Scrooge McDuck universe
Encyclopedia
The Duck universe is a fictional universe
where Disney
cartoon characters Donald Duck
and Scrooge McDuck
live. It is a spin off
of the older Mickey Mouse universe
, yet has become much more extensive. "Duck universe" is a term used by fans and is not an official part of the Disney lexicon.
The world's continuity has been primarily built in comics by Carl Barks
(1901-2000), but has its roots in the Donald Duck
short film series and the Silly Symphony comic strip by Ted Osborne
and Al Taliaferro
. Other cartoonists have built on Barks' work including Romano Scarpa
(1927-2005) and Don Rosa
(b. 1951). Other media includes children's books such as Little Golden Books
and Little Big Books, television series such as Duck Tales (1987-1990) and Darkwing Duck
(1991-1992), and video games such as QuackShot
(1991) and Goin' Quackers
(2000).
Life in the Duck universe centers around the city of Duckburg in the fictional U.S. state of Calisota. The world is also a parallel universe
and characters sometimes visit real-world locations and meet historical figures.
cartoon series DuckTales
. Disney's Darkwing Duck
series is nominally set in the DuckTales universe, in a metropolis called St. Canard, although aside from sharing the denizen Launchpad McQuack, and a few crossover episodes involving GizmoDuck, there is no interaction. The Darkwing Duck material does not appear in Barks' comics, as the Darkwing Duck TV series was created decades after Barks's active years as a comic artist. Later, a few characters would be the main characters in the show Quack Pack
.
However, in the magazine Disney Adventures
, there was a five-part crossover/storyline titled "Legend of the Chaos God" which began with TaleSpin
, and continued with Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers
, Goof Troop
, and DuckTales
, then concluded with Darkwing Duck
.
Duckburg was the setting of the 1987 animated series DuckTales
. The cartoon's version of Duckburg was based heavily on the comics' version. Duckburg appeared in the 1990s animated series Quack Pack
. In Quack Pack, Duckburg was populated almost entirely by human beings, with Donald, Daisy, and Donald's nephews as the only anthropomorphized animals that usually appeared. Moreover, the Money Bin is nowhere to be seen. Duckburg was the setting for one of the three initial levels of the video game Quackshot
and also for the second level of the video game Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers
.
Duckburg was also used for the setting of Mickey's Birthdayland (later Mickey's Starland) at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom from 1988 to 1996. It even included Grandma Duck's Farm and a statue of Cornelius Coot, though it was more of a rural town than a burgeoning metropolis. The connection to Duckburg was removed as the land was renovated in 1996 to become Mickey's Toontown Fair. However, the Cornelius Coot statue remains.
Duckburg is the fictional city that serves as the home of Donald Duck
, Scrooge McDuck
, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Daisy Duck
, and most of their supporting cast. Duckburg was first mentioned in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories
#49 in 1944, and was created by Carl Barks
.
Duckburg is described as a medium size city located in the fictional U.S. state
of Calisota. In comic writer Don Rosa
's stories, Duckburg is located on the west coast of the United States, though other writers often leave the city's location more vaguely defined. However, in Don Rosa
's The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
, the author alludes to where exactly he has situated Duckburg: "I won't bother to say precisely where I situated Duckburg and Calisota on America's west coast... but if you get out a good map and compare the coastline, you'll see that I stuck the old gold-prospector's adopted hometown directly across the bay from a very appropriately named actual city." Knowing how Don Rosa like to play a gag, it is likely that this city would be Eureka, California
(Eureka
meaning 'I found it'!). This fits with the river and a large forest south of Eureka.
In the DuckTales episode "Double O' Duck", a map is shown which shows Duckburg as being located approximately where the city of Pittsburgh, PA would be. The city is populated by various anthropomorphized
animals, with duck
s, dog
s, and pig
s the most dominant ones. The population is estimated 316 000.
The most prominent landmark in Duckburg is Scrooge McDuck's money bin, a giant building sitting on Killmotor Hill (formerly known as Killmule Hill) in the center of town. The money bin contains both office space and, most famously, three cubic acres of money, the results of Scrooge's lifetime of business and treasure-seeking adventures. Another major landmark in some stories is a large statue
of Duckburg's founder, Cornelius Coot.
Duckburg is a major center for Space exploration
. Expeditions have been launched from Duckburg to the Moon, Mars
, Venus
, the Asteroids, and more remote parts of the Galaxy
. The town also features a sea port and is in proximity to several mountain
s, the most notable being "Old Demon Tooth", usually depicted as a towering pointed peak leaning slightly to the side.
Duckburg is home to Yarvard University (a play on the universities of Harvard
and Yale
), an institution more notable for its athletic teams than for its academic achievements.
Located near Duckburg is a farm
owned and run by Grandma Duck, a direct descendant of Cornelius Coot and Donald's paternal grandmother. Donald's cousin Gus Goose also lives on Grandma's farm as a "farmhand." The farm is often a gathering site for various Duck family holiday celebrations.
explorer Sir Francis Drake. By the 19th century, the fort had been handed over by its departing British occupants to Cornelius Coot, who renamed the fort "Duckburg". "Drake" means a male duck, while "borough" and "burg" are synonyms.
Duckburg remained a quiet, small town until the arrival of wealthy businessman Scrooge McDuck. McDuck bought the old fort from Clinton Coot, a descendant of Cornelius. Scrooge proceeded to construct his famous money bin and established various businesses in and around Duckburg. This construction caused Duckburg's population to swell, and turned the small town into a bustling city within several decades' time.
Duckburg is the largest city in the state of Calisota, but not the capital city. There are no references to the governor, legislature, Capitol, etc., of Calisota in any of the many stories about Duckburg. Duckburg seems to have its own governor, however, if it is not a sort of city state. In more than one story a "Duckburg embassy" is shown, which would place it outside the USA at a legislative level. In a story by Barks the Duckburg embassy displays a flag of Duckburg, which consists of a white duck over a green field. However, in the Don Rosa story "His Majesty, McDuck
" (Uncle Scrooge Adventures #14, Gladstone Aug. 1989) Scrooge gains a short-lived independence from the United States for Killmotor Hill, thus placing Duckburg within the U.S.
Duckburg maintains a traditional rivalry with Goosetown, another city of Calisota.
and then intensively developed by Keno Don Rosa. It was, in the fictional universe of Barks and Rosa, first built by Sir Francis Drake
, who named it "Fort Drakeborough". It was later acquired by Cornelius Coot, who changed the name from "Drakeborough" to "Duckburg" (same meaning). A grandson of Cornelius named Clinton Coot sold it to Scrooge McDuck
, who built his world-famous Money Bin in its site. This would eventually cause McDuck an incredible variety of problems and dilemmas. The first one was caused by the Junior Woodchucks
, who were squatting in the site and using it as their headquarters, even though they did not have legal title to it. The dispute led to a small war.
, created by Carl Barks
in his story "The Gilded Man" (Four Color
#422). Duckburg is among the cities located there, as well as Goosetown, and Mouseton.
Although it has many fictional elements and a variable climate, Calisota is probably roughly equivalent to Northern California
. Duckburg has occasionally been said to be seated north of Los Angeles
and San Francisco. A map in Don Rosa
's The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
portrays Calisota covering the part of California north of Sacramento
.
The name is a blend
of California
and Minnesota
—supposedly to allow all kinds of weather or climate in the stories—although Calisota bears very little in common with the latter (a state in the Upper Midwest
, far from the ocean coasts). It may also be a reference to Calistoga
, a small town in Napa County, which is, like Duckburg, north of San Francisco.
stores the portions of his money he earned by himself and is the tallest building in Duckburg. Carl Barks invented the "money swim" in 1950, followed by the "money bin" in 1951.
The money bin was built in 1902, shortly after Scrooge entered the diamond
market and could no longer sleep at night because all the money he was storing under his mattress
raised his bed too close to the ceiling, necessitating a more suitable storage facility for his money. His favorite pastime is to dive
off a springboard
into his money and swim through it.
Although the money bin is a twelve-story
skyscraper
and vault
(filled with 3 cubic acres of money), on various occasions it has been pulled around by a tractor
, lifted to the top of a mountain
, stolen by alien
s from the bottom of the ocean
, and blasted open with a cannon
. The traditional location of the Money Bin is on top of Killmotor Hill. The money bin sits atop Futterman's Fault, a fault line
which would prove catastrophic in the event of an earthquake
.
The money bin is the victim of repeated assaults by Scrooge's enemies who try to steal his money, such as the Beagle Boys
, who are after the bulk of Scrooge's money, and Magica DeSpell, who is after Scrooge's "Number One Dime" (the first dime
Scrooge ever earned). To protect against these attempted break-ins, Scrooge has installed the greatest security system in the world to thwart any thought of even trying to intrude onto the premises.
Barks defined the volume of money contained inside as "three cubic acres", but the exact meaning, and therefore the volume, of a "cubic acre" is subject to interpretation by the reader, since an acre
is a measure of area
, not length
, a cubic acre would be a 6-dimension
al space of 247,961,850,048,000 feet to the sixth power. A series of blueprints created for a Scrooge McDuck story by Don Rosa
state that the money bin is approximately 127 feet (38.7 m) tall, and 120 feet (36.6 m) wide. In the story, said blueprints are accredited to an architect named Keno D. Rosa (which is Don Rosa's actual name).
The Norwegian name for the Money Bin is "Pengebingen", and has become regular word in the Norwegian language for a large amount of money or cash.
Russell W. Belk mentions the money bin in Material Values in the Comics: A Content Analysis of Comic Books Featuring Themes of Wealth, where he remarks that Scrooge's "childish fascination with money", where he takes pleasure in diving and swimming in the money bin, might account for Scrooge not being portrayed as a villain. Penelope Fritzer in the article Scrooge McDuck: Postmodern Robber Baron considers it possible for the money bin to symbolize the entire Disney empire.
also owns a money bin, located near Limpopo
Valley. Glomgold's bin substitutes the dollar sign ($
) that appears on Scrooge's with a pound sign (£
).
that Scrooge McDuck
ever earned (or, according to some stories, produced). The Number One Dime first appeared in the story titled "The Round Money Bin", created by Carl Barks
and first published in Uncle Scrooge
#3 (September, 1953). In this story, the dime is so old that it has become thin as a razor blade and allows Scrooge to cut binding ropes and escape from the Beagle Boys. In later stories, it is insinuated that the dime brings good luck to Scrooge and has helped him become a rich man, and in some stories he instantly starts losing money whenever the dime is no longer in his possession. It is never made clear whether the dime actually brings good luck or if Scrooge merely believes in it so much that he is distressed and makes bad decisions whenever he no longer has the dime. Since Barks never actually said that it was because of the coin that Scrooge was the richest duck in the world, Don Rosa, after various informations exchange with Barks, for a faithful production of Life and Times Of Scrooge McDuck, clarified that The Number One Dime is not actually an amulet, and that this vision was just a myth. The Number One Dime is just a sentimental object that happens to be the first coin Scrooge received for his work. Rosa made clear, also, that Scrooge made his fortune working hard and being honest.
According to a comic story by Don Rosa
, it is an 1875 Seated Liberty
dime, but in a comic story written by Pat and Carol McGreal and drawn by Maximino Tortajada Aguilar, the last two digits have been swapped, making it an 1857 Seated Liberty dime.
Scrooge earned the dime in 1877 in his hometown of Glasgow
, when he started working as a shoeshine boy on his tenth birthday. Before that it belonged to Howard Rockerduck (the father of John D. Rockerduck
). The customer who paid it to him, a ditch-digger called Burt, "cheated" Scrooge from Scrooge's point of view (an American dime being unspendable in Scotland
). In reality, Scrooge's father, Fergus McDuck, gave Burt the dime specifically for paying Scrooge for his services. Scrooge McDuck never learned that fact, although Fergus did reveal it to Scrooge's sisters Matilda and Hortense. Burt and Magica De Spell
, who learned about this when she traveled in time to the day Scrooge earned the Dime, are the only other ones who know. McDuck kept it as a reminder not to be fooled again in the future. When he emigrated to the US
three years later, he carried it with him. Scrooge still has the dime and keeps it on a pillow under glass because it is very special to him. Donald Duck
, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, and Gladstone Gander among many others think it is really a lucky charm, but Scrooge himself maintains it has only sentimental value.
organization to which Huey, Dewey, and Louie belong. They have a uniform with a coonskin cap
. The Junior Woodchucks were created by Carl Barks
in 1951, in the story "Operation St. Bernhard" (Walt Disney's Comics and Stories
#125). Later stories introduced a similar organization for girls, Junior Chickadees, to which Daisy Duck
's nieces, April, May and June belong. A hallmark of the Woodchucks are exalted titles and ranks (Huey, Dewey, and Louie being promoted to become Ten Star Generals in the 1952 story of that name) and the awarding of buckets of badges, along with severe ideals as to decorum. In this way Barks poked gentle but pointed satire at aspects of the Boy Scouts.
appearing in several Donald Duck
stories. It was created by Carl Barks
in 1957. Brutopia is a very hostile country, aiming for world domination. It is clearly a caricature
of the Soviet Union
. In the Duck universe, Brutopia occasionally attempts to steal Scrooge's money so as to devastate the American economy, and to fund the creation of doomsday weaponry. The currency
of Brutopia is the peso
. Its coat of arms is the hammer and handcuffs.
Whether Brutopia is a stand-in for all of the former USSR, or just for part of it, varies with the story. Sometimes parallels to Russia are drawn directly. Don Rosa has suggested that Brutopia might instead represent the eastern part of Siberia
.
The language of Brutopia often looks somewhat Slavic
. On some occasions it is written in Cyrillic script. On the other hand, Brutopians seem to speak perfect, non-accented English; and other stories show English language texts being used by Brutopians, suggesting that the national language could be English.
In 1957, Brutopia's military spending budget amounted to one trillion dollars plus all the kitchen sinks of its happy people (a number that on closer inspection turned out to be five). Scrooge McDuck
outbid the Brutopian government by paying one trillion dollars and six kitchen sinks for a sample of the recently discovered substance of bombastium.
According to Disney stories written and drawn in the post-Barks period, the capital of Brutopia is Brutengrad. The country is no longer a dictatorship, as the former regime was overthrown by a popular revolt, and the tyrant
forced to flee.
, used the term to criticize the economic policies of the Howard Government
, notably in an essay in the November 2006 issue of The Monthly
magazine entitled "Howard's Brutopia: The Battle of Ideas in Australian Politics". According to Rudd, a "brutopia" is a place of "unchecked market forces", incompatible with both "fairness" and "the so-called conservative institutions of family, community, church and country". Rudd argues that Australia is becoming such a place due to the Howard Government's "market fundamentalism
". For example, he claims that as a result of the Government's labour market liberalization
, "Breadwinners are now at risk of working less predictable shifts, spread over a seven-day week, not sensitive to weekends and possibly for less take-home pay. The pressures on relationships, parenting and the cost and quality of childcare are without precedent... Neo-liberalism's core philosophical dilemma is that it has no answer to the relentless march of market fundamentalism into the sanctum of the family itself. The Christian churches should be concerned about where this march ultimately ends." In the essay, Rudd writes that the term "brutopia" was borrowed from British conservative Michael Oakeshott
.
The then Australian Treasurer
, Peter Costello
, ridiculed Rudd's use of the term on 8 February 2007 in the Australian Parliament: "We have unemployment at 4.5 per cent. We have had 300,000 new jobs in the last year and we have had 2 million new jobs over the last 10 years. The Leader of the Opposition says that all of this represents free market fundamentalism, and he describes this economy as Howard's Brutopia... There has been some speculation as to what a Brutopia is. I can now authoritatively inform the House that Brutopia is a fictional country which appears in several Donald Duck stories... Labor [is] drawing inspiration for its economic analysis from a Donald Duck magazine, Mr Speaker! This is the evolutionary cycle of the Labor Party. We have now moved from Mark Latham
's roosters to Kevin Rudd's ducks, Mr Speaker. Managing the Australian economy, which is a $1 trillion economy, takes experience and commitment—and you do not get your analysis from Donald Duck comics. It is much more serious than that."
and atomic symbol are unknown. Bombastium is stated to be the rarest element in the world. Even though it is very coveted, its usage potential is not entirely known. One characteristic is that it tastes different every time you try it, and scientists eventually discovered that one atom of bombastium dropped into a barrel of water becomes one barrel of ice cream
- a different flavor of ice cream each time. To avoid evaporation, bombastium must be kept frozen.
The last piece of bombastium known to exist (about the size of a soccer ball) was acquired by Scrooge McDuck
of Duckburg in 1957, but at that time it was also heavily sought after by the hostile nation of Brutopia. Brutopia's military spending budget that year amounted to one trillion dollars plus all the kitchen sinks of its happy people. Scrooge McDuck
therefore had to pay one trillion dollars plus six kitchen sinks to win the auction.
The element was also used for the 5-part DuckTales
episode Time is Money, which introduced Bubba the Caveduck. In this cartoon episode, bombastium is the fuel for one of Gyro Gearloose
's inventions, a time travel
ing helicopter
named the Millennium Shortcut. The bombastium itself must be kept frozen in order for it to be usable as fuel (a small freezer is equipped onboard the Shortcut for this purpose). Otherwise, the Shortcut could not travel through time.
One of the treasures that can be obtained in the computer game DuckTales: The Quest for Gold
is bombastium. Unlike the other treasures, bombastium is worth more than just money, as Gyro Gearloose can use it to build a matter transporter which takes away the risk of flying from place to place while having the possible downside of sending the player to a location they hadn't intended to go.
Fictional universe
A fictional universe is a self-consistent fictional setting with elements that differ from the real world. It may also be called an imagined, constructed or fictional realm ....
where Disney
The Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
cartoon characters Donald Duck
Donald Duck
Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor suit with a cap and a black or red bow tie. Donald is most...
and Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
live. It is a spin off
Spin-off (media)
In media, a spin-off is a radio program, television program, video game, or any narrative work, derived from one or more already existing works, that focuses, in particular, in more detail on one aspect of that original work...
of the older Mickey Mouse universe
Mickey Mouse universe
The Mickey Mouse universe is a fictional universe where some cartoon characters created by the The Walt Disney Company live, the most famous of which is Mickey Mouse. It is coexistent with the Duck universe, a spin-off of the Mickey Mouse universe which centers around Mickey's friend Donald Duck...
, yet has become much more extensive. "Duck universe" is a term used by fans and is not an official part of the Disney lexicon.
The world's continuity has been primarily built in comics by Carl Barks
Carl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
(1901-2000), but has its roots in the Donald Duck
Donald Duck filmography
This is a list of appearances made by Donald Duck in Disney features and cartoons.-1934:*The Wise Little Hen, released on 9 June 1934 – in a Silly Symphony cartoon...
short film series and the Silly Symphony comic strip by Ted Osborne
Ted Osborne
Ted Osborne was an American writer of comics, radio shows and animated films, remembered for his contributions to the creation and refinement, during the 1930s, of Walt Disney cartoon characters....
and Al Taliaferro
Al Taliaferro
Charles Alfred Taliaferro , known simply as Al Taliaferro, was a Disney comics artist who used to produce Disney comic strips for King Features Syndicate...
. Other cartoonists have built on Barks' work including Romano Scarpa
Romano Scarpa
Romano Scarpa was one of the most famous Italian creators of Disney comics.-Biography:Growing up in Venice he developed a particular love for American cartoons and Disney comics, that, at the time, were published in the big format of the Topolino Giornale which was then printing now classic Floyd...
(1927-2005) and Don Rosa
Don Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
(b. 1951). Other media includes children's books such as Little Golden Books
Little Golden Books
Little Golden Books is a popular series of children's books. The first 12 titles were published on October 1, 1942:#Three Little Kittens#Bedtime Stories#Mother Goose#Prayers for Children#The Little Red Hen#Nursery Songs...
and Little Big Books, television series such as Duck Tales (1987-1990) and Darkwing Duck
Darkwing Duck
DarkWing Duck is an American animated television series produced by The Walt Disney Company that ran from 1991–1992 on both the syndicated programming block The Disney Afternoon and Saturday mornings on ABC. It featured the eponymous anthropomorphic duck superhero whose alter ego is mild-mannered...
(1991-1992), and video games such as QuackShot
Quackshot
QuackShot is a platformer released for the Sega Mega Drive on December 19, 1991. It stars Donald Duck and his three nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie, as treasure-hunters....
(1991) and Goin' Quackers
Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers
Donald Duck: Goin' Qu@ckers*!, known as Donald Duck: Qu@ck Att@ck in Europe, is a platform game developed by Disney Interactive and published by Ubi Soft Montreal for various consoles and Windows-based personal computers...
(2000).
Life in the Duck universe centers around the city of Duckburg in the fictional U.S. state of Calisota. The world is also a parallel universe
Parallel universe (fiction)
A parallel universe or alternative reality is a hypothetical self-contained separate reality coexisting with one's own. A specific group of parallel universes is called a "multiverse", although this term can also be used to describe the possible parallel universes that constitute reality...
and characters sometimes visit real-world locations and meet historical figures.
History
Most of the characters have appeared in the 1980s DisneyThe Walt Disney Company
The Walt Disney Company is the largest media conglomerate in the world in terms of revenue. Founded on October 16, 1923, by Walt and Roy Disney as the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio, Walt Disney Productions established itself as a leader in the American animation industry before diversifying into...
cartoon series DuckTales
DuckTales
DuckTales is an American animated television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. Based on Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge comic book series, it premiered on September 18, 1987 and ended on November 28, 1990 with a total of four seasons and 100 episodes...
. Disney's Darkwing Duck
Darkwing Duck
DarkWing Duck is an American animated television series produced by The Walt Disney Company that ran from 1991–1992 on both the syndicated programming block The Disney Afternoon and Saturday mornings on ABC. It featured the eponymous anthropomorphic duck superhero whose alter ego is mild-mannered...
series is nominally set in the DuckTales universe, in a metropolis called St. Canard, although aside from sharing the denizen Launchpad McQuack, and a few crossover episodes involving GizmoDuck, there is no interaction. The Darkwing Duck material does not appear in Barks' comics, as the Darkwing Duck TV series was created decades after Barks's active years as a comic artist. Later, a few characters would be the main characters in the show Quack Pack
Quack Pack
Quack Pack is an animated television series made by The Walt Disney Company, featuring Donald Duck and his nephews. The show debuted in September 1996 as a part of the Disney Afternoon weekday afternoon programming block. Unlike other Disney Afternoon shows, it was aimed at an older audience,...
.
However, in the magazine Disney Adventures
Disney Adventures
Disney Adventures was a children's entertainment and educational magazine published ten times per year by The Walt Disney Company. It should not be confused with the Disney Magazine...
, there was a five-part crossover/storyline titled "Legend of the Chaos God" which began with TaleSpin
TaleSpin
TaleSpin is a half-hour American animated television series based in the fictional city of Cape Suzette, that first aired in 1990 as part of The Disney Afternoon, with characters adapted from Disney's 1967 animated feature The Jungle Book. The name of the show is a play on "tailspin", the rapid,...
, and continued with Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers
Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers
Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers is an American animated television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. Created by Tad Stones and Alan Zaslove, it featured the established Disney characters Chip 'n' Dale in a new setting. The series premiered on the Disney Channel on March 4, 1989,...
, Goof Troop
Goof Troop
Disney's Goof Troop is an American animated television series from The Walt Disney Company featuring Goofy as a father figure and bonding with his son Max.-Premise:...
, and DuckTales
DuckTales
DuckTales is an American animated television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. Based on Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge comic book series, it premiered on September 18, 1987 and ended on November 28, 1990 with a total of four seasons and 100 episodes...
, then concluded with Darkwing Duck
Darkwing Duck
DarkWing Duck is an American animated television series produced by The Walt Disney Company that ran from 1991–1992 on both the syndicated programming block The Disney Afternoon and Saturday mornings on ABC. It featured the eponymous anthropomorphic duck superhero whose alter ego is mild-mannered...
.
Duckburg was the setting of the 1987 animated series DuckTales
DuckTales
DuckTales is an American animated television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. Based on Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge comic book series, it premiered on September 18, 1987 and ended on November 28, 1990 with a total of four seasons and 100 episodes...
. The cartoon's version of Duckburg was based heavily on the comics' version. Duckburg appeared in the 1990s animated series Quack Pack
Quack Pack
Quack Pack is an animated television series made by The Walt Disney Company, featuring Donald Duck and his nephews. The show debuted in September 1996 as a part of the Disney Afternoon weekday afternoon programming block. Unlike other Disney Afternoon shows, it was aimed at an older audience,...
. In Quack Pack, Duckburg was populated almost entirely by human beings, with Donald, Daisy, and Donald's nephews as the only anthropomorphized animals that usually appeared. Moreover, the Money Bin is nowhere to be seen. Duckburg was the setting for one of the three initial levels of the video game Quackshot
Quackshot
QuackShot is a platformer released for the Sega Mega Drive on December 19, 1991. It stars Donald Duck and his three nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie, as treasure-hunters....
and also for the second level of the video game Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers
Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers
Donald Duck: Goin' Qu@ckers*!, known as Donald Duck: Qu@ck Att@ck in Europe, is a platform game developed by Disney Interactive and published by Ubi Soft Montreal for various consoles and Windows-based personal computers...
.
Duckburg was also used for the setting of Mickey's Birthdayland (later Mickey's Starland) at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom from 1988 to 1996. It even included Grandma Duck's Farm and a statue of Cornelius Coot, though it was more of a rural town than a burgeoning metropolis. The connection to Duckburg was removed as the land was renovated in 1996 to become Mickey's Toontown Fair. However, the Cornelius Coot statue remains.
Duckburg
Donald Duck
Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor suit with a cap and a black or red bow tie. Donald is most...
, Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Daisy Duck
Daisy Duck
Daisy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1940 by Walt Disney Productions as the girlfriend of Donald Duck. Like Donald, Daisy is an anthropomorphic white duck, but has large eyelashes and ruffled tail feathers to suggest a skirt. She is often seen wearing a hair bow, blouse, and shoes...
, and most of their supporting cast. Duckburg was first mentioned in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories
Walt Disney's Comics and Stories
Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, sometimes abbreviated WDC or WDC&S, is an anthology comic book series that has an assortment of Disney characters, including Donald Duck, Scrooge McDuck, Mickey Mouse, Chip 'n Dale, Lil Bad Wolf, Scamp, Bucky Bug, Grandma Duck, Brer Rabbit, Winnie the Pooh, and...
#49 in 1944, and was created by Carl Barks
Carl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
.
Duckburg is described as a medium size city located in the fictional U.S. state
U.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
of Calisota. In comic writer Don Rosa
Don Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
's stories, Duckburg is located on the west coast of the United States, though other writers often leave the city's location more vaguely defined. However, in Don Rosa
Don Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
's The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck is a comic book story by Don Rosa about Scrooge McDuck. Originally, the story had twelve chapters totalling 212 pages...
, the author alludes to where exactly he has situated Duckburg: "I won't bother to say precisely where I situated Duckburg and Calisota on America's west coast... but if you get out a good map and compare the coastline, you'll see that I stuck the old gold-prospector's adopted hometown directly across the bay from a very appropriately named actual city." Knowing how Don Rosa like to play a gag, it is likely that this city would be Eureka, California
Eureka, California
Eureka is the principal city and the county seat of Humboldt County, California, United States. Its population was 27,191 at the 2010 census, up from 26,128 at the 2000 census....
(Eureka
Eureka (word)
"Eureka" is an interjection used to celebrate a discovery, a transliteration of a word attributed to Archimedes.-Etymology:The word comes from ancient Greek εὕρηκα heúrēka "I have found ", which is the 1st person singular perfect indicative active of the verb heuriskō "I find"...
meaning 'I found it'!). This fits with the river and a large forest south of Eureka.
In the DuckTales episode "Double O' Duck", a map is shown which shows Duckburg as being located approximately where the city of Pittsburgh, PA would be. The city is populated by various anthropomorphized
Anthropomorphism
Anthropomorphism is any attribution of human characteristics to animals, non-living things, phenomena, material states, objects or abstract concepts, such as organizations, governments, spirits or deities. The term was coined in the mid 1700s...
animals, with duck
Duck
Duck is the common name for a large number of species in the Anatidae family of birds, which also includes swans and geese. The ducks are divided among several subfamilies in the Anatidae family; they do not represent a monophyletic group but a form taxon, since swans and geese are not considered...
s, dog
Dog
The domestic dog is a domesticated form of the gray wolf, a member of the Canidae family of the order Carnivora. The term is used for both feral and pet varieties. The dog may have been the first animal to be domesticated, and has been the most widely kept working, hunting, and companion animal in...
s, and pig
Pig
A pig is any of the animals in the genus Sus, within the Suidae family of even-toed ungulates. Pigs include the domestic pig, its ancestor the wild boar, and several other wild relatives...
s the most dominant ones. The population is estimated 316 000.
The most prominent landmark in Duckburg is Scrooge McDuck's money bin, a giant building sitting on Killmotor Hill (formerly known as Killmule Hill) in the center of town. The money bin contains both office space and, most famously, three cubic acres of money, the results of Scrooge's lifetime of business and treasure-seeking adventures. Another major landmark in some stories is a large statue
Statue
A statue is a sculpture in the round representing a person or persons, an animal, an idea or an event, normally full-length, as opposed to a bust, and at least close to life-size, or larger...
of Duckburg's founder, Cornelius Coot.
Duckburg is a major center for Space exploration
Space exploration
Space exploration is the use of space technology to explore outer space. Physical exploration of space is conducted both by human spaceflights and by robotic spacecraft....
. Expeditions have been launched from Duckburg to the Moon, Mars
Mars
Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after the Roman god of war, Mars. It is often described as the "Red Planet", as the iron oxide prevalent on its surface gives it a reddish appearance...
, Venus
Venus
Venus is the second planet from the Sun, orbiting it every 224.7 Earth days. The planet is named after Venus, the Roman goddess of love and beauty. After the Moon, it is the brightest natural object in the night sky, reaching an apparent magnitude of −4.6, bright enough to cast shadows...
, the Asteroids, and more remote parts of the Galaxy
Galaxy
A galaxy is a massive, gravitationally bound system that consists of stars and stellar remnants, an interstellar medium of gas and dust, and an important but poorly understood component tentatively dubbed dark matter. The word galaxy is derived from the Greek galaxias , literally "milky", a...
. The town also features a sea port and is in proximity to several mountain
Mountain
Image:Himalaya_annotated.jpg|thumb|right|The Himalayan mountain range with Mount Everestrect 58 14 160 49 Chomo Lonzorect 200 28 335 52 Makalurect 378 24 566 45 Mount Everestrect 188 581 920 656 Tibetan Plateaurect 250 406 340 427 Rong River...
s, the most notable being "Old Demon Tooth", usually depicted as a towering pointed peak leaning slightly to the side.
Duckburg is home to Yarvard University (a play on the universities of Harvard
Harvard University
Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...
and Yale
Yale University
Yale University is a private, Ivy League university located in New Haven, Connecticut, United States. Founded in 1701 in the Colony of Connecticut, the university is the third-oldest institution of higher education in the United States...
), an institution more notable for its athletic teams than for its academic achievements.
Located near Duckburg is a farm
Farm
A farm is an area of land, or, for aquaculture, lake, river or sea, including various structures, devoted primarily to the practice of producing and managing food , fibres and, increasingly, fuel. It is the basic production facility in food production. Farms may be owned and operated by a single...
owned and run by Grandma Duck, a direct descendant of Cornelius Coot and Donald's paternal grandmother. Donald's cousin Gus Goose also lives on Grandma's farm as a "farmhand." The farm is often a gathering site for various Duck family holiday celebrations.
History
In the comics, the location that would eventually become known as Duckburg was originally known as "Fort Drake Borough", a fort built in the 16th century by BritishUnited Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
explorer Sir Francis Drake. By the 19th century, the fort had been handed over by its departing British occupants to Cornelius Coot, who renamed the fort "Duckburg". "Drake" means a male duck, while "borough" and "burg" are synonyms.
Duckburg remained a quiet, small town until the arrival of wealthy businessman Scrooge McDuck. McDuck bought the old fort from Clinton Coot, a descendant of Cornelius. Scrooge proceeded to construct his famous money bin and established various businesses in and around Duckburg. This construction caused Duckburg's population to swell, and turned the small town into a bustling city within several decades' time.
Duckburg is the largest city in the state of Calisota, but not the capital city. There are no references to the governor, legislature, Capitol, etc., of Calisota in any of the many stories about Duckburg. Duckburg seems to have its own governor, however, if it is not a sort of city state. In more than one story a "Duckburg embassy" is shown, which would place it outside the USA at a legislative level. In a story by Barks the Duckburg embassy displays a flag of Duckburg, which consists of a white duck over a green field. However, in the Don Rosa story "His Majesty, McDuck
His Majesty, McDuck
His Majesty, McDuck is a 1989 Donald Duck story by Don Rosa, first published in Uncle Scrooge Adventures #14.Despite thematic similarities, this story is not to be confused with the Carl Barks story King Scrooge the First.-Plot:...
" (Uncle Scrooge Adventures #14, Gladstone Aug. 1989) Scrooge gains a short-lived independence from the United States for Killmotor Hill, thus placing Duckburg within the U.S.
Duckburg maintains a traditional rivalry with Goosetown, another city of Calisota.
Fort Duckburg
Fort Duckburg is a fictional place in the fictional state of Calisota. It was originally created by Carl BarksCarl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
and then intensively developed by Keno Don Rosa. It was, in the fictional universe of Barks and Rosa, first built by Sir Francis Drake
Francis Drake
Sir Francis Drake, Vice Admiral was an English sea captain, privateer, navigator, slaver, and politician of the Elizabethan era. Elizabeth I of England awarded Drake a knighthood in 1581. He was second-in-command of the English fleet against the Spanish Armada in 1588. He also carried out the...
, who named it "Fort Drakeborough". It was later acquired by Cornelius Coot, who changed the name from "Drakeborough" to "Duckburg" (same meaning). A grandson of Cornelius named Clinton Coot sold it to Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
, who built his world-famous Money Bin in its site. This would eventually cause McDuck an incredible variety of problems and dilemmas. The first one was caused by the Junior Woodchucks
Junior Woodchucks
Junior Woodchucks are the Scouting organization to which Huey, Dewey, and Louie belong. They have a uniform with a coonskin cap. The Junior Woodchucks were created by Carl Barks in 1951, in the story "Operation St. Bernhard"...
, who were squatting in the site and using it as their headquarters, even though they did not have legal title to it. The dispute led to a small war.
Calisota
Calisota is a fictional U.S. stateU.S. state
A U.S. state is any one of the 50 federated states of the United States of America that share sovereignty with the federal government. Because of this shared sovereignty, an American is a citizen both of the federal entity and of his or her state of domicile. Four states use the official title of...
, created by Carl Barks
Carl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
in his story "The Gilded Man" (Four Color
Four Color
Four Color, also known as Four Color Comics and One Shots, was a long-running American comic book anthology series published by Dell Comics between 1939 and 1962...
#422). Duckburg is among the cities located there, as well as Goosetown, and Mouseton.
Although it has many fictional elements and a variable climate, Calisota is probably roughly equivalent to Northern California
Northern California
Northern California is the northern portion of the U.S. state of California. The San Francisco Bay Area , and Sacramento as well as its metropolitan area are the main population centers...
. Duckburg has occasionally been said to be seated north of Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
and San Francisco. A map in Don Rosa
Don Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
's The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck
The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck is a comic book story by Don Rosa about Scrooge McDuck. Originally, the story had twelve chapters totalling 212 pages...
portrays Calisota covering the part of California north of Sacramento
Sacramento, California
Sacramento is the capital city of the U.S. state of California and the county seat of Sacramento County. It is located at the confluence of the Sacramento River and the American River in the northern portion of California's expansive Central Valley. With a population of 466,488 at the 2010 census,...
.
The name is a blend
Blend
In linguistics, a blend is a word formed from parts of two or more other words. These parts are sometimes, but not always, morphemes.-Linguistics:...
of California
California
California is a state located on the West Coast of the United States. It is by far the most populous U.S. state, and the third-largest by land area...
and Minnesota
Minnesota
Minnesota is a U.S. state located in the Midwestern United States. The twelfth largest state of the U.S., it is the twenty-first most populous, with 5.3 million residents. Minnesota was carved out of the eastern half of the Minnesota Territory and admitted to the Union as the thirty-second state...
—supposedly to allow all kinds of weather or climate in the stories—although Calisota bears very little in common with the latter (a state in the Upper Midwest
Upper Midwest
The Upper Midwest is a region in the northern portion of the U.S. Census Bureau's Midwestern United States. It is largely a sub-region of the midwest. Although there are no uniformly agreed-upon boundaries, the region is most commonly used to refer to the states of Minnesota, Wisconsin, and...
, far from the ocean coasts). It may also be a reference to Calistoga
Calistoga, California
Calistoga is a city in Napa County, California, United States. The population was 5,155 at the 2010 census.-Geography:According to the United States Census Bureau, the city has a total area of , 99.30% of it land and 0.70% of it water.-Climate:...
, a small town in Napa County, which is, like Duckburg, north of San Francisco.
Money Bin
The money bin is the building where Scrooge McDuckScrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
stores the portions of his money he earned by himself and is the tallest building in Duckburg. Carl Barks invented the "money swim" in 1950, followed by the "money bin" in 1951.
The money bin was built in 1902, shortly after Scrooge entered the diamond
Diamond
In mineralogy, diamond is an allotrope of carbon, where the carbon atoms are arranged in a variation of the face-centered cubic crystal structure called a diamond lattice. Diamond is less stable than graphite, but the conversion rate from diamond to graphite is negligible at ambient conditions...
market and could no longer sleep at night because all the money he was storing under his mattress
Mattress
A mattress is a manufactured product to sleep or lie on, consisting of resilient materials and covered with an outer fabric or ticking. In the developed world it is typically part of a bed set and is placed upon a foundation....
raised his bed too close to the ceiling, necessitating a more suitable storage facility for his money. His favorite pastime is to dive
Diving
Diving is the sport of jumping or falling into water from a platform or springboard, sometimes while performing acrobatics. Diving is an internationally-recognized sport that is part of the Olympic Games. In addition, unstructured and non-competitive diving is a recreational pastime.Diving is one...
off a springboard
Springboard
A springboard or diving board is used for diving and is a board that is itself a spring, i.e. a linear flex-spring, of the cantilever type....
into his money and swim through it.
Although the money bin is a twelve-story
Storey
A storey or story is any level part of a building that could be used by people...
skyscraper
Skyscraper
A skyscraper is a tall, continuously habitable building of many stories, often designed for office and commercial use. There is no official definition or height above which a building may be classified as a skyscraper...
and vault
Bank vault
A bank vault is a secure space where money, valuables, records, and documents can be stored. It is intended to protect their contents from theft, unauthorized use, fire, natural disasters, and other threats, just like a safe...
(filled with 3 cubic acres of money), on various occasions it has been pulled around by a tractor
Tractor
A tractor is a vehicle specifically designed to deliver a high tractive effort at slow speeds, for the purposes of hauling a trailer or machinery used in agriculture or construction...
, lifted to the top of a mountain
Mountain
Image:Himalaya_annotated.jpg|thumb|right|The Himalayan mountain range with Mount Everestrect 58 14 160 49 Chomo Lonzorect 200 28 335 52 Makalurect 378 24 566 45 Mount Everestrect 188 581 920 656 Tibetan Plateaurect 250 406 340 427 Rong River...
, stolen by alien
Extraterrestrial life
Extraterrestrial life is defined as life that does not originate from Earth...
s from the bottom of the ocean
Ocean
An ocean is a major body of saline water, and a principal component of the hydrosphere. Approximately 71% of the Earth's surface is covered by ocean, a continuous body of water that is customarily divided into several principal oceans and smaller seas.More than half of this area is over 3,000...
, and blasted open with a cannon
Cannon
A cannon is any piece of artillery that uses gunpowder or other usually explosive-based propellents to launch a projectile. Cannon vary in caliber, range, mobility, rate of fire, angle of fire, and firepower; different forms of cannon combine and balance these attributes in varying degrees,...
. The traditional location of the Money Bin is on top of Killmotor Hill. The money bin sits atop Futterman's Fault, a fault line
Fault line
In geology, fault line refers to the surface trace of a fault.Fault line, Fault Line, or faultline may also refer to:* "Faultline", a song from the 2008 studio album Versus by The Haunted...
which would prove catastrophic in the event of an earthquake
Earthquake
An earthquake is the result of a sudden release of energy in the Earth's crust that creates seismic waves. The seismicity, seismism or seismic activity of an area refers to the frequency, type and size of earthquakes experienced over a period of time...
.
The money bin is the victim of repeated assaults by Scrooge's enemies who try to steal his money, such as the Beagle Boys
Beagle Boys
The Beagle Boys are a group of fictional characters from the Scrooge McDuck universe. Created by Carl Barks, they are a gang of criminals who constantly try to rob Scrooge McDuck. Their introduction and first appearance was in Terror of the Beagle Boys, in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #134,...
, who are after the bulk of Scrooge's money, and Magica DeSpell, who is after Scrooge's "Number One Dime" (the first dime
Dime (United States coin)
The dime is a coin 10 cents, one tenth of a United States dollar, labeled formally as "one dime". The denomination was first authorized by the Coinage Act of 1792. The dime is the smallest in diameter and is the thinnest of all U.S...
Scrooge ever earned). To protect against these attempted break-ins, Scrooge has installed the greatest security system in the world to thwart any thought of even trying to intrude onto the premises.
Barks defined the volume of money contained inside as "three cubic acres", but the exact meaning, and therefore the volume, of a "cubic acre" is subject to interpretation by the reader, since an acre
Acre
The acre is a unit of area in a number of different systems, including the imperial and U.S. customary systems. The most commonly used acres today are the international acre and, in the United States, the survey acre. The most common use of the acre is to measure tracts of land.The acre is related...
is a measure of area
Area
Area is a quantity that expresses the extent of a two-dimensional surface or shape in the plane. Area can be understood as the amount of material with a given thickness that would be necessary to fashion a model of the shape, or the amount of paint necessary to cover the surface with a single coat...
, not length
Length
In geometric measurements, length most commonly refers to the longest dimension of an object.In certain contexts, the term "length" is reserved for a certain dimension of an object along which the length is measured. For example it is possible to cut a length of a wire which is shorter than wire...
, a cubic acre would be a 6-dimension
Dimension
In physics and mathematics, the dimension of a space or object is informally defined as the minimum number of coordinates needed to specify any point within it. Thus a line has a dimension of one because only one coordinate is needed to specify a point on it...
al space of 247,961,850,048,000 feet to the sixth power. A series of blueprints created for a Scrooge McDuck story by Don Rosa
Don Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
state that the money bin is approximately 127 feet (38.7 m) tall, and 120 feet (36.6 m) wide. In the story, said blueprints are accredited to an architect named Keno D. Rosa (which is Don Rosa's actual name).
The Norwegian name for the Money Bin is "Pengebingen", and has become regular word in the Norwegian language for a large amount of money or cash.
Russell W. Belk mentions the money bin in Material Values in the Comics: A Content Analysis of Comic Books Featuring Themes of Wealth, where he remarks that Scrooge's "childish fascination with money", where he takes pleasure in diving and swimming in the money bin, might account for Scrooge not being portrayed as a villain. Penelope Fritzer in the article Scrooge McDuck: Postmodern Robber Baron considers it possible for the money bin to symbolize the entire Disney empire.
Glomgold's bin
Flintheart GlomgoldFlintheart Glomgold
Flintheart Glomgold is a fictional character in Disney comic books. Glomgold is one of Scrooge McDuck's main rivals, and also holds the title of being The Second Richest Duck in the World...
also owns a money bin, located near Limpopo
Limpopo
Limpopo is the northernmost province of South Africa. The capital is Polokwane, formerly named Pietersburg. The province was formed from the northern region of Transvaal Province in 1994, and initially named Northern Transvaal...
Valley. Glomgold's bin substitutes the dollar sign ($
Dollar sign
The dollar or peso sign is a symbol primarily used to indicate the various peso and dollar units of currency around the world.- Origin :...
) that appears on Scrooge's with a pound sign (£
Pound sign
The pound sign is the symbol for the pound sterling—the currency of the United Kingdom . The same symbol is used for similarly named currencies in some other countries and territories, such as the Irish pound, Gibraltar pound, Australian pound and the Italian lira...
).
Number one dime
The Number one dime is the first coinCoin
A coin is a piece of hard material that is standardized in weight, is produced in large quantities in order to facilitate trade, and primarily can be used as a legal tender token for commerce in the designated country, region, or territory....
that Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
ever earned (or, according to some stories, produced). The Number One Dime first appeared in the story titled "The Round Money Bin", created by Carl Barks
Carl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
and first published in Uncle Scrooge
Uncle Scrooge
Uncle Scrooge is a comic book with the stingy Scrooge McDuck "the richest duck in the world" as the main character. The series also featured Donald Duck and his nephews as supporting characters. The first 70 issues mostly consisted of stories written and drawn by Carl Barks, the creator of Scrooge...
#3 (September, 1953). In this story, the dime is so old that it has become thin as a razor blade and allows Scrooge to cut binding ropes and escape from the Beagle Boys. In later stories, it is insinuated that the dime brings good luck to Scrooge and has helped him become a rich man, and in some stories he instantly starts losing money whenever the dime is no longer in his possession. It is never made clear whether the dime actually brings good luck or if Scrooge merely believes in it so much that he is distressed and makes bad decisions whenever he no longer has the dime. Since Barks never actually said that it was because of the coin that Scrooge was the richest duck in the world, Don Rosa, after various informations exchange with Barks, for a faithful production of Life and Times Of Scrooge McDuck, clarified that The Number One Dime is not actually an amulet, and that this vision was just a myth. The Number One Dime is just a sentimental object that happens to be the first coin Scrooge received for his work. Rosa made clear, also, that Scrooge made his fortune working hard and being honest.
According to a comic story by Don Rosa
Don Rosa
Keno Don Hugo Rosa, known simply as Don Rosa, is an American comic book writer and illustrator known for his stories about Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck and other characters created by Carl Barks for Disney comics, such as The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.-Early life:Don Rosa's grandfather,...
, it is an 1875 Seated Liberty
United States Seated Liberty coinage
The Seated Liberty designs appeared on most regular-issue silver United States coinage during the mid- and late-nineteenth century, from 1836 through 1891. The denominations which featured the Seated Liberty design included the half dime, the dime, the quarter, the half dollar, and until 1873 the...
dime, but in a comic story written by Pat and Carol McGreal and drawn by Maximino Tortajada Aguilar, the last two digits have been swapped, making it an 1857 Seated Liberty dime.
Scrooge earned the dime in 1877 in his hometown of Glasgow
Glasgow
Glasgow is the largest city in Scotland and third most populous in the United Kingdom. The city is situated on the River Clyde in the country's west central lowlands...
, when he started working as a shoeshine boy on his tenth birthday. Before that it belonged to Howard Rockerduck (the father of John D. Rockerduck
John D. Rockerduck
John D. Rockerduck is a fictional character from the Duck universe. He is one of Scrooge McDuck's main rivals. His name is a play on that of John D. Rockefeller, the American capitalist and philanthropist...
). The customer who paid it to him, a ditch-digger called Burt, "cheated" Scrooge from Scrooge's point of view (an American dime being unspendable in Scotland
Scotland
Scotland is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Occupying the northern third of the island of Great Britain, it shares a border with England to the south and is bounded by the North Sea to the east, the Atlantic Ocean to the north and west, and the North Channel and Irish Sea to the...
). In reality, Scrooge's father, Fergus McDuck, gave Burt the dime specifically for paying Scrooge for his services. Scrooge McDuck never learned that fact, although Fergus did reveal it to Scrooge's sisters Matilda and Hortense. Burt and Magica De Spell
Magica De Spell
Magica De Spell is a fictional character of the Scrooge McDuck universe, a sorceress created by Carl Barks. She constantly steals or attempts to steal Scrooge McDuck's Number One Dime, which she believes will play a vital role in magically obtaining the same fabulous wealth of its...
, who learned about this when she traveled in time to the day Scrooge earned the Dime, are the only other ones who know. McDuck kept it as a reminder not to be fooled again in the future. When he emigrated to the US
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
three years later, he carried it with him. Scrooge still has the dime and keeps it on a pillow under glass because it is very special to him. Donald Duck
Donald Duck
Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor suit with a cap and a black or red bow tie. Donald is most...
, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, and Gladstone Gander among many others think it is really a lucky charm, but Scrooge himself maintains it has only sentimental value.
The Junior Woodchucks
The Junior Woodchucks are the ScoutingScouting
Scouting, also known as the Scout Movement, is a worldwide youth movement with the stated aim of supporting young people in their physical, mental and spiritual development, that they may play constructive roles in society....
organization to which Huey, Dewey, and Louie belong. They have a uniform with a coonskin cap
Coonskin cap
A coonskin cap is a hat fashioned from the skin and fur of a raccoon. The original coonskin cap consisted of the entire skin of the raccoon including its head and tail...
. The Junior Woodchucks were created by Carl Barks
Carl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
in 1951, in the story "Operation St. Bernhard" (Walt Disney's Comics and Stories
Walt Disney's Comics and Stories
Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, sometimes abbreviated WDC or WDC&S, is an anthology comic book series that has an assortment of Disney characters, including Donald Duck, Scrooge McDuck, Mickey Mouse, Chip 'n Dale, Lil Bad Wolf, Scamp, Bucky Bug, Grandma Duck, Brer Rabbit, Winnie the Pooh, and...
#125). Later stories introduced a similar organization for girls, Junior Chickadees, to which Daisy Duck
Daisy Duck
Daisy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1940 by Walt Disney Productions as the girlfriend of Donald Duck. Like Donald, Daisy is an anthropomorphic white duck, but has large eyelashes and ruffled tail feathers to suggest a skirt. She is often seen wearing a hair bow, blouse, and shoes...
's nieces, April, May and June belong. A hallmark of the Woodchucks are exalted titles and ranks (Huey, Dewey, and Louie being promoted to become Ten Star Generals in the 1952 story of that name) and the awarding of buckets of badges, along with severe ideals as to decorum. In this way Barks poked gentle but pointed satire at aspects of the Boy Scouts.
Brutopia
Brutopia (a portmanteau word from brute and Utopia) is a fictional countryFictional country
A fictional country is a country that is made up for fictional stories, and does not exist in real life, or one that people believe in without proof....
appearing in several Donald Duck
Donald Duck
Donald Fauntleroy Duck is a cartoon character created in 1934 at Walt Disney Productions and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Donald is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a sailor suit with a cap and a black or red bow tie. Donald is most...
stories. It was created by Carl Barks
Carl Barks
Carl Barks was an American Disney Studio illustrator and comic book creator, who invented Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, such as Scrooge McDuck , Gladstone Gander , the Beagle Boys , The Junior Woodchucks , Gyro Gearloose , Cornelius Coot , Flintheart Glomgold , John D...
in 1957. Brutopia is a very hostile country, aiming for world domination. It is clearly a caricature
Caricature
A caricature is a portrait that exaggerates or distorts the essence of a person or thing to create an easily identifiable visual likeness. In literature, a caricature is a description of a person using exaggeration of some characteristics and oversimplification of others.Caricatures can be...
of the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
. In the Duck universe, Brutopia occasionally attempts to steal Scrooge's money so as to devastate the American economy, and to fund the creation of doomsday weaponry. The currency
Currency
In economics, currency refers to a generally accepted medium of exchange. These are usually the coins and banknotes of a particular government, which comprise the physical aspects of a nation's money supply...
of Brutopia is the peso
Peso
The word peso was the name of a coin that originated in Spain and became of immense importance internationally...
. Its coat of arms is the hammer and handcuffs.
Whether Brutopia is a stand-in for all of the former USSR, or just for part of it, varies with the story. Sometimes parallels to Russia are drawn directly. Don Rosa has suggested that Brutopia might instead represent the eastern part of Siberia
Siberia
Siberia is an extensive region constituting almost all of Northern Asia. Comprising the central and eastern portion of the Russian Federation, it was part of the Soviet Union from its beginning, as its predecessor states, the Tsardom of Russia and the Russian Empire, conquered it during the 16th...
.
The language of Brutopia often looks somewhat Slavic
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages , a group of closely related languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.-Branches:Scholars traditionally divide Slavic...
. On some occasions it is written in Cyrillic script. On the other hand, Brutopians seem to speak perfect, non-accented English; and other stories show English language texts being used by Brutopians, suggesting that the national language could be English.
In 1957, Brutopia's military spending budget amounted to one trillion dollars plus all the kitchen sinks of its happy people (a number that on closer inspection turned out to be five). Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
outbid the Brutopian government by paying one trillion dollars and six kitchen sinks for a sample of the recently discovered substance of bombastium.
According to Disney stories written and drawn in the post-Barks period, the capital of Brutopia is Brutengrad. The country is no longer a dictatorship, as the former regime was overthrown by a popular revolt, and the tyrant
Tyrant
A tyrant was originally one who illegally seized and controlled a governmental power in a polis. Tyrants were a group of individuals who took over many Greek poleis during the uprising of the middle classes in the sixth and seventh centuries BC, ousting the aristocratic governments.Plato and...
forced to flee.
In modern usage
The Australian centre-left then Opposition Leader, Kevin RuddKevin Rudd
Kevin Michael Rudd is an Australian politician who was the 26th Prime Minister of Australia from 2007 to 2010. He has been Minister for Foreign Affairs since 2010...
, used the term to criticize the economic policies of the Howard Government
Howard Government
The Howard Government refers to the federal Executive Government of Australia led by Prime Minister John Howard. It was made up of members of the Liberal–National Coalition, which won a majority of seats in the Australian House of Representatives at four successive elections. The Howard Government...
, notably in an essay in the November 2006 issue of The Monthly
The Monthly
The Monthly is an Australian national magazine of politics, society and the arts, which is published eleven times per year on a monthly basis except the December/January issue. Founded in 2005, it is published by Melbourne property developer Morry Schwartz...
magazine entitled "Howard's Brutopia: The Battle of Ideas in Australian Politics". According to Rudd, a "brutopia" is a place of "unchecked market forces", incompatible with both "fairness" and "the so-called conservative institutions of family, community, church and country". Rudd argues that Australia is becoming such a place due to the Howard Government's "market fundamentalism
Market fundamentalism
Market fundamentalism is a pejorative term applied to a strong belief in the ability of laissez-faire or free market economic views or policies to solve economic and social problems....
". For example, he claims that as a result of the Government's labour market liberalization
WorkChoices
The Workplace Relations Act 1996, as amended by the Workplace Relations Amendment Act 2005, popularly known as Work Choices, was a Legislative Act of the Australian Parliament that came into effect in March 2006 which involved many controversial amendments to the Workplace Relations Act 1996, the...
, "Breadwinners are now at risk of working less predictable shifts, spread over a seven-day week, not sensitive to weekends and possibly for less take-home pay. The pressures on relationships, parenting and the cost and quality of childcare are without precedent... Neo-liberalism's core philosophical dilemma is that it has no answer to the relentless march of market fundamentalism into the sanctum of the family itself. The Christian churches should be concerned about where this march ultimately ends." In the essay, Rudd writes that the term "brutopia" was borrowed from British conservative Michael Oakeshott
Michael Oakeshott
Michael Joseph Oakeshott was an English philosopher and political theorist who wrote about philosophy of history, philosophy of religion, aesthetics, and philosophy of law...
.
The then Australian Treasurer
Treasurer
A treasurer is the person responsible for running the treasury of an organization. The adjective for a treasurer is normally "tresorial". The adjective "treasurial" normally means pertaining to a treasury, rather than the treasurer.-Government:...
, Peter Costello
Peter Costello
Peter Howard Costello AC is an Australian politician and lawyer who served as the Treasurer in the Australian government from 1996 to 2007. He is the longest-serving Treasurer in Australian history. Costello was a Member of the Australian House of Representatives from 1990 to 2009, representing...
, ridiculed Rudd's use of the term on 8 February 2007 in the Australian Parliament: "We have unemployment at 4.5 per cent. We have had 300,000 new jobs in the last year and we have had 2 million new jobs over the last 10 years. The Leader of the Opposition says that all of this represents free market fundamentalism, and he describes this economy as Howard's Brutopia... There has been some speculation as to what a Brutopia is. I can now authoritatively inform the House that Brutopia is a fictional country which appears in several Donald Duck stories... Labor [is] drawing inspiration for its economic analysis from a Donald Duck magazine, Mr Speaker! This is the evolutionary cycle of the Labor Party. We have now moved from Mark Latham
Mark Latham
Mark William Latham , an author and former Australian politician, was leader of the Federal Parliamentary Australian Labor Party and Leader of the Opposition from December 2003 to January 2005....
's roosters to Kevin Rudd's ducks, Mr Speaker. Managing the Australian economy, which is a $1 trillion economy, takes experience and commitment—and you do not get your analysis from Donald Duck comics. It is much more serious than that."
Bombastium
Bombastium is a fictional chemical element. Its Atomic numberAtomic number
In chemistry and physics, the atomic number is the number of protons found in the nucleus of an atom and therefore identical to the charge number of the nucleus. It is conventionally represented by the symbol Z. The atomic number uniquely identifies a chemical element...
and atomic symbol are unknown. Bombastium is stated to be the rarest element in the world. Even though it is very coveted, its usage potential is not entirely known. One characteristic is that it tastes different every time you try it, and scientists eventually discovered that one atom of bombastium dropped into a barrel of water becomes one barrel of ice cream
Ice cream
Ice cream is a frozen dessert usually made from dairy products, such as milk and cream, and often combined with fruits or other ingredients and flavours. Most varieties contain sugar, although some are made with other sweeteners...
- a different flavor of ice cream each time. To avoid evaporation, bombastium must be kept frozen.
The last piece of bombastium known to exist (about the size of a soccer ball) was acquired by Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
of Duckburg in 1957, but at that time it was also heavily sought after by the hostile nation of Brutopia. Brutopia's military spending budget that year amounted to one trillion dollars plus all the kitchen sinks of its happy people. Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck
Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats...
therefore had to pay one trillion dollars plus six kitchen sinks to win the auction.
The element was also used for the 5-part DuckTales
DuckTales
DuckTales is an American animated television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. Based on Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge comic book series, it premiered on September 18, 1987 and ended on November 28, 1990 with a total of four seasons and 100 episodes...
episode Time is Money, which introduced Bubba the Caveduck. In this cartoon episode, bombastium is the fuel for one of Gyro Gearloose
Gyro Gearloose
Gyro Gearloose is a fictional character, an anthropomorphic chicken created by Carl Barks for The Walt Disney Company. He is part of the Scrooge McDuck universe, appearing in comic book stories as a friend of Donald Duck, Scrooge and anyone who is associated with them. He was also a frequent star...
's inventions, a time travel
Time travel
Time travel is the concept of moving between different points in time in a manner analogous to moving between different points in space. Time travel could hypothetically involve moving backward in time to a moment earlier than the starting point, or forward to the future of that point without the...
ing helicopter
Helicopter
A helicopter is a type of rotorcraft in which lift and thrust are supplied by one or more engine-driven rotors. This allows the helicopter to take off and land vertically, to hover, and to fly forwards, backwards, and laterally...
named the Millennium Shortcut. The bombastium itself must be kept frozen in order for it to be usable as fuel (a small freezer is equipped onboard the Shortcut for this purpose). Otherwise, the Shortcut could not travel through time.
One of the treasures that can be obtained in the computer game DuckTales: The Quest for Gold
DuckTales: The Quest for Gold
Duck Tales: The Quest for Gold is a platform game developed by Incredible Technologies for the Amiga, Apple II, Commodore 64 and DOS. It was released in 1990 and published by Walt Disney Computer Software...
is bombastium. Unlike the other treasures, bombastium is worth more than just money, as Gyro Gearloose can use it to build a matter transporter which takes away the risk of flying from place to place while having the possible downside of sending the player to a location they hadn't intended to go.