Talk:Donald Duck universe

Theoretical Disney Universe

The Disney Kingdom consists of all Disney themeparks, actually, the one you happen to be visiting at the present time (Mickey can't be two places at once, for example). The Disney Kingdom acts as a conduit between the Disney World (or Disney World Prime) and Earth, although the Disney World Prime is a parallel universe based on Earth.

The Disney World consists of the main Disney characters featured in various television series, but excludes characters who exist from movies such as Aladdin and Little Mermaid. Characters and associated characters include Donald, Goody, Mickey, and Pluto, though each have their own associates and locales, just as Spiderman tends to stick with Spiderman characters while the X-men stick with X-men characters.

Movie universes are seperate, each its own world based off of Earth; it includes any sequels or TV series based on the movie, sadly. In order for a movie character to appear alongside a Disney World, it must hop dimensions to either Earth or the Disney World, making a crossover appearance such as Who Framed Roger Rabbit or Kingdom Hearts, which are conduits where two or more universes can connect.

Toon Town is such a conduit, and parts of it exist on Disney World Prime and on Earth in several themeparks, allowing interdimensional travel. It also allows travel from the WB universe, Woody Woodpecker, and possibly the Bonkers Earth and Bonkers toon world. It may include Toontown Online, also.

Deletions

I don't see the purpose for the character removals, as most aren't on the List of characters page. The related series and DT movie were added before as they are related to DT, but not related to the comics directly.

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Are you suggesting that these characters don't like in the same 'universe' as Mickey Mouse, et al? I really think that universe isn't the right word here. By definition, a universe includes EVERYTHING. Any subset of a universe is not a universe. Maybe this is picky, but I think it is confusing to use the word in this way. ike9898 02:32, 23 Jan 2004 (UTC)

I heard that Mickey and Goofy were supposed to live in a town other than Duckburg, Mousetown or something...

Maybe its confusing if we were talking about cosmology, but when it comes to the concept of 'fictional universes' - especially in the realms of a children's cartoon - the rules are a little fuzzy. the duckiverse presented by the introduction of Donald Duck's extended family goes far beyond a lot of the original features of the traditional disney cartoons. 02:39, 3 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Truly brain-softening! --Wetman 21:37, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps a better title for this page would be List of characters in Scrooge McDuck storylines. It doesn't offer much beyond that. --Dhartung | Talk 18:04, 28 Nov 2004 (UTC)

See One small problem below. You're on the right track. Andrewa 11:05, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

I think your post might possibly fit better here. --DocumentN (talk) 05:39, 27 September 2008 (UTC)

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What would this mean? "Many characters in their stories have never appeared in Donald Duck stories." Afaik, there are very few Barks or Rosa comics where Donald doesn't even have at least a small part... 81.232.72.148 23:58, 20 November 2005 (UTC)

IMF???

According to the template the International Monetary Fund is an enemy of scrooge macduck. I don't know what to make of this. Is it a different IMF, the real actual IMF, or is this a joke? Jackliddle 00:27, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It is the "Real IMF". In at least one Barks and two Don Rosa Mr. Molay and Matressface, both IMF agents appear. Perhaps it's better to change IMP to Mr. Molay and Matressface, for otherwise people might think it's a joke --Mixcoatl 16:54, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Monsieur Matressface, as described in the Carl Barks story in which Scrooge seeks and finds the Philosopher's Stone which can turn base metals into gold, is a representative of the International Money Council, not the IMF. See Maurice Matressface. Andrewa 10:46, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

One small problem

There's a problem with the whole concept of the Scrooge McDuck Universe, in that it's not part of the original concept of the most important of the stories at all.

The creator of Scrooge McDuck and the most acclaimed writer and artist of Scrooge McDuck stories, Carl Barks, seems to have made no attempt to be consistent in his descriptions of Scrooge's background. This is not unusual in fantasy and humour. There's a spectrum, from series in which consistency is very much sought after, such as the Star Wars series or Yes Minister, to ones in which there's little consistency at all, such as the Goons. Scrooge McDuck and the Monkees are both somewhere in the middle. There's consitency in basic things such as the major characters and their appearance, but not necessarily in implied details such as where they went to school, what their early careers were, what their grandfathers did for a living. When such details come up in some of the plots, if they are consistent with other plots that's fine, and if not, that's fine too.

This position in the spectrum is an important aspect of understanding Barks' work. The attempt to create a consistent universe starts with Don Rosa, and is not Barksian. Such attempts at retrospective consitency are not unusual, for example Isaac Asimov's retcons to his Robot stories to make them consistent prequels to his Foundation series.

But IMO it's important to understand that this consistent Scrooge McDuck Universe is not part of the original context of the Carl Barks stories. The whole concept came later, and there's no evidence it was ever adopted or endorsed by Barks, much as Rosa admired Barks and dedicated much of his work to him. Food for thought? Andrewa 12:43, 13 December 2005 (UTC))

I think that what you wrote above could and should be adapted into the article. I would be best if you could find a secondary source that discusses this. ike9898 18:43, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

Where does the term come from?

I don't remember meeting the term "Scrooge McDuck universe" applied to all Duck comics anywhere else. Where does it come from, or has it been artificially created here in Wiki? Sure, in this article there's mention about "Scrooge McDuck universe" being a subset of "Donald Duck universe" - however, Donald Duck universe redirects back here. Ain't that a bit complicated? As far as we have any continuity in Duck stories, they happen in the same "universe", though of course they tell different tales according to the main character - Donald does different things than Scrooge, of course, as they are different characters with different charasteristics. But we don't have "Bilbo Baggins universe" aside from "Frodo Baggins universe" even though The Hobbit has very different tone than The Lord of the Rings, let alone The Silmarillion! So I would certainly vote for "Duck universe" as a unifying term to include all Disney Ducks. Certainly that would include much differences from early Donald cartoons to DuckTales or Quack Pack, but subcategories could be made if necessary. "Scrooge McDuck universe" anyway appears as quite a strange term to me. Even if Scrooge has surpassed Donald in popularity, Donald still remains the main name character of the comics? --Haltiamieli 13:41, 30 November 2006 (UTC)

I'm sure that there has been some writing on this in a source such as The Comics Journal or Nemo. If a suitable term for this topic can be found there, that's probably the best choice; we aren't in the business of creating original names for topics here. ike9898 18:46, 17 September 2007 (UTC)

DuckTales vs. the comics

I suggest splitting this into two pages or sections, one dealing primarily with DuckTales and the other one dealing with the comic books. The portrayals of characters and events in each are different enough to warrant separate treatment. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.229.97.179 (talk) 00:47, August 30, 2007 (UTC)

Merge with List of characters from the Scrooge McDuck universe

The list of characters is not long enough to justify its own page; it should be merged here. Neelix (talk) 19:52, 28 March 2010 (UTC)

Merge with individual articles about elements of the Scrooge McDuck universe such as characters

There are many elements of the Scrooge McDuck universe which are not sufficiently independently notable to justify their own articles. As such, the following articles should be merged into this one: Bucky Bug, Andold "Wild Duck" Temerary, Peter Pig, Princess Oona, Neighbor Jones, J. Audubon Woodlore, Herbert (Disney character), Witch Hazel (Disney), Hard Haid Moe, General Snozzie, Garvey Gull, Aracuan Bird, Whiskervilles, Soapy Slick, Lawyer Sharky, John D. Rockerduck, Jubal Pomp, Pah-Peh-Rheo, O.K. Quack,Mister Molay, McViper Clan, Argus McSwine, Brigitta MacBridge, Arpin Lusène, Gus Goose, Grandma Duck, Coot Kin, Barko, Azure Blue, The Chickadees, Merlock (Disney), Brutopia, Bolivar (Disney) and The Junior Woodchucks. Neelix (talk) 17:33, 11 April 2010 (UTC)

Overall, I agree with the idea. However, I would say that some characters should be merged into other articles, i.e. Witch Hazel into Trick or Treat, Merlock into the DuckTales list, Aracuan Bird into The Three Caballeros, and Grandma Duck, Gus Goose and Coot Kin into the Duck Family or the Clan McDuck articles. --LoЯd ۞pεth 02:03, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I have switched the merge tags on Gus Goose and Grandma Duck according to your suggestion that they be merged into Duck family (Disney). The reason I feel that Witch Hazel (Disney), Merlock (Disney), and Aracuan Bird should be merged here is because they appeared in multiple works set in the Scrooge McDuck universe; we would be missing something if those titles redirected to only one of those works. Also, the Coot Kin is a separate family from the Duck family (Disney), so I don't think it should redirect there. Are these six articles the only ones you feel should be redirected elsewhere? Neelix (talk) 18:41, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

This is all good in theory, but might be very problematic in actuality. It comes down to the question of original research in defining this article: there is yet not a single source for the definition (in itself quite vague) – what is "Scrooge McDuck universe", how it is "subset" of "Donald Duck universe", and what is "Donald Duck universe" anyway? Something like Bucky Bug is only very tangentially connected to any "Duck stories", let alone stories about Scrooge (I doubt if they ever even appeared together anywhere?).

Many if not most of the characters and such mentioned above would most correctly belong to something like "List of very ephemeral Disney characters and concepts"... :P (though on the other hand, I'd argue that a few things on the list are sufficiently notable to maintain their own articles: Grandma Duck, Gus Goose, The Junior Woodchucks, John D. Rockerduck...) It must be considered that though most of the Disney characters have fallen into sweet obscurity in the English-speaking world, they are still very popular in some parts of continental Europe. – Haltiamieli (talk) 21:29, 12 April 2010 (UTC)

I share the same concern about the Donald Duck/Scrooge McDuck universe thing, maybe name it only "Duck universe" would be appropiated. Aracuan Bird, for example, has never interacted with Scrooge as far as I am concerned. However, I think that popularity and notability must not be confused. Appearances in comics in Europe does not equal notability. Notability is established by real world content, by reliable secondary sources (independent from primary works such as comics, TV series, etc.), and impact in popular culture. Grandma Duck, Gus, etc. are recurring but I think they are not notable as are, for example, Chip n' Dale or Daisy Duck. --LoЯd ۞pεth 01:01, 13 April 2010 (UTC)

Considering that these characters are not sufficiently notable to justify their own articles, leaving them as they are is not an option. I am assuming that the suggestion to create an article called "List of very ephemeral Disney characters and concepts" is a joke. Do you have any alternate suggestions to merging the character articles into this list? Neelix (talk) 01:05, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

My suggestion is to merge them into a "List of characters in the Duck universe", that way we would avoid two main concerns: one, the name and the Donald vs Scrooge thing. The intro could say something like "This is a list of characters appearing in comics and other media that features Donald Duck and Scrooge McDuck as main characters..." The second concern is the loss of information. I think that redirecting all those articles into the Scrooge McDuck universe page with only a mention in the Characters section is not enough. Per Wikipedia:Notability, "articles on minor characters in a work of fiction may be merged into a "list of minor characters in ...". The "List of characters in the Duck universe" I propose would serve as the place where all those mergers can be redirected to. Most of the target articles are stubs, so they can be copy/pasted almost entirely, others would be trimmed and merged. I have experience with massive mergers, so I can handle the procedure if there are no complaints. Thoughts? --LoЯd ۞pεth 03:57, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

That sounds like a good solution to me. I wish we had sources discussing the universe in question so that we could base our naming of that universe in sources. In any case, I support the creation of a "List of characters in the Duck universe" and greatly appreciate your offer to perform the merge. We should probably also move the Scrooge McDuck universe article to "Duck universe" to be consistent with the name used in the list. Neelix (talk) 14:29, 15 April 2010 (UTC)

I have written a Work Plan with my proposal of how to manage the mergers. --LoЯd ۞pεth 20:20, 17 April 2010 (UTC)

The plan seems good enough in my opinion. I may disagree with the notability concern about some of the topics, as stated above, but on the other hand I don't have enough interest and time to try to find good sources to establish their notability (it is a tricky quest with popular culture). And anyway nothing is really lost when merges are done. If by some later time someone wants to do a sourced article about Grandma Duck, she is as able to do that as now, and the notability will be tested then. :) – Haltiamieli (talk) 11:26, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Of course, the best would be to have all of these articles with sources. Unfortunately, by this time, none of them have. As you have already stated, the merged articles may have their own pages back if sourced in the future. That is why I also prefered a merger with sections rather than just redirects, or worse, deletions. Info and history will be available. --LoЯd ۞pεth 23:24, 23 April 2010 (UTC)

Well since there was no improvement of the articles by establishing notability outside Disney media (comics wherever they come from, DuckTales, House of Mouse, etc.), i will perform the mergers. Further comments on the organization of the articles can be discussed in this Talk Page, under a new section. --LoЯd ۞pεth 22:45, 24 April 2010 (UTC)

One-off characters

Are characters that only appear in one story, such as Barko and Captain Loyal Hawk really noteworthy enough to warrant their own sections? 惑乱 Wakuran (talk) 00:16, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

Maybe in some exceptional single case, but by rule no way – neither Barko nor Captain Loyal Hawk comes even close. Even Carl Barks alone drew or mentioned hundreds or thousands one-time characters of various importance to the stories at hand, but with absolutely zero notability in the bigger scene of the "Duck universe". Haltiamieli (talk) 20:32, 29 April 2010 (UTC)

New merge proposal & character list split

I come with this proposal to merge Duckburg, Money Bin, Number One Dime and The Junior Woodchucks into this article as real notability has not been established by adding deep coverage by reliable secondary sources or proving impact in popular culture. My proposal is to merge entire contents into this Duck universe article, which will make a stronger topic rather than having weak articles here and there. As this article would be extremely long with these new additions, I propose to split all characters into a List of characters, and move all characters there. Thoughts? --LoЯd ۞pεth 23:19, 10 May 2010 (UTC)

Seems reasonable. In the German WP, there's an article on Duckburg, with the Money Bin as a section of it and the Number One mentioned in the Money Bin section; and there's another article on "inhabitants of Duckburg". I think this would work for the English WP as well. --Martin de la Iglesia (talk) 10:45, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

Hmmm. I came here to complain and disagree. And then I read your proposal.

Now, the only issue I have is I'm not sure I understand what you mean by: "My proposal is to merge entire contents" vs "I propose to split all characters into a List of characters, and move all characters there." Can you clarify please? Pdfpdf (talk) 14:38, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

With merge entire contents I mean that all of the info in Duckburg, Money Bin, Number One Dime and The Junior Woodchucks would be copy/pasted into this article, and move the characters into a separated List of characters. --LoЯd ۞pεth 20:39, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

I proceeded with the mergers as discussed. No content was lost as a result of this. --LoЯd ۞pεth 00:57, 17 May 2010 (UTC)

Why not Donald Duck universe?

Earlier, that was the name of this article. It's more consequent towards Mickey Mouse universe (if we should keep that name) and it creates less misunderstandings: "Duck" is no Disney word and there's not only ducks in this universe. Btw, Donald Duck is the absolutely most famous and likely representant for this universe and one of the two Disney frontmen. "Scrooge McDuck universe" is a joke - it's like Mickey Mouse universe should be renamed "Goofy universe". There's no sources for the real name at all, so let's rename it due to what most of us think is the best describing name.--Buggwiki (talk) 18:17, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Duckburg

I find it rather interesting that Duckburg has its own article at least on the Danish, German, Spanish, French, Finnish, Norwegian, Portuguese and Swedish Wikipedias, but not on the English one. This is interesting because the English Wikipedia is by far the largest one, and it was Americans (native English-speakers) who invented Duckburg in the first place. JIP | Talk 16:57, 13 October 2010 (UTC)

As I understand it the Donald Duck cartoons and comics are much more popular in Continental Europe, to the point where the character is more recognisable even than Mickey. This might explain the difference. --129.11.13.73 (talk) 23:24, 15 February 2011 (UTC)

Junior Woodchucks - satire on Freemasonry

I often wonder how it is that the citizens of our great democracies can DEMAND to know virtually EVERYTHING about their leaders’ private lives, right down to what they might have said and written when they were in their teens, who their lovers and friends were and are, where they go on holidays, and what they had for breakfast, but think nothing of the fact that such a person belongs to a secret organization which strips, spanks and pisses on candidates for membership, and then obliges the new member to lifelong secrecy at the penalty of torture and death, makes them swear to support this and that, befriend such and such, and never to disclose what it is that they have sworn to, and that the general public think nothing of this at all.

I remind people that that bastion of statesmanship, George Bush, was for years a member of the Skull and Bones and no one seems to think that membership to a society that has a Skull and Bones logo perfectly appropriate for the sociopaths of the Hells Angels, is worthy of any consideration at all. That’s just his personal business. In Australia and Britain, many officials and politicians are members of the Masons, and there have been numerous cases of Masonic Judges and Masonic lawyers secretly conspiring to have Masonic defendants acquitted. Apart from stacking the Police Force, the Judiciary and the Public Service. And of course, as soon as a peep reaches the Press, the whole matter is VERY quickly buried. Germany has BANNED these groups for these reasons. Over here, we are not even ALLOWED to question why it is that a politician who is supposed to be representing all of US, can belong to an organization which requires him to take secret oaths that he will never divulge, and to support with all his might any fellow member, regardless of the circumstances, and, once again, in secret. This happens in a country that has been obsessed with painting Obama as a Muslim, when he has repeatedly denied it, and when there is no evidence for it. How very odd. But then Rupert Murdoch allows nothing at all negative to be written or shown about this bunch of self-serving malign parasites, while keeping up a relentless campaign on Obama on the most specious of grounds.

The Junior Woodchucks is a fictitious organization which in every aspect, and I mean EVERY aspect, was consciously intended to be a caricature of and a satire on Freemasonry and other such organizations, and this FACT made that depiction quite contentious in some circles at that time. Now, look for the even a passing mention of this in the pars devoted to it on the page. Why does WP shit its pants at the idea of even MENTIONING the elephant in the room? Go on; tell us what has frightened the authors of this page of this brave people’s encyclopedia. Myles325a (talk) 06:38, 27 November 2010 (UTC)

This is the talk page for an article about fictional characters, locations, and objects created by a comics company. Take your political soapboxing elsewhere. JIP | Talk 19:11, 19 December 2010 (UTC)

Naming conventions: Disney vs. Marvel and DC

I notice that quite a lot of this talkpage is made up of debate about the lack of sources for terms such as "Donald Duck universe", etc., and that the other-language Wikipedias have the same content in articles on places (most prominently Duckburg and Mouseton, but not St. Canard, as St. Canard's population is usually in Lists of recurring characters in Darkwing Duck) instead. My two cents on this is that this whole "universe" nonsense came to be in the English Wikipedia because Americans only know Marvel and DC comics for the most part, where they have different "universes" which are kind of like different generations of authors and writers where their superheroes evolved over time, and it was throughout the 80s or later that Marvel and DC officially created this canon terminology of different "universes" in order to explain all the weird differences and inconsistencies, and started retconning in order to clean up this whole mess by having a number of "universes" destroyed or merged within actual plots in the comic books where characters cross over into different "universes".

But that's all superhero stuff from Marvel and DC. Problem is, Americans only pretty much know those nowadays, and start talking about any other comics in those superhero terms they know from Marvel and DC, which of course is original research, or at the very least not official canon with other comics. You can see the same in the article for the character Howard the Duck where they're talking about him mostly in those superhero terms and in relation to the "Marvel universe", which makes for rather weird statements such as "Superpowers: None. Affiliation with any group of superheroes: None.", as they're dealing with him as if he was one of all those superheroes.

The funny thing is, I've seen forum discussions on the recent DuckTales comic by Boom! Studios being some kind of "merge of different universes" fashioned after what Marvel and DC have been doing in order to clear up similar inconsistencies. According to those fanblurbs, Boom! is trying to reconcile the three different main currents of Duck canon today, which are:

• a.) the American Carl Barks/Don Rosa continuity (which DuckTales the 1987-'90 TV series was loosely based on too),
• b.) Egmont's northern European Ducks, still more or less like the Barks/Rosa continuity, and
• c.) the Italian Duck stories by Mondadori, which is a totally different universe than the other two, figuratively speaking.
• (One might argue that Disney's original 1930s-1950s cartoons, together with Al Taliaferro's contemporary newspaper strips, constitute a 4th continuity, as Barks was so fundamental an influence that the modern Ducks are much more like what he did, rather than Disney's original cartoons.)

Any serious Duck scholar will tell you those three (or four) continuities are a much more reasonable categorization of what the Ducks are like today than by characters alone.

Anyway, the only official term resembling this "universe" nonsense is "Disney universe" that has existed since the 1970s, which was the company's official name for the range of all their products you could buy. You're not gonna find any official sources on stuff such as "Duck universe", "Donald Duck universe", "Scrooge McDuck universe", etc. This current article of Duck universe is named after and made up of articles such as "Donald Duck universe", "Scrooge McDuck universe", etc., that were once fashioned here on the English-language Wikipedia after that Marvel/DC superhero philosophy alien to the Ducks. --79.193.47.192 (talk) 05:10, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

P. S.: Oh, I forgot my second issue. Where did Rosa actually say that Brutopia might be only eastern Siberia? All I know is that in Rosa's The Crown of the Crusader Kings, the Ducks visit northern Siberia as "part of Brutopia", where they're soon under attack by the Brutopian army. Wouldn't something similar have happened with the Soviets if you as a Western trespasser had've secretely breached their territory back in the 1950s, even though the USSR was much larger than just Siberia? --79.193.47.192 (talk) 06:42, 17 September 2011 (UTC)

Regarding your post scriptum: In a post on Disney Comics Mailing List back in 2002, Rosa commented that "Barks made it quite obvious that he was implying that Brutopia was the equivalent of Russia or the USSR. I don't say it's exactly Russia, otherwise I would not call it Brutopia, I'd call it Russia. I place it as occupying the eastern third of Russia (Siberia), as I place Calisota as the northern third of California. But you can decide for yourself where either one is." (source). Haltiamieli (talk) 20:33, 19 September 2011 (UTC)

Portland, Oregon?

A Finnish friend of mine is completely certain that Duckburg is based on Portland, Oregon. (184.147.169.114 (talk) 19:42, 20 September 2011 (UTC))