about alcohol in Disney-stories

Petri Kanninen pkannine at cc.hut.fi
Sat Jul 5 21:00:15 CEST 2003


On Fri, 4 Jul 2003 Olaf Solstrand wrote:

> One I remember specially is one where Scrooge and Rockerduck compete on
> having the biggest collection of rare wine bottles. One of the things
> happening in this story is that Rockerduck gets fooled into trying to bribe
> a man with a barrel of beer. Turns out this man really HATES beer, so
> Rockerduck gets thrown right out of his castle IN the barrel, still full of
> beer.

This one is Zio Paperone e il nabucodonosor da collezione, I TL 902-B
(drawn by Marco Rota). Was it actually mentioned in your version that they
were wine bottles? In the Finnish edition they are just juice bottles.
I was just about 9 years old when I read the story first time and I wasn't
fooled by the translation even back then. Wonder why the editors even
bothered to change it.

> I also remember seeing Scrooge drinking a drink in a bar (I _think_ I saw
> that one in Donald Pocket #2, but...) The drink had "Klondike" in its name,
> and was clearly a drink Scrooge had drinken a lot of in his youth. At least,
> it was way too strong for Donald. Scrooge on his hand drank it as if it was
> water.

This came up here some time ago. I made a scan of the situation:
http://www.hut.fi/~pkannine/roopejuo2.jpg
(Paperino e il ciclaliante sperimentale, I TL 371-A)
The Finnish name for the drink is Tulikiven katku or roughly The Smell of
Brimstone. The way the bartender mixes the drink is unforgetable.

> And, even though this is not alcohol-related, I must mention that one of my
> favorite comics EVER is the one where Scrooge is opening a tobacco plantage,
> and have Donald and Fethry doing research for him by picking up cigarette
> ends all over Duckburg to find out what brands are popular. And then, a
> maharaja (or was he a prince?) picks up Donald and rents him to be a hitman.

So they were cigarettes! In the Finnish version Scrooge has Donald and
Fethry collecting bubble gum papers. I knew there was something odd with
the papers they picked up. The story is actually from the same pocket book
as the wine bottle collection story. It is Zio Paperone e i "desperados"
di Paperopoli, I TL 920-A.

There are many more occasions of alcohol in the pocket books. Timo
Ronkainen made an article of alcohol and drugs in Disney comics for the
Finnish Disney-fanzine and I helped to collect their appereances from
pocket books. And it was not a small list. One of the greatest examples is
Il romanzo di un papero povero, I TL 586-A. There it is revealed that
Scrooge has smuggled opium in his youth. And on top of that he had cheated
his partner by drugging him with the very opium they were smuggling and
leaving him on a raft in the middle of the ocean. I don't think that sort
of story could be published or even made these days. But it sure was great
reading.

--
Petri Kanninen (pkannine at cc.hut.fi)
Aku Ankan taskukirja -tietokanta: http://www.perunamaa.net/taskarit/

"AAUGH! It's a half-hour later than it was half an
hour ago! Run! Run!" -Calvin



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