Thursday, February 13, 2020

"Scrooge McDrooge Wanderer"


Today we shall look at a story from 1954, and a question you may be asking yourself is, "is it REALLY called 'Scrooge McDrooge Wanderer?'  Because that does NOT sound like a name for a story." Well, that shows you much YOU know, you insolent clod.

Actually, as is often the case, the story was originally untitled, so I went to look at foreign language titles to see if any would serve. And in Italian, this is called "Paperon de' Paperoni vagabondo," and when you paste that into Google Translate:


There you go. Google Translate does know the names of a number of Disney characters, so this seems to be a mixture of that and something or other with Italian grammar that I really couldn't tell you.


It doesn't know that his first name is "Balthazar," however. In any event, this is all I wanted to say about this story, we're done here, have a good summer vacation, everyone!


I kid, of course. Today's story is bad and dumb, but I wanted to write about it even before I knew about that very mildly amusing naming thing, for a reason that you will soon see. As you can see, it's a Duck Album story, and boy, I don't know. I mean, I do remember that I really, really liked the concept when I was a kid, so obviously it worked on some level, but it still seems like SUCH a bizarre and pointless thing to do when the pictures they show almost universally could never have been taken by anybody. What is the PURPOSE of this concept?!?


We start with this. I suppose it's perhaps at least a LITTLE interesting to see how early writers other than Barks were conceiving of Scrooge as a character. This "there's more to life than money!" stuff really seems like someone not quite sure what kind of rich guy he is; still figuring things out. It IS pretty funny that in this world, he apparently just dumps his money in a giant pile in his living room. Even when Barks showed him having a house separate from the Money Bin, I don't think he ever showed anything quite like that!


Would Scrooge REALLY think of this as so horrible? I mean, sure he sometimes wants to get away from the stress of modern life, but does he ever really want to get away from his money, per se? If he does, he definitely regrets it quickly. "And those hills--oh no! To me they look like ten billion dollars!" Okay, I have to admit, there ARE some dopily amusing things here...


He "oughta know"...WHAT, exactly? Well, obviously, that he's a "zillion-billionaire." But that is damned weird way to put that. Anyway, please anticipate the next panel with bated breath...


YES! It's bootleg, floppy-eared Beagle Boys! THAT'S what's worthy of note (if anything is) about this story! Are these the first-ever non-Barks Beagles? That's a question I could easily have answered at one point, but Inducks' character-index-by-date functionality is currently not working, so now it's extremely difficult. That functionality is actually REALLY important for anyone interested in Disney-comics history, so I hope someone's working on fixing it.

At any rate, these guys sure are gormless-looking, especially the one on the right in the bottom left panel. You get the impression that the artist (hi, Phil DeLara!) had maybe at some point seen a picture of a Beagle but didn't remember it too well. Or maybe he just had the impression that "Beagle Boys," as a concept, was more loose and impressionistic than it turned out to be. Regardless: ha ha! Your Beagles look dumb!


Also, they're incredibly timid and useless, it seems. I can't help noting that the ONLY evidence they have that the butler is in fact named "Jeeves" is Scrooge's assertion to that effect. Nobody is impressing me here.


Anyway, he can't get in because ol' Jeeves won't let him. I guess this is at least in keeping with the "everyone is fooled by really obvious disguises" trope. Note that Jeeves too appears to have big floppy ears. Note that this character is for some reason indexed on Inducks, as "Jeeves from W OS 560-3," even though he appears nowhere else. Catchy name, certainly.


Credit where due, it is legit kind of clever of DeLara to have him looking longingly at that bird pulling up a worm. I also like--what can I say; I'm easily-amused--the way those hot dogs the mother and son are holding just look like huge loaves of bread that they're chowing down on. Deeee-licious!


"A trillion-billion." Obviously, the numbers aren't stable when it comes to Scrooge's money, but that still just sounds awkward. Anyway, this is it; this is the end of the story. Heh, heh! "Chomp! Chomp!" looks like it's emanating from the plate instead of Scrooge's mouth. What is that, anyway? Just a big ol' plate of rice?

Well, that was kind of an anti-climax. Bye!

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15 Comments:

Blogger Achille Talon said...

I reckon you know that, but a fairer translation of the Italian title would be "Scrooge McDuck the Hobo", "The Hobo Scrooge McDuck", or something of that nature.

I like those Beagles, really. I definitely think the variety of art in Disney comics lost something when it was decided that Goofy aside, all anthropomorphic-dog characters would just generically be "dogs", as opposed to having different families of designs based on different dog breeds.

Also, how insane is it that Scrooge doesn't get himself recognized by Donald and Daisy? Jeeves is one thing (though this story would go very differently in Italy if this were Albert Quackmore), but surely he'd be ablet o make them believe him via personal details and the like.

February 13, 2020 at 4:58 AM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

Welp, I bee seing these Beagle Boys in my nightmare today so thahnk you for that Mr. G.


I do belive however that you previewsly review a story with first NON-Barks Beagle Boys apperance which was "Still the Champion" (or at least that what some people calmed in the comment section of your review for that story, which I belive Achille Talon comfirm)

It would be fun if you would make run down of some of the first Non-Barks apperances of some characters like Gladstone, Magica or Glomgold.

February 13, 2020 at 7:17 AM  
Anonymous Drleevezan said...

Per INDUCKS, the first non-Barks Beagle appearance was in the Bottaro story Paperino e i piatti volanti. The first Westen non-Barks Beagle appearance was in Still the Champion, which you reviewed some time ago.

February 13, 2020 at 9:03 AM  
Anonymous Drleevezan said...

Other first non-Barks appearances:

-Gladstone: W CP 3-02, "Presents For All", 1951 (Del Connell, Bob Moore)

-Gyro: W OS 492-06, "Snapshot Memories!", 1953 (Al Hubbard)

-Little Helper: I TL 184-B, "Paperino e la macchina ripetitrice", 1958 (Guido Martina, Luciano Bottaro)

-Scrooge: W WH B6-01, "Trail Blazer", 1950 (Bob Moore)

-April, May, and June: W DG 35-02, "The Course in Confusion", 1960 (Pete Alvarado) [just April], W OS 1140-03, "Easy Does It", 1960 (Tony Strobl, John Liggera) [all three]

-Glomgold: I TL 608-B, "Zio Paperone e il bisbilione", 1967 (Osvaldo Pavese, Giuseppe Perego)

-Goldie: I TL 577-A, "The Miner's Granddaughter", 1966 (Romano Scarpa)

-Cornelius Coot: I TL 291-B, "Archimede Pitagorico e l'uomo medio", 1961 (Carlo Chendi, Luciano Capitanio)

-Magica: I TL 360-A, "Zio Paperone e la strega antistrega", 1962 (Giampaolo Barosso, Giuseppe Perego)

February 13, 2020 at 10:01 AM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

Wow, thank you Drleevazan. This is all very interesting stuff.

I did rea "Zio Paperone e il bisbilone" story and it was very interesting to see early non-Barks apperance of Glomgold especialy since not only he was closer to his first apperance but it was the first (and for very long time the only time) he and Rockerduck interacted.

February 13, 2020 at 11:23 AM  
Blogger GeoX, one of the GeoX boys. said...

I reckon you know that, but a fairer translation of the Italian title would be "Scrooge McDuck the Hobo", "The Hobo Scrooge McDuck", or something of that nature.

Well, I mean, obviously, call him hobo, vagabond, poor wayfaring stranger, whatever; that's straightforward enough. The only amusing thing--if you think it's amusing--is the inexplicable "McDrooge."

February 13, 2020 at 12:43 PM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

Scrooge the tramp

February 13, 2020 at 12:45 PM  
Blogger Achille Talon said...

Oh, sure, and funny it is. I just meant to point out that "Wanderer" was also fairly inaccurate.

February 13, 2020 at 3:18 PM  
Anonymous Elaine said...

Ah, I get the same thing when I put the Italian title into Google Translate. My guess is that it's a misprint put in by somebody who was submitting an "improved translation." Amusingly, if you click on Scrooge McDrooge to get the alternate translation, you get "Scrooge Scrooge tramp"! I use Google Translate a LOT with plot descriptions from INDUCKS, and often the main translation will be halfway decent English with the names untranslated, while the alternate translation will translate the names more or less correctly and be unreadable English. Go figure.

@Achille: maybe Scrooge wanted to get a free meal out of Daisy before proving his identity to them and bringing them back to Jeeves as his witnesses.

February 13, 2020 at 3:36 PM  
Anonymous Elaine said...

Also, the reversed colors on the bootleg Beagles look weird. Blue shirts/orange pants and caps.

February 13, 2020 at 4:17 PM  
Blogger Pan Miluś said...

Actualy the scenario from this story makes me think of a tale from 1000 and one nigts. In the story there was a greedy spoiled prince who was a total a-hole. One day he notice drunk hobo in his garden, he found him amusing and for fun he got the idea to switch places for a day with the drunk... sort of a Prince and the Pauper scenario, exept this story pre-dates it and here the entire kingdom was in on the joke.

HOWEVER it turn out that for a day of the drunk hobo ruling the life in the kignhdoom was better and prosper more then during the entrie year of Princess rulling, so when the next day the Prince rurn they pretended he is still a hobo and din't let him in to the palace and they let the drunk rule as a supirior monarh.

THE END... (Copyright Scheherazade)

...Not sure why I just retold entire thing but it's a fun story with a nice message so there you go.

February 13, 2020 at 4:41 PM  
Blogger Erik said...

Rover, wanderer, nomad, vagabond, call him what you wiiiillllllll- YEAH

February 15, 2020 at 8:32 AM  
Blogger Richie said...

I'm a fan of Scrooge getting a taste of the cannon-to-the-face he was occassionally all too eager to pull on visitors in Barks' stories.

February 15, 2020 at 12:20 PM  
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