Of "DuckTales" and other things

[Matthew Williams]

Mr. Gerstein,

Unfortunately, I haven't read "Sons of the Moon" yet.  My subscription copy
seems to always arrive two to three weeks after stores get their copies
apparently (of course, since the mutant obsessed shops within 75 miles of my
town would NEVER carry Disney, I guess it doesn't matter).  Anyway, I think
you write off Chris Barat's assertion that individualizing Huey, Dewey, and
Louie was first a DuckTales phenomenon too quickly.  While I remember that
the Taliaferro strips sometimes feature one nephew instigating mischief
without the help of his brothers, I don't remember any pre-1987 stories or
cartoons where it was suggested that one nephew had an aptitude or
personality trait that the other two didn't have.

As Chris Barat mentioned, "The Duck in the Iron Mask" featured Dewey
struggling to create himself an individual identity.  Additionally, in "Much
Ado about Scrooge," we find out that Louie wants to grow up to be a
door-to-door salesman.  In "Pearl of Wisdom," one of the nephews is far and
away a better marble player than the other two.  I believe that it would be
possible to dig out many more references to this kind of individualization
in the show.  While, of course, featuring the nephews by themselves happened
in many, many pre-DuckTales stories and while one of the kids might
sometimes take some sort of action that the other two don't, I can't think
of a single pre-DuckTales story where it was suggested that the ducklings
had individual MINDS.

This, of course, doesn't make Kari Korhonen less of a writer, and it doesn't
necessarily mean that he was directly inspired by DuckTales.
Individualizing the lads' personalities just seems like a natural idea that
wasn't tried earlier because the studio wouldn't have approved before they
themselves broke the rules.

Incidentally, while searching the web recently, I came across a Rosa drawing
(dated 1991) that I had never seen before that had much older versions of
Donald, Daisy, and the nephews standing around Scrooge's grave.  I mention i
t because my favorite part of the drawing was that all three of the nephews
were dressed differently, presumably in such a way that implied what
profession they would eventually join.  My guess, and I would love to hear
what Mr. Rosa has to say about this, is that one is a park ranger, one is a
flamenco dancer, and one is some sort of business man!  I laughed myself
silly for a long time after seeing the sketch!  It seemed a very clever but
loving parody of the whole tradition of making the three identical.

Take care!

Matthew A. Williams