Scrooge McDuck

Named the #1 in Forbes magazine's Top 15 Richest Fictional Characters in 2007, 2011, and 2013.
NAVGTR nomination Template:Small

## Character information

### Occupation

Business tycoon
Treasure hunter
Banker

### Home

Scotland (birthplace)
McDuck Manor, Duckburg (current residence)

### Pet(s)

Polly (parrot)
Baron Itzy Bitzy (flea)
Lucky (lemming)
Clementine (cat)

### Minions

Launchpad McQuack, Gyro Gearloose, Miss Quackfaster, Bentina Beakley, Duckworth, Fenton Crackshell

### Likes

Money, his family, his Number One Dime, gold, ice cream (especially sea-salt ice cream), playing the bagpipes, swimming in his money bin, making money, hunting valuable treasure, adventures, hard work, nutmeg tea, being an adventurer, trapping guests at the ground floor of his money bin

### Dislikes

His family in danger, losing money, dishonesty, Donald's temper, his nephews causing trouble, rivalries, being robbed, luck, laziness, gambling, Launchpad's crashing

### Paraphernalia

His cane
Number One Dime

### Quote

"I made me fortune by being smarter than the smarties and tougher than the toughies."
"Bless me bagpipes!"
"Curse me kilts!"

> After all, adventure is the mother of industry!
>
> Scrooge McDuck, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep

**Scrooge McDuck** (also known as **Uncle Scrooge**) is a Scottish duck created by Carl Barks. Named after Ebenezer Scrooge from Template:WikipediaLink' 1843 novel *Template:WikipediaLink*, he is Donald Duck's rich and miserly uncle, whose primary character trait is his extreme thriftiness. Scrooge first appeared in *Four Color Comics* #178 in the story *Christmas on Bear Mountain*, published in December of 1947.

Scrooge is the richest duck in the world, an achievement he credits to having been "smarter than the smarties, tougher than the toughies, and making it square." Identified by his stately attire (including his top hat, pince-nez spectacles, spats, and cane), Scrooge's money is not only a symbol of his frugality, but also his resilience and industriousness. As such, he prides his fortune to the point of being an avaricious tightwad, though he is honorable at his core.

As the character was further developed over the years, Scrooge would become Barks' most famous creation, and still regularly appears in Disney comics produced for the European market to this day. Known for swimming in his cash, the character has become synonymous with wealth in pop culture. Though comics remain his most fruitful medium, Scrooge transcends his origins as he would find success in other media such as animation and even video games, making him one of the most popular and recognizable Disney characters.

## Background

Scrooge was born in Glasgow, Scotland, to Fergus McDuck and Downy O'Drake. He was the eldest of four children, consisting of him, his younger brother, Gideon, and two younger sisters, namely Matilda and Hortense; by the latter, Scrooge would have his closest nephew, Donald Duck. As the story goes, Scrooge's first encounter with money came as a young shoeshiner. After completing his first shine, Scrooge was rewarded with an American dime. This birthed Scrooge's business philosophy of working hard and honestly, while the dime itself would become the foundation of Scrooge's wealth and his most cherished possession. Scrooge was further inspired to emigrate to the United States in search of his fortune. He would eventually find a home in the city of Duckburg.

Following Scrooge's leave from Scotland, he would embark on numerous adventures across the globe in search of treasure and other ways to expand his wealth. He would garner numerous rivals during his adventures, including his arch-rival Flintheart Glomgold, Glittering Goldie (with whom Scrooge would develop an ambiguously romantic relationship), and a large organization of crooks collectively known as the Beagle Boys.

As the years passed, Scrooge became increasingly obsessed with his wealth. So much so, that he gradually lost contact with his family and lacked much of a social circle. Despite having earned an honest living, Scrooge's reputation was that of an excessively shrewd and sometimes ruthless businessman who puts money above all else. His living conditions vary between stories, but he is most famously depicted as living in McDuck Manor. The bulk of Scrooge's wealth (mainly gold coins) resides in his Money Bin; when not tending to his business endeavors, Scrooge spends his time diving into his bin and swimming about its golden depths as if it were a pool.

### Age

Scrooge is depicted as an elderly duck. The only time a specific age was stated was in the 1955 one page comic, *Watt An Occasion* (*Uncle Scrooge* #12), by Scrooge's creator Carl Barks, where Scrooge celebrates his 75th birthday. According to the comic *Zio Paperone e l'oro del Klondike* ("Uncle Scrooge and the Gold of the Klondike"), by noted Disney artist Romano Scarpa, Scrooge was born in 1897, making him 73 years of age when the story was first published in 1970. However, in Don Rosa's *The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck*, Scrooge celebrates his 10th birthday in 1877 (according to the cover of the comic book), thus making him 80 years old when he meets his nephews in the last chapter of the series. In *DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp* he refers to 40 years as "most of his life", placing his age under 80 years. In the 2017 incarnation of *DuckTales*, Scrooge was born in 1867, as in Don Rosa's stories, but through various adventures involving such things as being frozen, trapped in alternate dimensions, or discovering the fountain of youth, ended up extending his life significantly and well into the modern-day, putting him chronologically around 150 at the show's beginning (allowing the writers to maintain his 19th-century origins from Barks' classic comics created in the 1940s-60s), while maintaining an ambiguous elderly but fit physical age.

### Personality

> No man is poor who can do what he likes to do once in a while! And I like to dive around in my money like a porpoise! And burrow through it like a gopher! And toss it up and let it hit me on the head!
>
> Scrooge McDuck, Only a Poor Old Man

Scrooge McDuck's prestigious title of the "richest duck in the world" was earned through years of hard work, well-utilized intelligence, honesty, and perseverance, and, extreme thriftiness. He is an adventurer and opportunist, having trotted some of the most exotic corners of the world in search of treasure and wealth. Scrooge's expertise and lucrative business methods have put him leagues beyond his competition, and he carries this reputation knowingly and with pride. He has a great love for money, gold, and other valuable treasure, and experiences great distress when his money is in danger, and goes to great lengths to spend as little money as possible and protect his beloved fortune from getting stolen or otherwise harmed. In doing so, Scrooge constantly has to protect his money from countless threats like the Beagle Boys, who keep trying to break into Scrooge's Money Bin and rob him of the hoards of cash stores inside, and the conniving sorceress Magica De Spell, who is determined to steal Scrooge's Number One Dime, in order to melt it into an amulet that will grant her the Midas Touch.

In putting so much time and dedication into increasing his wealth, Scrooge has become somewhat of a lone cheapskate over the years. Cold and nearly unforgiving, he is deathly protective of his fortune, and seldom spends any more of it than he has to. When asked to donate to the poor, Scrooge exclaimed, "They're not worth it!". Like his nephew Donald, Scrooge has also a temper, and rarely hesitates to use violence against those who provoke his ire (often his nephew Donald, but also bill and tax collectors as well as door-to-door salesmen). As such, he is extremely mistrustful of anyone trying to enter his office in his Money Bin; a common running gag is that he welcomes visitors with a cannon and a lit matchstick, ready to fire if whoever is at the door is not welcome. Similarly, Scrooge's office has a trap door (which is located opposite Scrooge's desk and often covered with a rug), which Scrooge activates whenever he wants his visitor to leave immediately. Upon activation, the door opens and the baffled intruder falls into it, passes through all the floors via an ejection chute, and usually lands in a trash can outside the building.

For a long period of time after gaining his extensive wealth, Scrooge practically lived alone and had little contact with his family. This would partially play into his bitterness, though things would slowly change as he opened himself up to his nephews Donald, and Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Scrooge would grow increasingly more compassionate as he spent more time with his nephews, going as far as to regularly invite them on his international treasure hunts as partners and loyal sidekicks. Like Donald, Scrooge is still greedy and hot-tempered at times. A majority of his employees and business associates still consider him an imposing figure even, but he is essentially good-hearted and well-meaning. He values honesty and fair play, firmly believing that great fortune should be squarely earned. Furthermore, while he can be undoubtedly selfish at times, Scrooge will never leave behind someone in urgent need and has even rescued some of his most formidable foes from certain death.

Beyond obtaining wealth, Scrooge's exploits also provided valuable lessons in both a practical and moral sense, which he would make certain to reflect on in his following years. With age, Scrooge became wise and knowledgeable, and regularly puts this wisdom to good use when raising his nephews, specifically Huey, Dewey, and Louie, and has shown pride in their eagerness to learn the value of a dollar.

### Wealth

Scrooge has worked his way up the financial ladder from humble immigrant roots. Spending his youth in Glasgow, Scotland, he made a living shining boot. His "Old Number One" is his most famous prized possession, and has been considered to be the source of his immense fortune, However, Scrooge has privately confided to Donald and the nephews that the dime's "great luck" may only be a superstition. In 1964's *Getting That Healthy, Wealthy Feeling*, drawn by Tony Strobl and written by Carl Fallberg (*Uncle Scrooge* #50), Scrooge reveals that he earned his first dime when he was a shoeshine boy in his youth, a concept that originated from Carl Barks' and Vic Lockman's 1963 comic *The Invisible Intruder* (*Uncle Scrooge* #44), and would later reappear in the *DuckTales* episode "Once Upon a Dime", as well as *The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck*. In *Of Ducks, Dimes and Destinies* (*Uncle Scrooge* #297), it was revealed to the reader that the dime originated from the wealthy and boastful American Howard Rockerduck, father of Scrooge's future business rival, John D. Rockerduck.

Touring through Glasgow, Howard tossed pocket money to some playing children, where the particular dime was caught by Scrooge's sister Matilda, who gave it to her father, Fergus McDuck. In an attempt to get Scrooge to set his mind on serious business, Fergus handed the dime to his friend, Burt the ditch-digger and asked if he would go to Scrooge's street shoeshine business to shine his extra dirty boots. Getting paid with the worthless American coin after his hard work, Scrooge decided to "be smarter than the smarties and tougher than the toughies, and make [his money] square". The dime also inspired him to seek his fortune in America.

Scrooge is now the richest duck in the world, slightly surpassing that of Flintheart Glomgold, who is second only to Scrooge, resulting in their enmity, John D. Rockerduck, and, less prominently, the Maharajaja of the fictional country Howdoyoustan (a play on Hindustan).

Scrooge is said to own "three cubic acres of cash", a phrase that originated from Barks' stories. He stores his wealth in a massive Money Bin overlooking the city of Duckburg. In the Dutch and Italian Disney comics, he regularly forces Donald and his nephews to polish the coins one by one in order to pay off Donald's debts. Scrooge will not even pay them much for this lengthily, tedious, hand-breaking work. As far as he is concerned, even thirty cents an hour is too much expenditure.

A shrewd businessman and noted tightwad, his hobbies include diving into his money like a porpoise, burrowing through it like a gopher and throwing coins into the air to feel them fall upon his skull. He is also the richest member of The Billionaires Club of Duckburg, a society that includes the most successful businessmen of the world and allows them to keep connections with each other. Glomgold and Rockerduck are also influential members of the Club. The sum of Scrooge's wealth is disputed. According to Barks' *The Second Richest Duck*, Scrooge is worth "one multiplujillion, nine obsquatumatillion, six hundred twenty-three dollars and sixty-two cents." *The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck* notes that Scrooge amounts to "five multiplujillion, nine impossibidillion, seven fantasticatrillion dollars and sixteen cents". In "The Menehune Mystery", Donald gives the only time Scrooge's net worth has been mathematically represented, saying that Scrooges wealth amounted to $500,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000.16 (five hundred quattuorvigintillion dollars and sixteen cents). Notably, this is not only more money than exists on earth, it is more money than could be stored on earth, or in the solar system. In 2007, Forbes listed his wealth at a much more modest $28.8 billion. Whatever the amount, Scrooge never considers it enough; he always wants to continue earning money by any honest means possible. He is also extremely unwilling to spend any of his fortune, and always thinks of plans to decrease his expenses as much as possible, and lives an overall frugal lifestyle.

## History

### Creation; 1940s-1950s

 File:Scrooges1stAppearance.png
Scrooge, an elderly uncle of previously established character Donald Duck, made his first named appearance in *Christmas on Bear Mountain* in December 1947, a story written and drawn by Disney Legend Carl Barks. His appearance may have been based on a similar-looking, nameless Scottish character from the 1943 propaganda short *The Spirit of '43*.

In his debut, Scrooge was a bearded, bespectacled, reasonably wealthy old duck, visibly leaning on his cane, and living in isolation in a "huge mansion". Scrooge's misanthropic thoughts in this first story are quite pronounced: *"Here I sit in this big lonely dump, waiting for Christmas to pass! Bah! That silly season when everybody loves everybody else! A curse on it! Me—I'm different! Everybody hates me, and I hate everybody!"* Barks later reflected, "Scrooge in *Christmas on Bear Mountain* was only my first idea of a rich, old uncle. I had made him too old and too weak. I discovered later on that I had to make him more active. I could not make an old guy like that do the things I wanted him to do."

Although initially only intended as a one-off character, Barks found more use for the character, and Scrooge returned the following year in the 1948 Barks comic *The Old Castle's Secret*, where Scrooge calls upon his nephews to help him find Sir Quackly’s treasure at his ancestral castle in the fictional Scottish village of Dismal Downs. It marked the first time Scrooge's Scottish ancestry was first established, as well as the first time that Scrooge took his nephews on a treasure hunt, which would become a recurring theme for the many comics that would follow.

While Barks was developing Uncle Scrooge's character, he also introduced numerous aspects of Scrooge's character that have since become iconic of the character. In *Voodoo Hoodoo* (1949), Scrooge could be seen bathing in his money for the first time, while in *Billions to Sneeze At* (1951), the idea of Scrooge swimming in his money was introduced. Scrooge's Money Bin made its first appearance in 1952's *The Big Bin on Killmotor Hill*, and Scrooge's characteristic Number One Dime first appeared in *The Round Money Bin* (1953).

### 1950s-1970s

 File:Racetosouthseas8.jpeg
*The Magic Hourglass*, first published in September 1950, was one of the first stories to change the focus of the Duck stories from Donald to Scrooge. During the story, several themes were introduced for Scrooge.

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

The latter theme would be developed further in later stories. Barks and current Scrooge writers have depicted Scrooge as being fluent in Arabic, Dutch, German, Mongolian, Spanish, Mayan, Bengali, Finnish, and various dialects of Chinese. Scrooge acquired this knowledge from years of living or traveling to the various regions of the world where those languages are spoken.

In *The Magic Hourglass*, Scrooge was shown in a more positive light than in previous stories, but his more villainous side was present too. Scrooge is seen in this story attempting to reacquire a magic hourglass that he gave to Donald, before finding out that it acted as a protective charm for him. Scrooge starts losing one billion dollars each minute and comments that he will go bankrupt within 600 years. This line is a parody of Orson Welles's line in Citizen Kane: “You know, Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I'll have to close this place in... 60 years”. To convince his nephews to return it, he pursues them throughout Morocco, where they had headed to earlier in the story. Memorably during the story, Scrooge interrogates Donald by having him tied up and tickled with a feather in an attempt to get Donald to reveal the hourglass's location. Scrooge finally manages to retrieve it, exchanging it for a flask of water, as he had found his nephews exhausted and left in the desert with no supplies. As Scrooge explains, he intended to give them a higher offer, but he just could not resist having somebody at his mercy without taking advantage of it.

 File:Disney-comics-born-in-the-funnies-scrooge-feat-2.jpg
In 1952, the first story with Uncle Scrooge as its titular character appeared, called *Only a Poor Old Man*. With the success of the first tryout issues with Scrooge as its titular character, Scrooge began starring in his own comic book series, called *Uncle Scrooge*. Ever since, Scrooge, besides being featured in many more *Uncle Scrooge*-titled adventure comics, has also starred in a large number of one-page gag comics, usually centered around his extreme stinginess.

The above-mentioned stories all being written and drawn by his creator Carl Barks, Scrooge was never used by any other writer or artist until his appearance in a 1950 comic called *Trail Blazer* by Bob Moore, followed by many more artists and writers who picked up the Scrooge character for their own stories. Barks kept writing and drawing Uncle Scrooge comics until his retirement in 1967.

Late in 1954, Barks (who had worked as a story writer on the Donald Duck theatrical cartoons shorts at the Disney Studios from 1935 to 1942, before starting his work on the comic books) was asked by the Disney Studios if he would be free to write a script for a Scrooge McDuck 7-minute animated cartoon. Scrooge was a huge success in the comic books at the time, and Disney now wanted to introduce the miserly duck to theater audiences as well. Barks supplied the studios with a detailed 9-page script, which was accompanied by a synopsis telling the story of the happy-go-lucky Donald Duck working for the troubled Scrooge who tries to save his money from a hungry rat. Barks also sent some sketches of his ideas for the short, including a money-sorting machine, which Barks had already used on the cover of one of the *Uncle Scrooge* issues. The script was never used as Disney soon after decided to concentrate on TV shows instead.

 File:Scrooge in Scrooge McDuck and Money.jpg
Scrooge's first appearance in animated form (save for a brief cameo appearance on the *Mickey Mouse Club* television series) was in the 1967 theatrical featurette *Scrooge McDuck and Money*, in which he teaches his nephews some basic financial tips. In this featurette, Scrooge was voiced by veteran voice actor Bill Thompson, who had previously voiced a number of other Scottish characters, including Jock from *Lady and the Tramp*. In the short, Huey, Dewey, and Louie come to Scrooge with their piggy bank in hand, wanting advice on how they can save it and one day to become wealthy like Scrooge. Scrooge agrees that the boys should learn more about money, and begins with history, first talking about ancient forms of money. After several other lessons, Scrooge leads the boys into his boardroom and accepts their piggy bank, making them stockholders. Scrooge takes a small fee for his time and consultation, informing the boys that good things are never free.

Despite only having made one theatrical appearance at the time, Scrooge was one of the characters who was featured in the popular arena show *Disney on Parade* in 1969, appearing in a comical segment alongside his nephew Donald.

In the 1970s, a number of years into his retirement, Barks wrote a number of comics centered around the Junior Woodchucks, with shrewd industrialist Scrooge often appearing as the antagonist towards the nature-preserving scouting group.

1. ↑ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G7FWRkqVMC8
2. ↑ http://voicechasers.com/database/showprod.php?prodid=3929
3. ↑ http://www.mousevinyl.com/content/dickens-christmas-carol-disneyland-records
4. ↑ Tom Andrae, *Carl Barks and the Disney Comic Book: Unmasking the Myth of Modernity* (2006)
5. ↑ http://www.cbarks.dk/thestorycommentariesfc0456.htm
6. ↑ http://www.cbarks.dk/thecorrespondence1960s.htm
7. ↑ To Alan Young for Best Recording For Children (*Mickey's Christmas Carol*, 1977)
8. ↑ To Alan Young for Performance in a Comedy, Lead (*DuckTales Remastered*, 2014)
9. ↑ http://coa.inducks.org/story.php?c=W+OS++282-02
10. ↑ http://coa.inducks.org/character.php?c=Clementine+and+her+kittens
11. ↑ http://www.cbarks.dk/themiser.htm
12. ↑ http://www.cbarks.dk/theshelvedcartoonapproach.htm
13. ↑ http://www.cbarks.dk/theshelvedcartoonsynopsis.htm
14. ↑ http://www.cbarks.dk/theshelvedcartoonsketches.htm
15. ↑ https://youtu.be/pgLU-d0OgWE?t=1m8s