"A Little Something Special"

Er...uh. So some time ago, it was commenter Pan Miliuś' birthday, and in a fit of magnanimity, I offered to write about a story of his choice, which turned out to be this one. And then, there's no other way to say it, I just completely flaked the fuck out, and forgot about the whole thing before I actually did any writing (which he has generously failed to call me out on). So it's time to redress an old wrong. Sorry, dude! Uh...happy birthday, even though if anything, it's probably closer to your next birthday at this point! Or some other, future birthday! Who knows!

In my partial defense, I didn't keep putting it off just because I'm lazy. It's also because it weirds me out and embarrasses me in a way that no other Disney story does, and I always kinda felt that the best--or easiest, at least!--thing to do, therefore, was just ignore it. But I guess in the interest of free inquiry, I can no longer do that. So let's get the fuck into it. I'm going to assume that everyone reading this is familiar with this story, and I'm not going to try to go through it beat by beat.

The point of this story, of course, is to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of Scrooge's inaugural appearance in "Christmas on Bear Mountain," by celebrating his putative original arrival in Duckburg (according to Rosa's chronology, that would set this in 1952). So the main questions we want to ask is: what exactly are we celebrating, and how are we celebrating it?

Well, the easiest thing to point out here is the villains that we're commemorating. I don't think there's that much to say about this aspect of the story, to be honest. It works okay. It's true--as they awkwardly spell out for the benefit of readers, above--that none of the three "overlap," exactly. Villain team-ups rarely if ever avoid that gimmicky feeling, and there's a certain rote quality to their scheming, but, again--it's okay.

Hell, this part's even pretty funny, I think. Novel and amusing!

A minor complaint about this story may be the general lack of spectacle, which is surprising from Rosa, especially when he's specifically trying to do a Spectacular like this. That device could be super-cool, after the manner of dueling steam shovels or Paul Bunyan machines, but it never gets a chance to shine, and makes basically no impression. Perplexing.

But those are the villains. The question is, why are we celebrating Scrooge? What do we like about him? That is an enormous question.

Okay, but WHY WHY WHY?!? I mean, okay, so this "contest" is secretly being run by the villains, but FIFTY YEARS OF SCROOGE IN DUCKBURG is clearly meant to mean something! It's the whole point of the story!

(Sidenote: is that supposed to be...Von Drake on the right there? Unless it's the mysteriously vanished Casey Coot (seriously, what happened to that guy?), I don't see who ELSE it can be. Which just goes to show: a good part of Rosa's appeal is because he's so willing to push the limitations imposed on him to their absolute limits, but this can also be problematic: having the guy appear just once like this is distracting and just raises the question of why we don't see any more of him.)

I mean, the above is meant to be a joke, but, I mean, it's a pretty accurate representation of Rosa's Scrooge.  Why the fuck would anyone want to celebrate this asshole?

Do you find this particularly convincing?  'Cause to me, it seems like a pretty perfunctory effort at a justification.  See, I had an insight while thinking about this story, which I think explains a good part of why it doesn't exactly work for me. Because, sure, Scrooge has been great for the community--I guess? Maybe?--but really, who cares? Nobody who is a fan of Scrooge is a fan because of the economic benefits he's brought to the town. We're fans because he's adventurous and tough and smart and cantankerous-with-a-heart-of-gold, and his childlike relationship to money is fun.

DA POINT BEING: Scrooge is not a civic figure. You could make a good argument that he's anti-civic. His relationships that matter are those with his family, not with the community at large. And that's why emphasizing the latter just seems weirdly irrelevant.

OF COURSE, you could say that it's not fair of me to fixate on this one technical point and ignore what the story does have to offer. And to that I say: FAIR ENOUGH! SUFFICIENTLY FAIR! I really DO think the fact that the story is trying to do something incompatible with Scrooge's character is damaging, but I will admit that this undercity stuff is pretty neat (though probably thinking too hard about how this could've happened--in less than fifty years!--is not going to get you anywhere).

...this would be extremely compelling if the idea was that Scrooge was actually willing to let them escape with his money rather than destroy the city.  But...then, oh, he knew all along it wasn't gonna happen.  Whee?  Rosa really dropped the ball on this one.

This is pretty awesome, though. As far as Scrooge's alleged deep affection for the town goes, I'm gonna have to respond with a big ol' CITATION NEEDED. Still, Rosa pulls it well enough that that almost doesn't matter; you get swept away in spite of everything (though if we're really interested in this theme, the definitive piece is obviously "His Majesty, McDuck," which I recently reread for the first time in a long time and which is so good it makes me WEEP).

I mean, okay, AWWW. Rosa may oft err on the side of making Scrooge excessively mean, and this doesn't exactly make up for that, but still: AWWW.

Hoo boy, but now we're going to have to get into this "secret desire" stuff, and frankly, the whole reason I was reluctant to write about this story was because I really, really didn't WANT to talk about Scrooge's "secret desire." BUT WHAT THE HELL, RIGHT? LET'S DO THIS THING. DAMN THE TORPEDOES.

Look, let me start by confirming that I am a huge fan of Rosa. My occasional sniping shouldn't obscure that fact. Certain people from certain defunct Disney forums can get passive-aggressive about it all they like, but the fact is, he got popular because he was really, really good at doing a thing that resonated with a lot of people, including me. Obviously, that's not to say that his thing was the only valid thing that a Disney cartoonist can do, but the fact remains, what he was good at he was goddamn good at, and it really, really noticeably stood out from what every one else was doing. You can make a pretty durn persuasive case that if not for the renewed interest in the form that he kindled, we wouldn't have Disney comics in the States right now.

That said, his work, on occasion, has some serious flaws, many of which are closely related to the very things that make him great. As I noted above, his willingness to try to push his stories to do things that Disney comics aren't meant to do is exciting, and it's a large part of his appeal. On the other hand, the fact remains that when you're trying to do something and the form won't quite let you do it, the results can be unsatisfying, if not actually misbegotten. I feel like this is leading to something, somehow.

Man I KEEP trying to write something about Scrooge and Goldie, and then it keeps being unsatisfactory and I keep deleting it and starting over. This does not appear to be getting anywhere, so just forget it. Let's approach this part of the story for what it is.
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Okay, so in light of comments which have ably convinced me that I'm almost certainly wrong (how did this douchebag get a PhD in literary analysis? you may wonder. I often ask myself the same question), I feel that the responsible thing to do is to rewrite the second part of this entry. Partially this is because it only seems fair to Rosa, to whom I apologize for slandering his story (though given that what follows isn't going to be super-positive either, it's anyone's guess how far that apology goes).

In addition, it's partially because, hell, I feel I can do BETTER. I would like it to be the case that people browsing around years in the future who come across this blog will be able to glean value from this nonsense, and for that to happen, I feel like it's better if more than half of this post not be focused on tilting at windmills.

So, okay, for the record, as of right now, I do not believe that the idea that Goldie was shipped over for a brief assignation with Scrooge is a viable interpretation. HOWEVER, in fairness--fairness?--to me, at least part of this confusion is probably due to the fact that this aspect of Rosa's Scrooge is one that I find kind of hard to swallow in any case. Yes, I know that various entries I've written in the past contradict this, but for whatever reason, these days I'm a li'l less starry-eyed and a li'l more cynical about this relationship. I think "Last Sled to Dawson" is FINE, maybe Rosa's first great story, but I feel that there is value in leaving it at that. Because the more I think about it, the more dubious I get. Let's face it: after Scrooge leaves the Klondike, he and Goldie have been living separate lives for fifty years. It appears that they have had no contact between "Back to the Klondike" and "Dawson." Sure, maybe at one point they had a brief thing, and I'm not saying that that thing didn't have value and meaning for what it was, but c'mon, at this point they're effectively strangers. Why would you assume that their brief fling would translate at such a remove into long-term domesticity? Not that people haven't reunited under similar circumstances--more things on heaven and earth!--but the idea that this is DESTINED TO HAPPEN just feels incredibly immature to me. Look--I'm speaking from my own experience here, but I imagine many of you can relate--think about the first person you had a really intense romance with. Think about how all-consuming it seemed, and how the idea of living without this person seemed inconceivable. NOW, think back to that, keeping in mind that the interval between then and now is almost certainly a LOT less than fifty years, and ask yourself: do you think you're DESTINED to get back together? If you're like me, your answer is no, of course not, that's insane. I mean granted, judging Scrooge and Goldie purely by how "realistic" their relationship is may be missing the point by a good margin; there's room for romantic license. But boy--I just have so much trouble buying it; if something like this is gonna work at all, I feel like there has to be a lot of groundwork which Rosa never did--granted, in large part because, working under the Disney regime, he wouldn't have been allowed to, but I'm not judging anyone's platonic ideal of Scrooge/Goldie here; I'm judging what, for better or worse, we have.

Maybe there's more to it than that. Maybe some people aren't necessarily married (ho ho) to the idea of Scrooge and Goldie per se; they just think Scrooge may be lonely without female companionship. Aw, that's sweet. But--and I realize that this is probably the Most High Blasphemy, from Rosa's perspective--I have to say, I think that if such a thing needs to happen at all (not that I really think it does), probably Brigitta would be a better match for Scrooge than Goldie. Not Scarpa's original toxic, pathetically clingy Brigitta, of course, but the later, stronger version; sure, why not? They know each other well, they largely understand and have at least grudging respect for one another--I think the idea that their relationship could blossom into love is a lot more plausible than the idea that, at this late stage, Scrooge and Goldie would be right for one another. Feel free to tell me in comments that I'm crazy.

Well lookit me, I SAID I didn't want to write about Scrooge and Goldie, and then I barfed up six hundred words about them. Go me. BUT ANYWAY, the POINT of all this is that if I've had trouble really grasping the last part of this story, it's gotta be in part because I don't really grasp them these days.

One thing that hasn't changed for me about this story is that I continue to find Daisy's and Miss Quackfaster's sly smugness here hella creepy. Argh. I'm very strongly struck by Debbie Anne's idea, in comments, that these two may just really, really not know what they're doing. This runs strongly against Rosa's grain, but it seems to me that it makes a lot of sense to think of this segment in those terms. There's all sorts of unresolved stuff here that they don't have a clue about; they're just mixing volatile chemicals willy nilly and blithely assuming nothing bad will come of it. Scrooge isn't wrong to be upset about this.

For all my criticism of this, I'll admit that that first panel is an effective bit of staging, as she appears like a vision. Can we concede, at least, that "Something only I can give him! Just a little something...special!" is an awkward line, and that my original interpretation was not wholly out of left field? Also, did Rosa take his notion of what ducks kissing on the lips should look like straight from Barks' prehistoric ten-pager "Lifeguard Daze?"

Survey sez yes!

And now, I'm going to push back just a little regarding what I think is going on here. Do I think that Miss Quackfaster and Daisy specifically summoned Goldie for some sorta one-night stand? Well, no; I think the most likely thing is that they didn't have all that clear an idea of what exactly was going to happen when the two of them were together. Just try it an' see! Still, even if it's not quite as crass as I was originally envisioning it, I think it's certainly true that--as with any romantic relationship, particularly one as fraught at this one--love and lust are all tangled up in Scrooge's mind, and Goldie's possible sexual availability right here right now can't not be part of what's going through his head, even if Goldie isn't talking dirty to him there--even if it's more along the lines of a marriage proposal (say). Certainly, Scrooge's shell-shocked appearance there is due to all of this shit that's been simmering in his mind utterly unexpectedly all coming to a boil at once.

(I won't deny that that whisper does still bug me; it's hard to think of any really natural-sounding thing she could be saying there that makes a whole lot of sense. I know it's meant to be ambiguous, but there's good-ambiguous and bad-ambiguous.)

Seriously, I would LOVE to hear what people think about that whole "this won't be something for the eyes of a Junior Woodchuck" bit, 'cause I am NOT buying that it can possibly have anything to do with that kiss, which is something you could see in any ol' PG-rated movie, and which in any case I presume--hope!--that Daisy and Miss Quackfaster aren't spying on Scrooge and Goldie either. To me, this has gotta be the most maladroit thing in the story, and I'm having a lot of trouble thinking of a way that it makes sense.

...I will concede that "I'll wait" doesn't necessarily mean "...for a few minutes, while you psych yourself up," especially given that "bye, Scrooge." Yes, it's more likely that it's a "come up north when you're ready and we'll get this show on the road" sort of thing. But dammit, this is just more of the sort of thing that annoys me about this whole "romance:" more deferment? Seriously, fifty years wasn't enough? You're no spring chickens, you know!  I mean JEEZ, if you REALLY need a little more time, it can't be more than a few days, so just get her a hotel room!  Her going back to the Klondike again is pure idiocy!  Let alone having her wait years while you do more adventures.  And THIS, for good and all, may be where Disney's strictures trip Rosa up. Yes, MORE deferment, because that's the way it has to be, by Disney law! I mean, not that Disney law is even wrong about this; obviously you can't suddenly have Scrooge be married. But it's just death for this storyline, I'm sorry to say.

...and I would still really like to know what these bars of music are. SOMEONE has to know!