Okay...we WILL get through this. Well,
we'll get through the end of this season, at any rate. Then, we'll
see. We shall see.
So. I mean, I guess in
theory, there's nothing wrong per se with having Scrooge's
parents be alive. People have interpreted these character in
radically different ways, soooo...why not? Well, I can write that.
And yet, every fiber of my being cries out THIS IS COMPLETELY WRONG
WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU?!? I'd certainly be more willing to forgive
it if they did anything interesting or creative
with them, but no, it's really just the most generic, hackneyed sort
of daddy issues. And. Really. People. People.
THE IDEA THAT FERGUS ARRANGED FOR HIM TO EARN HIS NUMBER ONE DIME IS THE STUPIDEST FUCKING THING THIS SHOW HAS EVER DONE AND THAT IS SAYING SOMETHING.
THE IDEA THAT FERGUS ARRANGED FOR HIM TO EARN HIS NUMBER ONE DIME IS THE STUPIDEST FUCKING THING THIS SHOW HAS EVER DONE AND THAT IS SAYING SOMETHING.
I trust I have made myself clear.
Yes, well. And then there's the stuff
with the kids. I supposed it's better than the other plot thread by
default, but that's not saying much. This whole "Webby's
obsessed with Scrooge" thing is dumb as hell, and the business
with Dewey trying to discourage his brothers from finding shit
out...I mean, it's pretty dumb anyway, but given how poorly they're
all characterized, I just could not care less about any of the family
drama.
Sorry for being so negative...well, no,
obviously, I'm not. I'm sorry the show MAKES me so negative. I feel
I've come far enough that I should see this season out, but I am just
not sure it's done enough to deserve any kind of further attention
from me.
But... But.. Fergus being the one who arranged Scrooge earning his number one dime was from Don Rosa story ("Of Ducks, Dimes and Destenies" and "The last of Clan McDuck") where he did the same thing of giving Burt and american coin so It would be the first coin Scrooge earn...
ReplyDeletehttp://4.bp.blogspot.com/-dxpYrcuOslw/TuJJZ0-suTI/AAAAAAAACxU/_KyxfIuzBmw/s1600/lc04.jpg
I'm with you on the same page with Scrooge parents being alive. I woudn't mind it if there was a stronger point behind it and here it just serve some generic sitcomish subplot... HOWEVER I did like the part when Scrooge learns Fergus gave him the dime since not only it was from Rosa's story but I think it's interesting that Scrooge learns it and like that it gave Scrooge some extra sentimental value now (all more reasons to protect the dime from Magica)
ReplyDeleteI more or less did like all HD&L adventures in the caslte (even if the demon Dog thing was tad confusing... was it an actual Demon or just some random wild dog living in the castle?) and I think visualy this episode looked neat and it was cool to see the ghosts of Clan McDuck helping the kids... It just Scrooges parents being alive that made it to distracting for me to fully enjoy/embrace this episode.
I think this story would work better if - as soon they arive - Scrooge would simply had a flashback of the last time he visited the castle years a go (perhaps a story he is saying to Webby?) and he search for treasure together with his father - that way they could do the same emotional story arc, while HD&L have their adventure in the mean time. Some people also sugest it would be better if Fergus simply would be a ghost but that would spoil the Clan McDuck to the rescue sequence at the end for me.
I share Pan's discombobulation. Fergus arranging for Burt to give Scrooge the Dime is right out of Don Rosa (cf. Of Ducks, Dimes and Destinies and The Last of Clan McDuck). I'm not completely on board with the idea either but you really can't blame the show for it.
ReplyDeleteUh, they took the 'Fergus gives Burt the dime' straight from the Life and Times, didn't they? Honestly, you seem to hate the show so much now that every single aspect can only be extremely negative, but even in that light this aspect is weird. This episode felt EXTREMELY Rosa, between Fergus and the ghosts popping up behind the ducks.
ReplyDeleteIt woudn't shock me if they orginaly where planing to have Matilda McDuck and make the episode a very lose adaptation of "A Letter from Home" but then for some reason they asume that "grumpy old father" has more comedic potential and/is more relatable hthen grumpy old sister you didn't seen in years and they change it.
DeleteEven the ending would work just as fine is it was Matilda who would told Scrooge that it was their father who gave him the dime.
Yeah, you're right. I don't mind them using Scrooge's parents (they really don't have that much personality in the comics and are fine to expand upon) - but then I really wish they didn't do the "Scrooge put a druidic curse on them so they live forever" crap. It's fine to have some suspension of disbelief, show. And if that's too hard, just have Matilda (or even better, have it be Matilda AND Hortense).
DeleteI can imagine easly an Itlian story where Scrooge parents appear and I would honestly didn't question if for a second as
Delete1) Rosa isn't the only one who have right to do his own interpretation of the character,
2) In a lot of modern stories where they put zero attention to characters age Scrooge for most part feels like he is in his 60's so having a living father seams pretty plosable.
3) This show makes mistake of puting attention to character age, like have characters question the fact Scrooge was part of Klondike Goldrush, yet we have 2017 now. When I read duck stories I 100% buy that Scrooge was part in the old west when he was young and now characters have cell-phones etc.
And yhe, in 30 years maybe it will be WAY to distracting and surreal (you could very well have Scrooge be friends with Abraham Lincoln or something) so they will either change his back story or ignore it, but for now I just don't mind it and I think driving atention was bad call on the writers part.
I can get why they're doing the dime bit... for the plot, it works for the arc Scrooge has but yeah I was bothered by the dime bit... It's not as bad in Don Rosa because Scrooge has a connection to the dime already... The way it's written here is just... weird.
ReplyDeleteBut it's weird because this Scrooge's relationship to his money is underwritten because the show would just rather avoid it.
But the dime thing is... This series just ignores the fact it's an american dime I guess? IDK if Fergus planted it to give Scrooge the idea to go to the US? I can see the ideas presented here working but they just kinda do not...
In the Don Rosa story Fergus plants the dime to teach Scrooge not to trust people, and he learns that lesson too well in the end.
In this Fergus plants the dime to... Teach Scrooge self-reliance? The logic here is odd and I wonder if Fergus doing it to teach Scrooge you can't trust people was in the script at an earlier point.
The feeling I really get with this episode is that it worked better at some point but was rewritten for whatever reason.
DeleteIt's function, with the Fergus/Scrooge bit and the Dime, is to be a mirror to Scrooge/Donald&the kids situation and to establish Scrooge grew up to be too independent.
But it just... doesn't work for me. I can see the parts of the narrative here but they just don't... come together.
It would maybe work a bit better if Fergus wanted to teach Scrooge the lesson he did in L&T; don't be too trusting. After all Scrooge not trusting people is the issue this series wants to tackle (and doesn't so it well imo)
IDK maybe it's excutive meddling and Fergus couldn't come across as a bad guy who knows. It still doesn't work imo.
Like lot of things in this series, I could buy Dewey's motivation if it was given more development and the characters felt believable. It does work for me in paper but...
DeleteLike the whole thing with Webby and Dewey keeping the Della thing from Huey and Louie... It just didn't really affect Webby's relationship with them I guess? Or anything...
All of these plotlines just exist separately which makes it feel very... I don't believe in these conflicts. They work on paper, yes, but...
But self reliance IS to not be too trusting of other people, to rely is to trust. I don't get the confusion.
DeleteFercryinoutloud, people--it's true that I'd forgotten about that bit of Rosiana, but these two things are NOT the same. In the comic, the idea is to provide an explanation of why it's an American dime, and also to provide young Scrooge with a (somewhat dubious) lesson, and it's SECRET; Scrooge never learns about it. Whereas in the show, there's none of that. There's just the bizarre implication that he wouldn't have otherwise earned the dime [or equivalent], and it's just used to provide a forced and hackneyed reconciliation. Crikey.
ReplyDeleteI would further say that it looks to me as though they decided to stick that Rosa thing in the episode without really understanding the point of it. I mean, not that I'm in love with the concept in the first place, but their execution doesn't work at all.
DeleteThe point in this episode also appears to be that Fergus is teaching Scrooge a lesson, though it's not explained more clearly than "self-reliance".
DeleteIf that's true, it's done very poorly. It's not made even a tiny bit clear why Scrooge can't earn a dime without help.
DeleteI mean In the flashback it clearly shown people ignoring little Scrooge so Fergus sent him first costumer to bust his confidance but had his boots be extra-moody so Scrooge still would had to work hard. I don't know, it still works for me.
DeleteTrue, the episode never pointed what diffrence would it made if the dime was American or not but in previews episode Scrooge mention that the dime inspired him to go to America (another Rosa element)
I'm ok with Scrooge learning the orgin of the dime AFTER he got rich.
Now that I think about it, it would have made more sense if Fergus pointed out that Scrooge had help earning the dime. Fergus was the one (at least in the comics) to give Scrooge the shoeshining kit. So Scrooge going 'I made my fortune myself!" and Fergus pointing out he got help getting started would have made more sense I think? Reminding Scrooge he always had help. But they had to tie it into the dime I guess... It wasn't handled well and the revelation was just so... 'and now we'll have a Moment'
DeleteFunny. Last week I had debate with few friends what makes a "self made man". We talk about an example one guy who's parents gave him some money (few thousands) to start his own company but he manage to spin it so well it made him millionare. Dose it still count as self made? I think yes, some of my friens clame "No".
DeleteBut by that logic do Scrooge still count as self made if his parents gave him the kit?
No one is a self made man. Scrooge always had help, he just doesn't realize it. Even without getting into how a billionaire must exploit his workers (and he sells products... he requires customers) etc he didn't crawl out of an egg and start working at age 0 in the wilderness.
DeleteAlso in Don Rosa's universe he had so much help from Howard to friends to his sisters. I'm convinced a big part of why Glomgold only caught up later was because Scrooge had the support of his sisters (which he never acknowledges because he wants to believe he made it all on is own) while Flinty was alone.
Scrooge was able to travel all over the world doing business because he trusted his sisters with his money bin and empire. Had he been alone he would have been way more limited.
Scrooge didn't make it all on his own and he absolutely should be called out on it, and this series tries (that's his whole conflict) but ehhh
I honestly can see no difference between this episodes version of the coin and Rosa's version. It's made VERY clear what the lesson was. Maybe you just zoned out during that part?
DeleteThe dots just don't connect to me right. Part of it is how the story is told, sure.
DeleteFair enough though, the series is boring enough that I might have just fallen asleep and missed the part that makes it work.
There was a difference to the Rosa version though. In the comic Fergus wants Scrooge's first coin to be a dime, he wants Scrooge's first real job not only being hard work but leading to him being cheated out of fair pay.
In the cartoon, the way it's told it's more, Scrooge couldn't get any customers so Fergus sent the ditch digger at his way.
I guess you can argue it's the same thing but the way it's told is certainly different. (partly I'm sure to make Fergus seem more sympathetic)
And I don't think things really connect in a satisfying way anyway. Scrooge still earned the dime through hard work, even if it was his father who arranged it to him.
IDK maybe I'm very unfair to this show because of how Scrooge is written. The show wants to sell us he's supercool, and even when it goes 'but he still always had family helping him' it's so half-baked.
This could have actually been used to call him out in a much more impactful way and it just. Doesn't.
Because this Scrooge gotta be cool and super great at everything.
"In the cartoon, the way it's told it's more, Scrooge couldn't get any customers so Fergus sent the ditch digger at his way."
DeleteI did not get this impression at all, I got the same impression as from the comic. But it could just be my head filling in the blanks with elements from the comic.
In YOUR opinion, GeoX, it's done poorly.
DeleteFor most other - normal - people, it's done well.
In all honesty though, this was a solid episode as a whole.
DeleteMy biggest complaints would be that Dewey is forgiven by his brothers much too quickly, that Hortense and Matilda aren't even mentioned, and that Donald is absent yet again.
ReplyDeleteI completely agree that it was a big mistake to give Scrooge's parents immortality-by-curse, especially since the only reason they did so was to allow them to dramatize father/son tension between Scrooge and Fergus. Wow! How original! And then there's the question of what kind of "life" Fergus and Downy could possibly have. With whom can they interact, in the years between visits from Scrooge? It's clear that the writers Don't Care about making their supernatural plots believable, even within their fictional universe. So I find myself, while I'm watching the episode, saying to myself, "This ancient Drudic immortality curse exists solely so that the writers could create these daddy scenes."
As Pan says, if they really thought they needed to dramatize Scrooge's daddy issues so as to parallel the Donald/Scrooge dynamic or whatever, they could have done so in flashback.
I did like the kids' adventure aspect of this show, on the whole. Liked the McDuck ghosts showing up to scare away the demon dog. Liked Huey using his JW skills a couple of times.
As I said on Feathery Society, I am not at all convinced by Dewey's motivation for keeping the Della search secret from his brothers. Other viewers are, though, so it's possible that I'm just loathe to believe that he's as much of a jerk in his own way as Louie is. That is, if he kept it secret from them because he wanted the sole glory of discovering the truth (at least, sole among the triplets), that's a pretty shoddy motivation. Even if he did pretend to himself and others that he was concealing this from them to protect them in case the truth was distressing--which, by the way, feels too adult a justification for a kid to come up with. In any event, the fact that I find Dewey’s motivation unconvincing means that in that case, too, I am looking at the screen and saying to myself, “Dewey only did this for the writers’ convenience, so that they wouldn’t have to include all three of the nephews in all the scenes related to the search for Della throughout the season.”
Also: Louie's tearful accusation of Dewey, while seated on the floor holding Della's stuff, would have had more moral weight if it hadn't come from someone who would create a fake charity to rip off his uncle/parent. Not to mention his impulse in the season's concluding episode to throw his brothers under the bus.
Sigh, Matilda.
DeleteIt's pretty clear that Dewey was wanting to protect his brothers from what could be a harmful truth - he even SAYS SO in the episode.
And it's not "too adult" a justification for a child to come to. Kids aren't given enough credit these days. They can handle more than you think, ya know.
While you have a point about Louie, please tell me you don't think Severus Snape is a well-written character.
If by chance you do, then that's just hypocritical.
I was also very irrationally annoyed with 'Whiskers'. 'Whiskers' is representative of everything that's wrong with this show tbh.
ReplyDeleteYeah, you're not wrong there.
DeleteAt least Scrooge’s parents weren’t named McMama and McPapa...but them being alive still bugs me. The dime thing, not so much, but Fergus’ revelation of giving Scrooge his first dime was too much of a “Brady Bunch” moment (by which I mean it was too sweetly sentimental). Scrooge and his Father don’t strike me as the sentimental type. If anything, Scrooge goes out of his way to hide his feelings in most of the comics and even other episodes of this series.
ReplyDelete