"History Tossed," "Immovable Miser," "Windfall of the Mind," "Forgotten Precaution"

Yup, time for this again.  What can I say?  I wasn't feeling very creative this week, and I always enjoy doing these.  And this week we have not just three but FOUR pages, for reasons of, I suppose, uncontrolled exuberance.

History Tossed

I find this one goddamn hilarious, actually.  I don't want to bury the lede.  If you're not American, maybe you don't know certain aspects of our cultural mythology, but yes, there is a story that George Washington hurled a dollar across the Potomac River in Virginia.  "What is the purpose of this myth?" you might ask.  Well, obviously, to show how fucking RIPPED our first President was.  He was hella great at throwing stuff.  Really fills you with patriotic pride, doesn't it?  Well, obviously, this weird story is apocryphal, because a) there were no dollars at the time; b) the Potomac is over a mile wide; and c) OF  COURSE it is; you don't need a reason.  I don't think too many people think much about Washington in those terms today; sure, they instinctively idolize him should he come up, but you certainly don't often hear these stories repeated.

Still!  It's real for the purposes of this gag.  There's even a sign!  You can always trust signs.  So basically, the idea is that Scrooge McDuck is way fuckin' better than George Washington.  It's pretty transparent.  That "yessir! Quite a feat that was! Quite a feat!" is clearly being delivered in a condescending tone, isn't it?  "Yeah, I threw a dollar across and caught it before it hit the ground, but no, man, really--your thing was impressive too."  The country might not be in such a smoking ruin if only we appreciated our cartoon ducks more than our loser slaveholder founders.  Such is my opinion.

Anyway.  This is probably also appropriate because, oh, here we have a concrete historical thing (its actual realness being irrelevant).  And hey, Scrooge--as I've noted billions of times--is different from other Disney characters in that he's actually historically situated.  Works out.

I suppose the biggest question here is: what exactly is going through Scrooge's mind as he decides to pull a Washington?  Does he actually just think, hey, I could do that better?  I mean, maybe, but that's not the impression I get.  I feel like he looks at the sign and, in a neutral kind of way, takes it as a challenge.  It seems at least possible that his charging across the river to catch it wasn't something he had planned out; it was just a last minute "WHOA, I don't want to lose a whole dollar!" thing.

This is obvious if you think about it for one second, but it may be worth pointing out that Scrooge is on the East Coast here.  I'm straining very hard to make that mean something, though it's not easy.  Sure, he could be there for all kinds of reasons, but that's neither here nor there.  Maybe, if we can wildly speculate, we can suggest that this is, if not his first time there, then at least his first time really looking at/engaging with the history.  Obviously, our European legacy is a bit deeper in the east, and all the stuff having to do with the founding of the country is there.  Scrooge must ask himself: how do I fit in here?  What does my status as a first-generation immigrant mean?  He could, anyway.  This story, in my head, is deeper than anyone ever thought!

Immovable Miser

Here we have a story where Scrooge prevails through sheer force of will.  He's sitting on this bench and he is NOT goddamn going to move, and SCREW you all!  Truly, an allegory for our time.  The story also raises a few questions, though: okay, so he needs to go downtown.  But where exactly is he meant to be as the story opens, and how did he get there?  Actually, I guess that's really the main question.  It's like a kind of writing prompt: Scrooge is uptown and he wants to get downtown but how did he initially get up?  This is the question you must answer.  Was he kidnapped by Beagles and dropped off far from home?  Did Gyro's new transportation catapult system malfunction?  Is this a contest with Gladstone where he has to get from A to B using only luck?  WHAT?!?  I suppose pointing out that as a successful plutocrat, he one hundred percent definitely has to have reliable transportation would be missing the spirit of the thing.  We all know that the exact nature of Scrooge's whole DEAL is decidedly situational.

One thing I do like is how it's really not clear at what point he devises this plan.  You could suggest that when he sees these guys and hears what they're doing, a lightbulb goes off in his head leading to his ornery obstinacy.  That would be in-character, and the fact that they DO specifically say they're going "down-town" does seem to be a strong argument for it.  Then again, it's also easy to posit that he's tired, he's finally getting to relax for a few minutes, and these irritating dudes seemingly made just to harrass him show up, and he loses his temper, as one might.  As someone on the spectrum myself, I can identify with that, hard.  In this scenario, the fact that he ends up getting where he needs to go isn't due to any planning on his part; it's just luck.  I would guess that it's meant to be the former, but I kiind of prefer the latter.

There IS one other weird thing about this that deserves comment: the truck in question has the phrase "CITY TRASH TRUCK" emblazoned on it.  What?  Why?  There's no trash involved here; we're just repainting benches.  I do find it quite funny that no effort has been made to organize and effectively stow the benches; in the bottom left we can see they're just in a big ol' jumble, but that's neither here nor there.  Probably.  Okay okay, maybe the city is just saving money by repurposing its garbage trucks.  That's a straightforward, if boring, explanation.  Or maybe it's some kind of baroque tax-avoidance scheme: if we use certain vehicles to do certain things we can reclassify them thusly, and that will save us x amount of money.  Or maybe it's something even weirder.  I do feel like something's afoot, though, that you're not going to get just by giving the story a once-over.  Feel free to suggest your own conspiracies!

Windfall of the Mind

Love that psychedelic title that someone came up with.

Okay, so what's all THIS then?  Scrooge falls asleep at the "get rich quick" conference and dreams of finding coins.  That's what happens here.  But a lot of it is really open to interpretation.  Is the idea that he fell asleep, while he was listening to ways of getting rich quick, he was in that frame of mind and so dreamt of finding money?  Seems unlikely that "how to get rich" wouldn't be enough to keep him awake and alert, but that actually might be an interesting psychological glimpse at him, and I'll tell you how.  Because  you can look at it and say, boy, I'd hardly call finding random bits of small change "getting rich."  BUT!  Scrooge doesn't really work that way, does he?  We've seen him getting excited about finding or saving tiny amounts of money numerous times.  In this interpretation, finding a huge amount of money is equivalent to a small amount, in terms of the psychic satisfaction he experiences.  

Well, maybe. It also DOES seem possible that he's so good at getting rich that the whole presentation is boring to him--he's heard it all before--and that's why he's dropped off.  And his dream could sort of be subconsciously burlesquing the whole thing: how do you get rich?  Oh, you just find money on the ground for no reason.  That's cool.

Or, it can be a combination of things.  Art is frequently complex, and I do think that this is a richer piece than your average Barks one-pager.

But one thing we DO have to note is just how strange this whole thing is, in any event.  The people at this event are already rich.  This seems very obviously coded.  And yet...a lecture on "easy ways to get rich" is, rather obviously, not going to be targeted the already-rich.  "Ways to exploit your employees and get around safety/environmental regulations?"  Sure.  But if it's about GETTING rich, it seems much more likely to be a pitch for a multi-level marketing scheme, and it's hard to imagine Scrooge, or any of these other plutocrats, really grooving on one of those.

Finally, I want to touch on the nature of the dream sequence.  A lot of people would just skim over this, but I think it's at least a little notable how dreamlike it really is.  Just look at it: we have six panels of Scrooge finding coins, but there doesn't seem to be any spatial continuity among them.  I mean, the first two, maybe, but then he's in a park, he's next to a house, he's coming out of some kind of museum or something and then...park again?  With a wall?  I have no idea if there was any intentionality here, but it really does seem to capture that disjointed, dreamlike feel.  We can learn a lot even from Barks throwaway gags.

Right, when I said "finally," I lied.  But here's the FINAL final thing: I'll just note how pissed-off Scrooge's fellow plutocrats look at him having missed some portion of the lecture.  I think the most likely explanation is that, especially inasmuch as he's the richest one of all, him not being able to stay awake makes a mockery of the whole lecture.  I also enjoy that about this!

Forgotten Precaution

There are a lot of these one-pagers that feature Scrooge as the only character.  Such as "History Tossed," which we covered above.  But rarely does that create the kind of feeling that this story evokes, at least to me.  Here, Scrooge's isolation contributes to the sense of disquiet that pervades the story.  I like it very much.

Maybe that's partially also because I strongly identify with Scrooge here: this whole worrying that you haven't done...something that you were supposed to do.  That would be a staple of academic stress dreams, and also of my life.  Blah.  Well, actually, my fear is usually of actually, concrete things I may have forgotten to do, so Scrooge perhaps has one up on me.  Still!

Is there any other story that identify's the Bin as, not just the Money Bin, but "McDuck's Money Bin?" It seems unusual.  I also enjoy the fact that there are hours posted.  Why, so people can bug him while he's there?  I feel like the prevalence of cannons and land mines and acid moats serve as fairly strong indicators that he doesn't want anyone to bug him.  Still, he does--one would presume--have to do various business things that involve meeting with other people sometime, so possible your more important sorts of visitors get a special dispensation.  Even then though, I dunno.  Even if the cannons aren't specifically aimed at them, they might well note them as indicators of Scrooge's instability--not necessarily someone you want to have to deal with.  Granted, his unfathomable riches will probably do a lot to smooth the way, but still.

Now, look, I don't want to alarm you: clearly, Scrooge DOES end up getting out of this predicament.  Some of his subordinates break in, or possibly his family, noticing him missing.  But boy oh boy, all that notwithstanding, this really does seem to be quite the predicament he's got himself into.  We know that he prides his locks on their unopenability, and that he doesn't generally trust other people with the combinations.  This could be a lock that automatically opens at a certain hour, but it seems iffy that he'd be okay with that much of a possible vulnerability.  Well, there does seem to be a window with metal bars--that in itself seems like something he wouldn't be down with, but at least if it really does lead outside, he can shout through it.  Possibly some municipal code required him to at least a little ventilation slot, and that's what he came up with.  If so, word up for building codes; they may have just saved his life.