Old & new pools

Botto Armando Armando.Botto at elsag.it
Thu Oct 4 09:18:18 CEST 2001


Paolo wrote:
> The previous pool was about the most  hated Disney characters, and its
result was quite surprising for me:
[...]
What do you think about this?

I think that the poll was open to different interpretations.

You can "hate" a character because you identify yourself with another
character, who is constantly frustrated by the "hated" one: Donald Duck vs.
Chip'n'Dale, Zeke vs. Li'l Bad Wolf (and also the Three Little Pigs), but
also Donald (again) vs. Scrooge in some Italian stories... not to speak of
the classical non-Disney examples of Sylvester vs. Tweety, or Wile E. Coyote
vs. Road Runner.

But you can also "hate" a character because you find him/her to be neither
original nor funny, and the stories he/she appears in dull and forgettable:
here we have Melody (yet *another* niece, from early Studio stories), Zombi
(a mixture of Eega Beeva, Pflip and Atomino Bip-Bip, in horrible Italian
stories from the 70es), Aunt Tessie (a she-Goofy, from late Studio stories).

Finally, a character can be "hated" because you find he doesn't belong with
the tradition of Disney comics you've grown up with: I think this is the
reason why Paperino Paperotto (Young Donald Duck) got so many votes, and
probably the same goes for Launchpad McQuack. The "new" Paperinik (PKNA)
would have fallen in this class, methinks.

Of course, the above three categories can be mixed, depending on personal
taste. For example, I find most of the post-50es American stories with Li'l
Bad Wolf and Chip'n'Dale frankly terrible (so I can understand why Paolo
voted for the former, and Sprea for the latter). I personally like (a few
of) the Paperino Paperotto stories, but I know many people who think they're
all rubbish. Paperinika is surely a weak character, cloned from Paperinik
without any creativity, but I'm sure most of her votes come from the
reaction that we, (male) Italian children of the 70es, had when she was
introduced as a counterpart to Paperinik for girl readers... ;-)

Just my 2 cents,
Armando
(who voted for Aunt Tessie, BTW ;-))




More information about the DCML mailing list