happy birthday, Uncle Scrooge!

Paperone Uncle Scrooge as a child (Don Rosa)

Update on December 14: a good way to celebrate Uncle Scrooge! the Walt Disney Company bought a part of 21st Century Fox: films, cable tv, international activities!

Paperone Uncle Scrooge as a child (Don Rosa)
Paperone – Uncle Scrooge as a child (a Don Rosa comic strip; the official creator of Scrooge McDuck was Carl Barks…)

One of the most important anniversaries of 2017 is that one of Uncle Scrooge McDuck, known in Italy as ‘zio Paperone’ and ‘Paperon de Paperoni’. According to different sources (e.g. Don Rosa), the richest duck of the world was born in 1867  in Glasgow, Scotland (and was a Templar!) or  in Klondike, according to Guido Martina (Klondike is rather to be taken just as the land in which uncle Scrooge started to build his prosperity, by gathering golden nuggets).
His first appearance in TV was in ‘Scrooge McDuck and Money’ (1967); the first comic strip he appeared in was
‘Donald Duck Christmas on Bear Mountain’, on December 15, 1947, written and drawn by Carl Barks, the twelfth chapter redrawn and rewritten by Don Rosa.
Carl Barks and Don Rosa must be considered as the fathers of Scrooge McDuck.
Spite of being so attached to the money (and the name Scrooge easily drives to a Dickens character in a ‘Christmas Carrol’), Uncle Scrooge basically is a very positive chap. A self-made duck, honest, proud and almost a genius as for his entrepreneurial abilities, he loves his relatives and, if does not treat his nephew Donald Duck and the little Huey, Dewey and Louie using too much generosity, it is because he wants to teach them the importance of the hard work. I presume…
According to Dan Rosa, indeed, when Scrooge was a child, he started by working as a shoe shiner; spite of having obtained his shoes as shining as the pure gold (and they previously were dirty of mud), a client paid him with a 10 American cents coin, which did not have any worth in Scotland. On his honour, Scrooge swore that it would have been an important taught: he would have to be “tougher than the toughies, and sharper than the sharpies”. Since then, he worked for his entire life, becoming the tycoon we all know and appreciate.
As for the coin, it become the very famous Number One, his most important relic and the obscure target of Magica De Spell (in Italy we say Amelia), the sorceress who continuously tries to steal it for making a spell and becoming the richest witch in the world. His enemies are the Beagle Boys (Banda Bassotti), and the billionaires Rockerduck and Flintheart Glomgold, the last one known in Italy as Cuordipietra Famedoro.
Now, comics a part, we can follow his most recent adventures in the new ‘DuckTales’, currently broadcasted in USA and Italy.

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