Duck Naked!

[deckerd@agcs.com]

Since I translated that "Khaos" story, I'll mention that
the spectacle of naked ducklings kind of surprised me. I
hadn't realized Gladstone added t-shirts -- I'll have to
take a closer look at the printed story. It's interesting
to work out the implied rules of Duck nakedness in the
Disney universe. Donald and the others (even Daisy)
typically wear something on top but nothing on the bottom.
Yet I've seen bath gags (such as Donald having to answer
the door when he was in the middle of taking a bath) where
Donald has a towel wrapped around his bottom but his top
is bare. Why wrap the towel around his bottom when he
normally doesn't wear anything there anyway? (It's funnier
that way -- part of the gag is that this is what people do.)
The implied rule seems to be that a Duck can leave the top
_or_ the bottom bare and retain his modesty, but to leave
_both_ bare at the same time is nakedness. It's absurd when
you think about it, but in the context of the comics, it
seems to be sort of reasonable.

--Dwight Decker