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Scrooge McDuck

Donald's billionaire uncle.

He has a Money Bin full of money.

Origin

Scrooge McDuck appeared for the first time in Carl Barks's Christmas on Bear Mountain from 1947.

Relationship

He is always referred to as Uncle Scrooge by Donald and the boys, and he calls them nephews. All sources that have been more clear about it have agreed that he is a brother of Donald's mother.

Other characters

Some of his employees are Miss Quackfaster (secretary), Battista (butler in Italian stories), Duckworth (butler in DuckTales), and Betina Beakley (maid in DuckTales).

His first dime

The first dime he ever earned was mentioned for the first time in The Round Money Bin (Lots more could be said about this dime -- I'll get back to this later.)

Does he have a Scottish accent?

Even though Scrooge is of Scottish heritage, there are usually no indications in Barks's comics that Scrooge speaks with a Scottish accent. There is a noteworthy exception in Swamp of No Return though, in which Donald recognizes amnesia-victim Scrooge from his accent: For a Señor, that old duck sure had a Scotch accent like Uncle Scrooge's! (Scrooge referred to Donald as laddie in his previous line.)

Also, at an interview at the 1976 NEWCON Barks was asked Everyone knows what Donald Duck sounds like. What did you think Uncle Scrooge would sound like? Barks replied: Oh, I guess an old Scotchman. One that rolled his "r's" a lot...

In Scrooge's appearances on the screen it has of course been necessary to decide on his voice. See the section below on Scrooge on the screen for more about this.

Where to find the comics and what to read

After his debut in Christmas on Bear Mountain 1947, Barks next used Scrooge in The Old Castle's Secret, Race to the South Seas", Voodoo Hoodoo", Trail of the Unicorn, The Pixilated Parrot, The Magic Hourglass, Dangerous Disguise (only mentioned), No Such Varmint (only mentioned), and A Christmas For Shacktown.

Then in 1952-1953 there were three one-shots with Scrooge as the title character:

  1. OS 386 with Only A Poor Old Man
  2. OS 456 with Back to the Klondike
  3. OS 495 with Horseradish Treasure
The next time there were to be a Scrooge one-shot he got his own title instead, and in retrospect those three issues were seen as #1-3 of that title. So it was Uncle Scrooge #4 that appeared then (later in 1953). It is in Uncle Scrooge that most of the stories with Scrooge are.

He also appeared in some issues of WDC, and in a few issues of Donald Duck:

  1. Secret of Hondorica in DD 46
  2. The Lost Peg Leg Mine in DD 52
  3. The Titanic Ants in DD 60

David Gerstein has compiled a "crash course" containing the comics he recommends as the ideal stories with Scrooge among those reprinted since 1986. It's a bit old now though.

Scrooge by other artists

The first story where some other artist used Scrooge may be a Grandma duck story drawn by Riley Thompson in WDC 123. [Or is there something even earlier?]

Scrooge on the screen

[By Jonathan Markoff:]

The first attempt at a cartoon featuring Scrooge was in 1955. An article about that is in WDC&S 601. It was planned to be a movie theater short, but that genre of movies soon became obsolete and the cartoon was never produced.

The first(?) actual Scrooge cartoon was Uncle Scrooge and Money from 1967 (IMDb entry). [Or is there something even earlier?] [What was Scrooge's voice?] There was also a comics adaptation of that.

In 1983, Scrooge (voiced by Alan Young with a Scottish accent) was an actor in the film Mickey's Christmas Carol (IMDb entry), based on the 1843 Charles Dickens novel A Christmas Carol. He played Ebenezer Scrooge, actually the character that Scrooge was named for back in 1947.

The DuckTales TV show, which ran from 1987 to 1993 (exact year?), featured Scrooge (again with Alan Young's Scottish accent) in a more conventional role, with Huey, Dewey, and Louie as his usual supporting cast. Many of its plots were taken from Barks stories.

Other sources

Other sources about Scrooge:

Find the names in other languages for: Scrooge McDuck

Last updated April 3, 1999.

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