Scrooge down a little bit of an internal crisis as he tries to justify what he's done to himself. And well, he sort of realizes that he was in the wrong and he heads off to the train station to catch his sisters and apologize. But that's gonna have to wait, cause as soon as he tries that, here comes Bombie the Zombie. Well, turns out, our voodoo chieftain, fuluzula, decided to get revenge on Scrooge by summoning a zombie that will follow him for all eternity, trying to hand him a little voodoo figure, which it's very cold. They don't really explain it in the comic, but I guess if he hands that voodoo doll over to Scrooge McDuck, scrooge McDuck will be cursed and become the size of a mouse and then probably get eaten by something.
Nate:Well, that makes sense, cause on the comic he just keeps on here.
Shaun:take this yeah, he just holds him by the neck and he's just like errr. However, this zombie does kinda suck, because all Scrooge really has to do is just throw in a quick disguise and suddenly Bombie doesn't recognize Scrooge anymore. So not exactly the most intimidating zombie you've ever encountered.
Nate:No, he seems to be just as smart as the guy he tricked us on that paper. Cause, let's be so. He did not dress up and wouldn't like Mission Impossible Maske put on.
Shaun:He like changes hat and, like you said too, the majority of people in this world appear to be dogs. There's not a lot of ducks down there in Africa, so I mean errr.
Nate:Yeah, I mean.
Shaun:Wow, there's this one Scottish duck and another Scottish duck just showed up. What are the odds?
Nate:He looks identical.
Shaun:Yeah, but they're dressed differently, so obviously it's a different guy. You know what you're right, Nate? This is all on fool Azula. Screw that guy. He deserved to be exploited.
Nate:Mother of a show. I did not say that.
Shaun:Basically, scrooge realizes that all he has to have is a costume on and he's just like well, guess I'll keep a costume around me to fool this zombie guy. And well, also, we do find out eventually that not in this book, but in the other comic series that Bombie the zombie is actually not like an undead zombie or a dead guy come back to life. He's one of those African zombies that has a spell on him. So he's actually a real living person with like thoughts and emotions. He's just stuck in a zombie like state, doing whatever he's told to do.
Nate:So basically he's in hell.
Shaun:Yeah, I was about to say which sounds like a worse fate, worse than hell, just having to wander around at all eternity chasing McDuck. So, yeah, that kind of adds sort of a sad tone to Bombie the zombie. It does, doesn't it? Yeah, it really does. I was like, oh, I kind of feel bad for this guy. Now he also makes fool Azula seem kind of like more of a bad guy than he should be. So maybe Scrooge was in the right, maybe he knew things we don't.
Nate:Anyways, Scrooge was guilty. It wasn't because he was greedy, it was because he had foresight. There we go, yep.
Shaun:Scrooge is an act of karma, his God's way of inflicting karma upon people. So Scrooge gets to the train station and attempt to reconnect with his sisters, but, as fate would have it, their train has already left. However, scrooge learns that the oriente express is going to be leaving soon and will take him up through Europe where boat fares are cheaper. And also Scrooge realizes hey, I can make a bunch of business connections on the way. Well, hot damn, my sisters can wait for a few. And on the oriente express he goes. Fun fact, the oriente express ran from 1883 to 2009. Pretty good run for that train. This is pretty good run. I'm assuming. They changed different trains over the years, probably, but you know that route.
Nate:Yeah.
Shaun:Onto the oriente express. Scrooge goes when he ends up. Well, we're going to find that out next episode, along with more fun facts. Stay tuned for more Scrooge adventures on the next episode of Offed Off Topic.