Simplify the following text for a Grade 8 native English-speaking person.
Original: When Disney filmmakers first contemplated a Scrooge feature cartoon in the fifties , the animators had no understanding of the Scrooge McDuck character and merely envisioned Scrooge as a duck version of Ebenezer Scrooge -- a very unsympathetic character .
Simplified: Scrooge McDuck or Uncle Scrooge is a fictional character first appearing in the comic book Christmas on Bear Mountain .