Oft Off Topic
Scrooge McDuck Pt. 3 - The End Times for Scrooge
In our final episode on The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, we join Scrooge as he beelines back to his family to make amends...or does he? Find out this episode how Scrooge handles his family affairs, and how this effects his chances of becoming the worlds richest duck!
After that we go over the two most important people in Scrooges life. Carl Barks, who created Scrooge McDuck, and Don Rosa, who wrote the book we are covering . We also have a lot more fun facts, and the chance to hear me attempt pronouncing the name Tuomas Holopainen of the heavy metal band Nightwish, as we discuss his amazing album based on the book The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
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!
In our final episode on The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, we join Scrooge as he beelines back to his family to make amends...or does he? Find out this episode how Scrooge handles his family affairs, and how this effects his chances of becoming the worlds richest duck!
After that we go over the two most important people in Scrooges life. Carl Barks, who created Scrooge McDuck, and Don Rosa, who wrote the book we are covering . We also have a lot more fun facts, and the chance to hear me attempt pronouncing the name Tuomas Holopainen of the heavy metal band Nightwish, as we discuss his amazing album based on the book The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
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!
On the last episode we got to see Scrooge make his way from the Klondike to the jungles of Africa, where he completes his turn to the dark side. Will Scrooge find redemption? Stay tuned this episode to find out. Also more fun facts to come, such as how Scrooge McDuck was one of anime's biggest influences. That and more on our final Scrooge McDuck episode For the next year. Scrooge hops around Africa and Europe selling lawnmowers in the Sahara, salt in Egypt and even selling wind to windmill makers. Then he comes up with the grand scheme. He heads to Greenland where he meets up with Robert Peary, who's currently on his way to discover the North Pole and that's actually the guy who discovered the North Pole too. I kind of like the fact that some of these things are factual in history. On this book.
Nate:Right loosely, but there yeah.
Shaun:Yeah, very loosely, but it's like, hey, that's kind of neat and that's one of the things I liked about. The old Scrooge McDuck comics I used to read as a kid is like, oh well, there's some fun facts in here about stuff. But anyways, scrooge wants to sponsor Mr Peary's efforts to get to the North Pole and all Scrooge wants in return is to buy the North Pole. So every time someone looks at the compass they owe him a royalty for using North which. That would be interesting to see how that holds up in court. But if you get away with that, that would make you a lot of money.
Nate:That absolutely would make you a whole bunch of money, or?
Shaun:they would just change it to North 2 and then just hit me like, hey, five degrees off Anyways. Oh yeah, and also as a side perk, if he owns the North Pole, scrooge McDuck wants to charge exorbitant fees for his letters to Santa.
Nate:Okay well.
Shaun:Yeah right, robert Peary is not a fan of his idea and tells Scrooge to buzz off. And on top of that, bombay the Zombie shows up in Greenland still pursuing Scrooge. And it's also a base thing. If Bombay's alive, is he really cold at this moment? But just can't, you know, show it.
Nate:I'm so cold, why can I die?
Shaun:My feet are frostburned, yet they do not fail this time. Scrooge just basically leads Bombay into an ice ravine where he falls in and gets stuck and frozen in a giant block of ice. Scrooge dusts his hands and says well, better, with that problem, or is he Still Bombay? Not exactly a huge threat, more of just like, oh crap, that's there. I guess I better walk briskly away from him.
Nate:Wait, we're just like no, no, I don't think, I don't want that. No, thank you.
Shaun:So Scrooge again decides it's time to reconnect with his sisters. But this time a telegraph shows up to distract him why he's been given an invitation to meet with the Royal Russian family, an opportunity he's been wanting for years. So Scrooge puts off meeting his sisters and again beeline straight to Russia, and in the process he's actually the first person to reach the North Pole. In the process Doesn't appear he realizes it, because another never does buy the North Pole or really mentions it. We just see it on the map. But a few months later Scrooge arrives in Russia where he finds a good deal on a red coat, cane and top hat, which would be his primary look outside of DuckTales that we know and love. In DuckTales he had a blue coat with red fringe. Pretty much everywhere else he always ran a red coat and a top hat.
Nate:Yeah, and now you know, scrooge gets to meet us huh, ah, sorry, you said, now you know, and immediately no, he's had the battle. Gee, I do.
Shaun:Yep Scrooge gets to meet with Zara Nicholas II, who's currently having an impending revolution sale Everything Must Go which I found that pretty funny.
Nate:Impending revolution, sale, that's great.
Shaun:Yeah, when he's meeting up with there's a big sign in the back that just let him say impending revolution sale. Everything Must Go, and Scrooge takes this opportunity to stock up on Faberge eggs at bargain basement prices. Zara Nicholas then tells Scrooge about a legendary striped ruby, and Scrooge decides to put off his sisters yet again for a few more years while he searches all around West Asia for that striped ruby. He does eventually find that ruby too, by the way. Scrooge then boards a ship leaving Southampton and begins making his way home. On this boat he meets famous rich man of the time, john Jacob Astor IV, or JJ Scrooge calls him. Actually, john Jacob Astor IV is actually a real life person too. He is famous for inventing the bicycle brake and building the Astoria hotel and also helping develop the turbine engine, and I believe he was born into a lot of money too. Kinda one of those guys. His name is my name too. What?
Nate:was that His name is my name too.
Shaun:Yep, I get it. Oh yeah. And also, john Jacob Astor IV was the richest person to die on the Titanic. Yep, old Scrooge is on the Titanic right now. Nice yeah, we also find out why the Titanic sank that day too. You know that iceberg it hit Well. The reason that iceberg flew down in front of it was because Bombay the Zombie was in the middle of that iceberg and still trying to make his way to Scrooge. That voodoo magic was so strong that it pulled Bombay, along with the whole glacier, right into that Titanic. So Scrooge is actually responsible for a lot of deaths at this point.
Nate:Right, yeah, yeah, did you catch that though.
Shaun:Yeah, also, Scrooge is like oh my god, that glacier has been pulled here by Bombay's magic. So yeah, basically the whole reason that iceberg hit the Titanic was because Scrooge is on there and voodoo curse.
Nate:Damn you. Scrooge Yep. How much blood is on your hands?
Shaun:He did just slaughter that whole village of people because I mean we saw them chasing him off in the woods. Yeah, I know.
Nate:Yeah, because you know, when a bunch of people come in and chase off an African tribe, it always turns out just fine.
Shaun:Afterwards, they all have fluffer-nutters in high sea while sitting around a campfire singing kumbaya.
Nate:You know how they all got like yo wet willies and noogies.
Shaun:That's unfortunately how they got that. They got made fun of for having cooties. That was all, Everybody was happy.
Shaun:So Bombay and the iceberg hit that Titanic and the Titanic sinks, with Bombay on it, and Scrooge watches the Titanic go under and thinks well, you know what? There's probably a lot of sunken treasure at the bottom of the ocean. So much, go, get that, all that treasure. So instead of going back to his sisters, he decides to just go ocean diving and to find sunken treasure. But why stop there? How long away else gets the idea to head down to South America and search for more land and more rubber trees?
Shaun:After a couple years of that, and what we can assume is more slaughtering of tribes, he heads off to Asia again where he mucks around making even more money. Oh, and then, as when he's in Asia, as he's passing through Baghdad, somebody attempts to assassinate him, which seems kind of like that should have happened a while ago, but it's with the love of irony. He decided that he'd be fitting to push Scrooge off of a cliff, only to die when he lands on a train car of his own money down below. Well, they shove him off the cliff. And this here where Scrooge learns he can actually swim through his money like it was water, instead of splatting on top of the pile of money, he just simply swims through it gracefully.
Nate:I do like how he mentions that. I like how he mentions like he's a fucking X-man. He's like oh look, this is my mutant power, I can swim through money. Yep right.
Shaun:It was like either swim or die and his body was just like well, we're gonna swim through this. Except he also learned to that he can only swim through money. He tried to swim through coal in the coal car and that ended in a hurry. So Scrooge heads to the Pacific Rim where he uses trained cormorants to die for pearls. He also heads to the island of Rip and Tarot, which makes an appearance in the DuckTales cartoon Rip and Tarot, and there he attempts to buy all the coconuts on the island, but the tribe leader is like nah, we like our coconuts, how about buying some sponges?
Shaun:And it's here that again Bombay the Zombie shows up. Took him eight years, but he managed to walk all the way from Newfoundland to the South Pacific to find Scrooge. Well, luckily for Scrooge this time there's a friendly witch doctor who offers to trap Bombay on their island for 30 years, and all Scrooge has to do is give up that legendary ruby that he learned about from Zara Nicholas. Scrooge is not happy about this, but he reluctantly agrees. And now Bombay is out of Scrooge's hair for the next 30 years and Scrooge is just like well, in 30 years I'm sure that voodoo curse will wear off. That seems kind of foolish thoughts on him.
Nate:Yeah, that's pretty dumb.
Shaun:Yeah, the book actually doesn't really go into what Bombay does after this, but essentially what happens is, 30 years later, bombay does go looking for Scrooge again. However, scrooge is aged enough that Bombay doesn't really recognize him, but he does see Donald Duck, who looks a lot like Scrooge McDuck, and he decides to go after him, and it's also during that story that it's revealed that, I believe, that Bombay is actually a real person, trapped in the living hell of a zombie body. They're in zombie bodies Yep, zombie bodies, zombie Bombay. Bombay zombie. Bombay is now out of Scrooge's hair and Scrooge goes back to traveling the world again for another 10 years, building upon his already massive empire. What really helps him out is when the great stock market crash of 1929 happens, and that is Scrooge's chance to basically buy up all his competition and get his beak wet in every industry on the planet. Good time to buy if you got the money. Yeah, definitely, yeah Right.
Shaun:Finally, it's 1930 and 27 years after essentially founding Duckburg, scrooge finally returns home to the city he built. He built that city on rock and roll. He built this city. Anyways, gone is the rinky-dink shanty town that he left, replaced by a bussing metropolis that was built on the back of McDuck Enterprises. Scrooge is actually kind of unimpressed by this city and basically concerns anybody living in Duckburg to be a freeloader who's profiting off his success. Because, hey, if it wasn't for him that town wouldn't be there and thus their opportunity wouldn't be there. So they owe him. Also, the site of Panhandlers really sets him off and he demands that Booby traps be installed outside his money bin to keep them away. Very bitter Also. He does what they'll like to be protected.
Nate:To be fair, though, like yes, panhandlers, but if you look at the thing they're like, they literally hold them sides.
Shaun:I'm saying, give me free money, for free it's like it is 100% like Fox News Republican.
Nate:This is real. This is the. This panel shows you what's really going on Like, oh, come on man.
Nate:And then they got in their $100,000 Mercedes and drove off let's see their sides are saying give me aid to the lazy fund, to abolish funds. Give me. Well, this was a help. I haven't eaten since lunch. Okay, that's not, the world owes me a living. And then someone else suddenly gave me. So this is the size he's walking up. To be fair, if I saw that, I would also say put some Booby traps out there. But you know, anyway, I just thought it was funny. I saw that I'm like this is exactly what the Fox News people think. Yeah, you know, the people out there who are jobless are new. Yeah.
Shaun:So we'll just get to this now. Don Rosa, the dude who wrote this book, from what I could tell from the research, those signs that he was writing in there basically he was almost made made the road up those signs as a parody of what real rich people see when they see panhandling.
Nate:Yeah.
Shaun:That rich people don't actually see what the sign says. They just immediately see hey, I'm a freeloader.
Nate:That makes sense Because it did smack a satire. But you know, just, the only reason I won the 100% sure was, you know, as mentioned for the very beginning. You know some of the stuff, some of the stuff on here was like uh, this didn't age very well.
Shaun:Actually, part of that is because part of Scrooge's history is written by Carl Barks and part of it is written by Don Rosa, and we'll figure out, find out kind of what the difference between the two people were when they're writing these methods. But yeah, as far as this book we're talking about Don Rosa, a lot of that stuff was satire. He was like, hey, this is exactly what rich people see on signs and stuff. You know what they actually say which because apparently a lot of people did kind of take him as being like pro capitalism, fuck the poor people kind of attitude.
Shaun:I don't know no, and he had to explain himself a couple of times like okay, fair enough.
Nate:Yeah.
Shaun:So now we know Scrooge's sisters Quackswell and their new kids, donald and Della, are all there throwing a big welcome back party for Scrooge, and they are super excited to see him all this after all this time, because I mean it's been like what 30 years since they last saw him, or so 27 years.
Nate:That's right. Kids don't like put it off. Yeah, I'll get to it.
Shaun:Find money. Scrooge's been sending letters home. Well, I guess he's been sending money home, so they do know he's alive. But anyways, they're excited to see him. But Scrooge ain't so happy to see him and he basically just angrily blows them off and scolds them for wasting his time. Hortense the angry one has had enough and she basically gives Scrooge an ultimatum Apologize and become a human being again, or say goodbye to what family he has left. And Scrooge tells him buzz off, and he doesn't need their kind around anymore. He just needs his money and his businesses. And on this note, the family storms out and the only parting gift we get from them is a wee young Donald kicking Scrooge square in the arse. Scrooge does have second thoughts about this, but he quickly gets sidetracked and overjoyed at the news he is now the richest person on the planet. The love of his fortune overshadowed any pains he felt for his family leaving him. Yeah, basically every time seems like every time Scrooge has a guilt of conscious money seems to fix him up, right up at this point.
Nate:Yeah, I mean to be fair, I mean that's actually pretty, I would, I would exactly. That would definitely be something that would kind of like dry my tears. It would be something my family would live forever, but at the same time like, oh no, my family, by the way, the richest person in the world. Well, I guess I'll get over it.
Shaun:I can buy myself a different family, one that actually likes me, yeah. I mean higher professional actors.
Nate:I mean, I get it. You know fucking Hallmark movie stuff where it's like, oh, family is the real treasure. Yeah, you know it's not better, but it's, you know, at least a good consolation prize being family being treasure, treasure being treasure. So it takes about 12 years after this.
Shaun:But the bitterness finally tastes whole and Scrooge becomes a Howard Hughes style recluse and closes down his entire enterprise. He basically says there's no one worthy to take over his legacy, so he's just going to close up shop and tell the world to go screw itself.
Nate:And there enough.
Shaun:Yeah With as big as he is, though makes you wonder what that did to the world economy, since he basically runs everything. If he's just like I'm shutting it all down by become like that Montana thing where 80% of the workforce is out of jobs, except worldwide, I would imagine or at least a devastated duck burger, I would imagine, oh, yeah, I mean all the jobs simultaneously leaving all the ones.
Nate:Yeah, that doesn't you know. That's like where there's these Appalachian towns around here where it's like, oh yeah, we had this factory, but now it's shut down.
Shaun:So yeah, the coal mine dried up, so all of a sudden there's nothing left, and that's one thing about that's one thing about being around here.
Nate:You know, I see, you know friend of coal. Coal is this like. You don't really like coal, it's it. You don't really it. You like the jobs stability you know you got. You know, when they were down the mines they actually got paid decent money. So when the coal people left, you know that was attacking their livelihood. What you know should have hopefully happened was something come in and replaced it. But that didn't happen. So instead you had your. You know, for the longest time this corporation that you know did this town for. You know, as long as they can remember something's gone, then they're like oh, look at that meth.
Shaun:So yeah, that's exactly what happens.
Nate:I mean seriously, like I'm driven through some of these towns and go travel across through Kentucky and I've seen some of these town. It's just, it's a bummer man, yeah it really is.
Nate:I mean to be fair, like I've never even seen coal until I went to the Red River Gorge, like a couple of years ago, and I just happened to see this little black thing on the ground. Like what is this? And I started, I picked it up and I was like, is this, is this coal? And I rubbed it up and said, you know, you could use like a little marker or something Like holy shit, I've walked over to you. I was like is this coal? She's like uh, yeah, like oh, wow.
Shaun:For the start of us, it's coal. I never knew these things existed in real life, yeah.
Nate:Yeah, it's like I've read about coal, I've seen pictures of coal, I'm buying coal and Minecraft, but I've never actually laid fingers on coal Like oh look at this.
Shaun:Honestly, it kind of feels neat, doesn't it? It's sort of like Maxi feeling yeah. And then somebody for a brief moment. He lived in a basement apartment that literally had a coal burning stove, an actual coal burning stove, and yeah, I was the same way too. I saw a coal. I'm like my God, that's coal. Yeah, I've seen coal. Can I touch it? He's like I don't care, and it's kind of a cool looking rock. To be honest. It's black and shiny and slick and it really is Like I thought it was pretty sweet.
Shaun:Yeah, he said it actually was pretty good heat source for his place too, cause like one softball sized rock of coal would like heat his whole place for an entire day or so.
Nate:Well, when I heard, I always just thought charcoal. And until like it just yeah, Like coal and charcoal were synonymous in my head. So I picked it up like oh, okay, I get it now.
Shaun:Yeah, it's not the same thing Black gold Texas tea. We now jumped to Christmas day in 1947. It's been five years since Scrooge shut everything down and the world very quickly forgets who he was. Pretty much no one remembers what's in the money bin, they just assume it's full of paperwork. And no one seems to remember this venture Scrooge had and everyone just assumes he's an old miser who never lifted finger and inherited everything he has.
Nate:People assume it's full of paperwork. It's the fucking money bin.
Shaun:That's a giant, it's a big dollar sign on the tube. I mean, yeah, I mean he doesn't keep a quiet.
Nate:What's in there? It's like no shit. And plus, how would people forget about that? He made a widely known, it was full of money. And then it's like, oh, the people just like, oh, yeah, it's full of paperwork. Like, are you memorials?
Shaun:Just like in Appalachia, the economy tanked, so everybody started doing meth and they just quickly forgot, because they're breaking out.
Nate:That's as good as an explanation as any.
Shaun:Yep and the 40s Duckburg had a horrible meth problem. There's all them World War II troops coming back to from the war and stuff. Bad times, bad times.
Nate:Never, never forget my great-grandma talking about how to show her ID to buy a fucking Alka-Seltzer, which I had to do the other day Buy Alka-Seltzer. They didn't check my ID. I'm like, god damn it, like really.
Shaun:I probably had the aphedrine or something like that, or Well, and they never they never checked your ID Like they.
Nate:the thing popped up, hey, check ID. And they the lady literally walked over there and just said 11, 1189. I'm like, okay, why not? Apparently, you look getting 11 years younger than you do yours. Well, that's also.
Shaun:I also thought it was funny, like the random dates you put on there was actually like maybe younger than I am, so it's like you know what I'll roll with it.
Nate:I wonder if that was her eight births. Yeah, I don't know, I don't know.
Shaun:I don't know, I don't know. I wonder if that was her eight birthday or a kid's birthday or something.
Nate:Something like that, I don't know. Well, it was also she. She was also like a zygote when I was like in college. So ha, zygote.
Shaun:And Donald Duck echoes the sentiments talking to his young sons Huey and Dune Louie, and you'd think Hortense would have clued Donald in about you know Scroogeous history and this, and that I mean don't yeah.
Nate:I mean, I mean fucking, they like even he's like oh, whatever, I don't know. I'm like it's the same thing with Han Solo and Jedi, like oh, they're just whatever. Like dude, you were alive when they were alive, right.
Shaun:It was like, oh, that silly witchcraft of, uh, you know, the force is like dude, shut up. Uh, speaking of Donald and his kids, on this Christmas day they're invited by Scrooge to the money bin for what's essentially their first meeting ever. Donald only has faint memories of sketch kicking Scrooge in the butt back in the day. Scrooge is old and cranky, as I'll get out and tells the fore that he only invited them to see what kind of trainwrecks he's living his money to. And we also find here that he hates the term lucky dime, because when Donald calls it as such, scrooge gets all sorts of pissy. And he was like I had that thing for 20 years before I made my fortune. That dime wasn't lucky, it was an inspiration. So it's not his lucky dime, it's his inspirational dime.
Nate:It doesn't have a certain ring to it.
Shaun:No, it really doesn't Too many syllables, I think.
Nate:I mean because, based on the cartoon I saw, he would commit war crimes to keep that lucky dime where it's supposed to be.
Shaun:Yeah, I'm pretty sure he did too.
Nate:Oh, absolutely, Like Lord knows the bodies he left behind to make sure that fucking um.
Shaun:That you could dispel them and get it.
Nate:That's great. I mean, I don't know the DuckTales. They're a lot of those like rando people trying to get his thing, but yeah, yeah.
Shaun:Scrooge is busy chastising Donald and the boys while lamenting that he's too old and worn out to adventure anymore, when suddenly the most recent generation of Beagle Boy strike, dressed as Santa Claus. Nonetheless, suffice to say, an action packed sequence follows that sees Scrooge Donald and the boys fending off the Beagle Boys and saving Scrooge's fortune for another time. This excitement jolts Scrooge McDuck out of his Scrooge McFunk and he proclaims I'm back, baby. And then proudly states that he has another good 20 years of adventure left in him and he's going to take those four along with him every chance he gets on those 20 years adventure. And you know what? That's pretty prophetic, nate, because, um, that he says 20 years of adventure left, because that's exactly what he gets. Canonically, scrooge McDuck dies in 1967 at the age of 100. And that is the life and times of Scrooge McDuck.
Nate:So wait. So Donald and Huey and Dewey are going off like doing adventures. That was in the 60s.
Shaun:Yep, if we're going by the original OG timeline of Scrooge McDuck.
Nate:Yeah, I get it. Yeah, sure, you know it's like it's. Yeah, I guess it's like, how dare you change my duck tails from the youth? But you know it's, I get it. I mean, things are always retro. You know, it's the fucking multiverse you know Glee.
Shaun:well, we'll get into what this book wasn't just a second, but first of all, this book is actually now banned by reprint from Disney, why? Because the whole Bombay, the zombie and fool Azula's depictions in that one issue. They can reprint any part of the book they want, just not the issues that have him in it, which, as you know, those are pretty important issues in that book. So basically, we're not going to get any more reprints of the life and times of Donald Duck. As it is, this book shall slowly be lost to time, nate other than people with PDFs and who collect it.
Nate:Right, Well, I mean it's same. Well, I appreciate that. I really do. I mean, I appreciate people being sensitive, but you can't exactly steamroller over the past.
Shaun:I mean just not as an example of what not to do.
Nate:Yeah, I mean even Lootunes, even though it was kind of stupid to have whoopie Goldberg come out saying, oh, it was of the times, but yeah, because, Bugs Bunny, they had some pretty questionable episodes. But it's just like you go into it knowing, hey, back in the 30s, in whatever, let's just say their view on race was exactly nuanced. But you can still appreciate where we got, how we got where we got. Yeah, and this, of course, is being from a middle-aged white man.
Shaun:Yeah, Easy for us to sit back and judge Right. Fun too.
Nate:Yep.
Shaun:Absolutely so. Scrooge McDuck was created by Carl Barks back in 1947 for the Walt Disney Company. Carl Barks was born in Merrill, oregon, in 1901 and grew up a lonely child on a farm in the middle of nowhere, and hearing problems that started in his youth got so bad by the time he was in high school he had to drop out and enter the workforce. He floated around doing all sorts of odd jobs and just decided to turn his hobby of art into a form of income. In 1935, he gets hired at Disney making $20 a week or roughly $450 a week in today's money. But he was unhappy with the conditions there and he left in 1942.
Nate:That's not bad, no that's actually not awful, because that's pretty fucking good.
Shaun:So well, it's not fantastic but yeah, he was doing in between. He was an in-betweener at Disney back then, which. Oh, that sucks, yeah which that's kind of what most artists have to start out as though.
Nate:Oh man, that sucks. That's the artistic equivalent of disdinging.
Shaun:But most animators have to start as in between, I think, don't they Typically, at least back then.
Nate:Well, yeah, I guess. I mean, let's put it this way, that's why Simpsons is made primarily in Korea. They do the key frames over here and they ship over there to do all that stuff.
Shaun:Even DuckTales, I think, was framed over in Korea too as well, wouldn't surprise me.
Nate:It's just cheaper. It sucks. I'm not a big fan of shipping jobs overseas, but it's like a lot of artists coming in. I know, when I graduated from college I didn't necessarily want to go draw fucking tweens. That sucks, so yeah.
Shaun:Gotta get your foot in the door somewhere, though. Yeah well, there you go, yeah. So working at Disney, he leaves there in 1940 due unhappy with the conditions, karl Barx then gets a job at Western Publishing, which is mainly known to us as being the publishers of those little golden books series. Remember those guys from our youth, golden books, yeah.
Nate:Oh yeah, golden books.
Shaun:Yep, he wound up working in the place that published those, and they were also the place that published Dell Comics. And uh well, he started working in the Dell Comics division and they actually had the exclusive book rights to all Walt Disney licensed characters and via this, karl would be allowed to create Scrooge McDuck for the comics in 1947. Scrooge was originally supposed to be just a one-shot character, but Karl Barx saw the potential in using money as a vehicle for adventure and also a lot of Scrooge McDucks. Like you know, traveling around doing a bunch of jobs is kind of based off Karl Barx's youth, where he basically had to just float around from job to job before he decided to become an artist. So a little bit based off his own personal experiences. They also basically partly based Scrooge off of Ebenezer Scrooge, naturally, and also partly based off of another famous Scottish millionaire, andrew Carnegie, of the Carnegie Hall fame. Also a fun fact, karl Barx's society was at its peak in 1910 and has all been downhill since. So take that for what it's worth.
Nate:Yeah.
Shaun:Yeah, also. Uh, if you're wondering about Karl Barx, he is a pro capitalist, so he was kind of more along the lines of yeah, scrooge was right to do what he did. He actually has a quote saying uh, they say the wealthy people like the Vanderbilt 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 reason to those things. Well, there you go, there you go.
Shaun:So the comic series of Scrooge himself, barx worked on that from the first issue in 1952 all the way up until, uh, 1990. He was still working on that comic. He actually retired from the comic back in 1966, but it was basically because he was doing both the writing and the art. But he was a convict to keep painting stories for Scrooge comics. So, uh, yeah, he was actually involved in them for a good long while. Yeah, it sounds like I mean hell, it's a steady job, yeah, yeah.
Nate:And what do you? I would just say you also appreciate the fact, like you know, with these like comics or even cartoons to a lesser extent, or some of these bigger studios, you know, when you have a little more free range to do things, that's when you really start finding, like the, the really kind of interesting stuff. Like you know, scrooge came around he's made, he became a fairly big popular character. Another character like that was fucking Harley Quinn, you know. Like it was a cartoon that you know, oh, here's, this character will make it and then all of a sudden it blows up. You know, it's just really nice to see sometimes when you have someone come in and instead of studios having their fingers and every little bit of it, they get a little bit more freedom, with some of these lower things, for instance. That's pretty much.
Shaun:Scrooge McDuck because they basically saw what Karl Marx was doing. They're like hey, we like what you're doing. You're just coming up with all sorts of great stories we could build off of or use of future stuff and Disney a fits essentially game, kind of like something they rarely ever do, and that's like free reign to get him to write whatever he wants in as much as he wanted with Scrooge McDuck, because they're like hey, he's just going to build up this great collection of stories for us that we can rewrite or turn into cartoons later. And they actually kind of paid off because that's how we got DuckTales, because they just had this giant sea of source material to pick from for Scrooge McDuck.
Nate:Right, I mean, and he went on ventures. So they're like oh look, here's this character, it's our premade for us and we have a vehicle, he has money, so it's pretty easy to explain things, and he's a world hopping douchebag. So let's go ahead and have this guy and you know, we'll make him more likable by giving him Huey Dewey and Louie. Yeah, Donald shows up for a minute, but whatever, you know, like we just Huey Dewey and Louie Scrooge McDuck. And now we got one more character I don't know Someone who crashes planes all the time there.
Shaun:Duck comics were actually one of the world's widest distributed comics in the world ever at the time, which makes sense because Scrooge McDuck was going all over the world. So you know, you could be a kid in China and eventually he's going to come to your town and be like, look at this Scrooge McDuck's visiting my homeland. That's pretty cool. No-transcript. So, uh, Karl Barx would pass away from leukemia in the year 2000,. And a year prior he gave this badass Conan the Barbarian-esque quote about death. I have no apprehension, no fear of death. I do not believe in an afterlife. I think of death as total peace. You're beyond the clutches of those who would crush you. Doesn't that sound like a Conan the Barbarian thing that does? Actually, that's kind of a badass thing to say before you die Hell yeah, I would be beyond the clutches of all those who would crush me.
Nate:But then again it makes you wonder what kind of life you lived with. There's people trying to crush him. You know, like I know for a fact, there are people out there who don't necessarily I'm not their favorite person I mean, they're my people who stray out like just don't like me. I get that, like I, my life hasn't been without strife. But I can pretty surely say there's no one out there who despises me Like there's no one out there with a concentrate effort going, I must kill this man. I, I'm pretty sure I don't have any like that, and if I do, I'm unaware, because they're doing a terrible job. They're just doing the worst job possible, okay.
Shaun:I corner you with like a butcher knife. Like you know who I am and why.
Nate:I'm here and maybe you're like.
Shaun:I have no clues. Like don't lie to me the next day, you know, he's just like breaking down and crying. Oh, he was like dude, sorry man, I have no clue. I know that this plan is all great. I know you say this has been building up for years, but I literally just stumbled upon this. It's pure fate or pure accident. So as far as the book that we referenced, the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, well, that is all due to comic book legend Don Rosa himself.
Shaun:Don Rosa was born in 1951 in Louisville, kentucky. He was a lonely, introverted child with a love of comics that apparently he learned to read comics before he could learn to actually read read. And before he could read, read he had also was drawing his own little comics, like little stick figure adventures and stuff, kind of the same stuff you and I did, sure, I'm sure. But his love of comics eventually led him to a job at Gladstone Comics. But actually first he was a. He did a comic strip for the Louisville Times where he created Captain Kentucky. Have you ever heard of Captain Kentucky, the comic strip? Nope, nope. Ask Jenny, she might know, maybe. Yeah, yeah, I mean what up? Yeah, yeah, it was at Gladstone Comics, where he did his first comic book ever, which was Son of the Sun, a Scrooge McDuck comic that was nominated for a Harvey Award Best Story of the Year and that got was what got his foot into the door for making Scrooge McDuck history.
Shaun:So and then he'd basically start working on the Scrooge McDuck comics here and there, but the big thing would come of 1991. Don Rosa begins working on the Life in Times of Scrooge McDuck, which basically entails him taking every Karl Marx comic from 1952 through the 80s or whatever it was. He went through. He read every comic, distilled it all down to its core facts and basically just turned that into a biography of Scrooge McDuck's life. So basically what we read there was the basically the equivalent of 30 years of comics distilled down, and he had to change a couple of the years and shift a couple of things around, but essentially that is 30 years of fuck shot, scattered stories all just condensed down to one constant storyline for us to enjoy, which that's pretty impressive if you think about it.
Nate:Yeah, honestly that is.
Shaun:Yeah yeah. He was just like hey, I love Scrooge McDuck. We just need like one good biography on the duck and I'm going to put it together. And he did all the art and everything for it too. And I really enjoy the art in that book. I like it and all of some like the little subtle, fun things that do in there like little background art, yeah, every so often like I mean the panels he would make.
Nate:I mean they're honestly almost like the Where's Waldo, where, you know, not necessarily Waldo itself, fuck him but like the backgrounds.
Shaun:There's so much going on and stuff.
Nate:Yeah, like, just even like the little subtle things in the background. I mean like there was one panel he did where, you know, scrooge shows up in this old West town and like all these, like the whole towns and chaos. I mean, realistically there's no town to function like this, but like everyone, like people get thrown out windows, it was.
Shaun:it was actually pretty sweet Horses running around sipping tea and weird stuff like that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love scenes like that in comic books, just stuff you could stare at forever and see something new every once in a while and be like, hey, this is neat. So anyways, that book would actually win him the Will Eisner Award in 1995. And in case you're wondering, the Will Eisner Award is essentially the comic industry's version of an Academy Award. So good job on you, don Rosa, you earned it.
Shaun:Also, most of Rosa's stories his Scrooge McDuck comics they did has the letters DUCK hidden either the first panel or on the cover art. If he did the cover art of it, duck was a background name for, dedicated to Uncle Carl from Kino. Kino is being a Don Rosa's real first name, basically. Eventually, disney caught on to this and told him to knock it off, so he had to actually get even sneakier in hiding them in the comics, but he still managed to do it. It's kind of fun when they get to do stuff like that. Yeah, also based off this book in 2014,. Finnish composer I'm going to butcher his name Tuomas Hallopanian.
Nate:Songwriter for the band.
Shaun:You had that little yeah, tuomas Hallopanian. He was a songwriter for Nightwish. He released a concept album based on this comic titled Music Inspired by the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, and Don Rosa illustrated the cover artwork for this album. And it's actually a really good album. I thoroughly enjoy it. Not every song on it's own banger, but it basically goes and flow with the comic book, starts out with him being in Glasgow with nice little Scottish bagpipes and this and that, and eventually goes into Wild West kind of music. Anyways, go check it out. Called it, what was it called? Music Inspired by the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. It's worth it.
Shaun:I like it. Oh yeah, it would also be a miss if we did not touch on Duck Tales, the actual cartoon, which I think what we're going to do is. Eventually we're going to do a whole thing on that Disney block of those cartoons and cover them all in one thing, so we're not going to go into too much Duck Tales stuff at the moment.
Nate:That makes sense.
Shaun:But yeah, but the first run of Duck Tales premiered in 1987 and would run for a hundred episodes over four seasons. These stories were actually based off the original Karl Barks comics back in the day and basically they kind of did the same thing Don Rosa did, just not as in depth. They just went and kind of cherry-picked a bunch of the old Karl Barks stories and sort of put them in an order that kind of made sense. This cartoon would also give life to a 1990 theatrical release and the legendary NES game as well, which that was a really fun game. I also liked it too because it was kind of challenging, but it wasn't like super hard, stupid hard, like some of those NES games, or it's just like come on.
Shaun:Oh God, some of those games Should be a violation of the Geneva Convention. Absolutely Yep. For the original Duck Tales series, Scrooge McDuck was voiced by Alan Young, who actually played Wilbur on Mr Edway back in the day, and he was also doing Scrooge's voice since 1974. And they actually brought him back one time to do a Scrooge's voice in the Duck Tales video game remake in 2013. Which was kind of cool but also kind of sad, because you can tell he was very old doing the voice in there. Yeah, Because he sounded like a really old Scrooge McDuck. But, yeah, good for him.
Shaun:Also, a fun fact about that show the voice of Babyface Beagle and Launchpad McQuack in the Duck Tales series was a man named Terry McGovern and he is actually credited with creating the word Wookie. See, he was working with George Lucas and working on him back in THX 1138 back in the day and Terry was driving George Lucas around in a car and Terry hit a bump while driving around and Terry said I think I just hit a wookie Wish. George Lucas said what's a wookie? And Terry just said I don't know. Something I made up Sounded funny in my head and the rest is Harry Ape history. But yep, that's actually verified by both George Lucas and Terry McGovern. So there you go. Fun fact.
Shaun:Then we also have the 2017 DuckTales reboot, which was actually influenced by the Times of Life of Scrooge McDuck. In order to work on that show, you had to read that book. That was what the showrunners required. If you wanted to be a writer on the new DuckTales series, you had to read the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck. Good, yeah, yeah, actually, and that was basically what influenced that series, and that ran for three seasons and 74 half hour episodes. David Tennant was the voice of Scrooge for this one, which at first bugged me because he does a very soft spoken Scrooge McDuck instead of like a gruff Scrooge McDuck, but it grows on you in a hurry.
Nate:Yeah, I mean I haven't seen the newer one, but I have seen clips. I like David Tennant though. So I mean I'm not he's by no means like oh, dan, dan, ee, but I mean I appreciate, I do appreciate his work. He is a solid actor. I mean I really, of course, dr Two no, no shit, dr who. Honestly, my favorite Dr who is Matt Smith, but I still really like, you know, david Tennant. He's by far he's so he's so close to my number one. But I really love him also as the bad guy in, as the purple man in Jessica Jones. He was a brilliant in that. So if you haven't seen it, you should see it. Just watch the first season. The rest is you don't need to watch the rest, but the first season with him in it was amazing.
Shaun:Joyful and good Omens as well, he would. Oh man, I forgot about that.
Nate:He is, yeah, good Omens, he was both seasons. He was amazing.
Shaun:So I've seen the second season of Good Omens, yet I forgot that I was out. It was really good.
Nate:I mean it's not.
Shaun:I was kind of scared to watch it because I thought they ended the first season just fine and could have just left it there and made everything pretty good.
Nate:They did. I mean, in this second season they it's a little bit bigger. I don't know Like I could definitely have some gripes about it, but I did. I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think it was the first season, just because you know the first season was based off the book and the second season wasn't. But they did, they did and justice. It was really good.
Shaun:I'll have to check that out. So Steven Spielberg and George Lucas have both acknowledged that the rolling boulder booby trap in the opening scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark was directly ripped off of a 1954 Carl's Bark Uncle Scrooge adventure called the Seven Cities of Cebola. Yeah, and if you see the frames of it, it's literally just like scene for scene, ripped off from there. Good for the reader admitting it, though, yep 100%, that boulder scene is a Scrooge McDuck original.
Nate:Oh, there you go.
Shaun:Yep. Lucas and Spielberg also said that some of Bark's stories about space travel and depictions of aliens as he put forth hadn't influenced on them as well. So Carl Bark's a little bit of an influence in the Star Wars world too, apparently Nice. Yeah yeah, george Lucas also wrote it as a forward in a book. He calls Bark's stories cinematic and a priceless part of our literary heritage, which, having read some of those early Scrooge McDuck books, they are really good. I do enjoy them.
Shaun:More fun facts coming your way. In 1960, the Uncle Scrooge comic become the only comic book to sell a million issues. The only other comic, the next comic that was be able to do that was Star Wars in 1977. Star Wars number one Also should be noted. Back in the day Uncle Scrooge was a quarterly comic book and went through a bunch of different publishers but kept the same numbering, surprisingly, the entire time. First is part of Dell comics, then Gold Key comics, then Gladstone Publishing, then Disney comics, then Gladstone Publishing again, then Jimstone Publishing and Boom Kids and finally it sat with IDW Publishing. Rep it 460 issues now. More fun facts. That's very impressive. Yeah, it is. It's one of the longest running comics ever, I think, and like one of the longest running, widest distributed kind of things. Anyways, another fun fact the first ever image to appear displayed on an Apple Macintosh was a scan of Karl Barx's Scrooge McDuck.
Shaun:Well, I know what else Scrooge McDuck inspired Anime, anime, anime, anime. Ever wonder why anime characters have giant, huge eyes? Cats, um, no. Well, basically the godfather of anime, or also referred to as Walt Disney, walt Disney of anime, osamu Tezuka, the guy who created Astro Boy. Well, the reason he put such big eyes on Astro Boy is because he was a huge fan of the Scrooge McDuck comics and he loved the way Scrooge's giant eyes gave him extra expression abilities or made him more expressionate, and he was like, hey, giant eyes work good. On Scrooge McDuck I'm going to put giant eyes on my characters. And basically, after that, it was all anime giant eye history. There you go. Scrooge McDuck, yep. Scrooge McDuck, effective of the world, yep influenced Astro Boy. So now you know why anime characters have big eyes.
Nate:Well, I was told it was cats. Cats no. Yeah, like cats are cute and cats have big eyes and so they model the eyes of the cats. But I mean, I don't know if the guy straight up said that it's kind of hard to dispute what he's like.
Shaun:This is why I did it Like. What do these mean? That's the winner from Osamu Tezuka's words himself.
Nate:Like what does he mean? He's so mysterious. I mean this exact thing, yeah right.
Shaun:Yep, he puts it pretty other bluntly. He's not like oh well, maybe a little bit. He's like nope. Apparently, in one of the four words of his book he flat out says thank you to Karl Barks for creating Scrooge McDuck and influencing my art, kind of thing. That's awesome. Yeah, there you go. Anime has been influenced by Scrooge McDuck.
Nate:And I love anime.
Shaun:Everybody loves anime. That's a lie.
Nate:Yeah, it's like I'm actually watching one pretty good anime now Was it Class of the Elite? And I like it, I really do. But it's like I say that. But man, so it's supposed to be a high school and you're supposed to be a high school kid and you know this like, oh, it's cutthroat, blah, blah, blah. And just these kids are supposed to be like 15, 16. And they're like so you have these girls talking to each other and are they looking at their faces while they're talking? Or is the camera back a little bit to see the girls, like as a group, talking? No, it's some titties talking to some other titties. God damn it. I mean, I appreciate this cartoon so technically it's not like creepy, but I'm a little creeped.
Shaun:You don't want somebody to walk into the room while you're on that one. Oh God, no, Hold on. Let me explain and then you're trying to explain it to them, and then you just realize it's sounding even worse as you're trying to explain it.
Nate:Yeah. So it's playing on my phone, like as I'm working, and my wife got walked in and it was a scene, because of course they're in a pool, because why the fuck aren't they in the pool, and like you have this main character in the guy who's like just putt from marble and he's talking to this girl who's like in this skimpy Spiky that you could possibly buy, and then the store and I'm just like what are you watching? I'm just like anime. I was looking at that. Like I swear it's not hentai. This is like you know. I'm watching some crunchy roll, it's not. I'm not going to send me weird websites.
Shaun:Okay, I know this looks creepy hon, but trust me, she's not actually 12 years old, she's actually 2000 years old, so it's completely okay all this stuff that's going on.
Nate:It's totally fine. She's getting railed by like five guys. She's a thousand years old, it's all good.
Shaun:She's a succubus.
Nate:That's what they do. God damn it. Like I really wish sometimes I just would look at anime. It's like you guys are making it real difficult to like say you guys are good.
Shaun:Sometimes you're just watching the most epic anime thing ever. Being like this is amazing. All of a sudden they have like a panty sniffing joke and you're like, oh my god, you sons of bitches.
Nate:That's one of my favorite shows out there right now. I actually took me a while to watch it.
Shaun:It's a Panty.
Nate:Sniffers Amura, no, but it might as well be like the main character is like he's obsessed with panties and like he's a fucking creep, like now he kind of reforms himself as a good guy, but I mean, ultimately he walks around, he worships some like his teacher's old panties and he holds a bit of pain and like God damn it, man, why are you doing this to me? I really want to like enjoy this and you're making it difficult to do that.
Shaun:I got to stop and masturbate every few seconds because this is anime. Thank you very much. I wouldn't go that far. I got to size zip.
Nate:Yeah, that's terrific. Anyways what is that that doesn't matter.
Shaun:Whatever. So remember the movie Inception? I never stopped, but I'm sure you did yes. Apparently, there's a little bit of controversy when that came out about whether or not he ripped off Scrooge McDuck, because apparently there was a Scrooge McDuck comic that came out just before Inception did. That basically had the exact same plot to, it Turns out, overrope. Yeah, actually it did, including, I think there's even a spinning top involved in it too, or something along those lines. It was like weirdly similar and people were like, well, obviously Christopher Nolan ripped off that Scrooge McDuck comic. Oddly enough, no, they were actually completely unaware and they basically wrote the same damn story like opposite of each other at about the same time. In fact even the Christopher Nolan script, I think, came out a little bit before the Scrooge McDuck book. But there you go.
Nate:I mean yeah, there's only certain amount of, there's only so many ideas out there. Yeah, I mean there are absolutely people who take advantage and like cheat.
Shaun:Yeah, I mean, I'm not saying that isn't and, honestly, don Rose and Nolan probably read the same sci-fi book around the same time, the game, the same inspiration or something, because that happens it does. I Guess the last thing we can talk about is how much money Scrooge McDuck actually has, because it depends on who you ask and what comic writer and what publication this and that. But the number is always really stupid and made up numbers. So according to Carl Barks, the Scrooge McDuck is worth one multiple Jillian nine obsequitics million six hundred twenty three dollars and sixty two cents.
Shaun:However, there's a duck yeah, it's sixty two cents. However, there's a duck tails episode were fit and crack shell. The accountant notes that McDuck's money been contains six hundred and seven trillion, or no, six hundred seven trillion three hundred eighty six zillion nine hundred seventy four trillion five hundred twenty two billion dollars and thirty six cents. Don Rosa in the life and times of Scrooge McDuck quotes it as five multiple, jillian, nine, impossible, dillion, seven, fantastic. A trillion dollars and sixteen cents. Always sense at the end.
Shaun:No rounding up for Scrooge McDuck, fantastic a trillion, sure went up and then there's one comic book back in 1949, a Christmas comic, where a Thought bubble from Scrooge McDuck's talks about how he has eleven octillion dollars and duck tails movie treasure of the lost lamp. Scrooge Mentioned that he's a quad zillionaire and and the duck tails reboot. They also call it a multi trillion dollar business that he runs. Also, too, they talked about the how much money he has in the money bin which is different than his like total value, because I mean all them businesses are worth stuff too. So right.
Nate:I mean you can't, just you know, it's you have to have some like fun, other things.
Shaun:Yeah, forbes magazine has occasionally tried to estimate Scrooge's wealth and in 2007 they estimated he was worth probably twenty eight point eight billion. In 2011, they assume estimated forty four billion due to the rise in gold prices. And Well, actually that's kind of where Forbes stopped. But also the final thing we've got is in 1970 and a comic, scrooge says that he would be broke in 600 years. If he lost one billion dollars a minute, then that would put his total estimate net worth at let's see here 315 quadrillion, 360 trillion dollars. Ish, ish, ish. But Forbes does have him ranked as number one spot on the Forbes fictional 15 of richest people in the world.
Nate:Because, yeah, I mean, we're making up numbers to equal.
Shaun:Yeah, I know if you want Scrooge McDuck's value, just make up a number and it just as long as it sounds good and long. And we are now at the end of our story. Nate, we have learned all we can about Scrooge McDuck and his life and times. Did you learn anything?
Nate:I did. Actually. I learned a decent math stuff about this one yeah.
Shaun:I got to learn about him and some true history stuff too, like those ice stairs. People had to climb up 1500 of them or so, and we got to learn other such things about. When Montana Got put out of our work, 80% of Montana's for workforce got put out of work all and one stroke of a pin.
Nate:And why, like he didn't end up dead, did it dead dead?
Shaun:Yeah, like, I mean like super dead.
Nate:Like his, his body is found. A resting place is in multiple places today.