Was Gus supposed to be Donald's sidekick?

[Fethryfan]

While checking the site www.cbarks.dk/indexint.htm (The best Carl Barks fansite!) i've come across two shelved cartoon ideas made by Barks back when he was an animator: Interior Decorators and Lost Prospectors

Both of them featured Gus Goose on a leading role along with Donald, as you can see on the storyboards

Interior Decorators

Lost Prospectors

Gus also appeared often on the early years of the Taliaferro strips (1938-1942). This got me thinking...was Disney planning to make Gus Donald's sidekick, much on the way Goofy is Mickey's in the comics and strips?

[That Duckfan]

Yeah, it's an interesting period. There wasn't much in the way of Duckburg yet, Donald didn't have any peers to play off. Mickey is too high-profile and Goofy is... well, Goofy. I don't think they'd be sidekicks as such, as Gus is actually a rival for Daisy's affections in the earliest comics. So somewhere between Gladstone (lazy rival), Fethry (annoying relative), and Scrooge (second adult).

The Dutch writing team did some interesting stuff with Gus for a few years after he was featured on the Dutch back cover in 1988. Probably the most anyone's explored the character.

[bats]

If I'm not mistaken, there were initial plans to make Gus a recurring character in the shorts that got shelved when audiences didn't respond very positively to him in Donald's Cousin Gus.

[Fethryfan]

Oct 12, 2021 21:15:39 GMT That Duckfan said:

Yeah, it's an interesting period. There wasn't much in the way of Duckburg yet, Donald didn't have any peers to play off. Mickey is too high-profile and Goofy is... well, Goofy. I don't think they'd be sidekicks as such, as Gus is actually a rival for Daisy's affections in the earliest comics. So somewhere between Gladstone (lazy rival), Fethry (annoying relative), and Scrooge (second adult).

The Dutch writing team did some interesting stuff with Gus for a few years after he was featured on the Dutch back cover in 1988. Probably the most anyone's explored the character.

Yep. before Barks came to the comics Donald only had cousin Gus, HDL, Grandma Duck and Daisy. Not enough to sustain a long-running franchise

I think it would have been interesting to see how Donald's history would've happened if Gus remained with him instead of going to live with Grandma Duck

[Fethryfan]

Oct 12, 2021 22:02:08 GMT bats said:

If I'm not mistaken, there were initial plans to make Gus a recurring character in the shorts that got shelved when audiences didn't respond very positively to him in Donald's Cousin Gus.

What? Really? Donald's Cousin Gus is my favorite Donald short! I wonder why people didn't liked back then

[That Duckfan]

Oct 12, 2021 22:31:27 GMT Fethryfan said:

Oct 12, 2021 21:15:39 GMT That Duckfan said:

Yeah, it's an interesting period. There wasn't much in the way of Duckburg yet, Donald didn't have any peers to play off. Mickey is too high-profile and Goofy is... well, Goofy. I don't think they'd be sidekicks as such, as Gus is actually a rival for Daisy's affections in the earliest comics. So somewhere between Gladstone (lazy rival), Fethry (annoying relative), and Scrooge (second adult).

The Dutch writing team did some interesting stuff with Gus for a few years after he was featured on the Dutch back cover in 1988. Probably the most anyone's explored the character.

Yep. before Barks came to the comics Donald only had cousin Gus, HDL, Grandma Duck and Daisy. Not enough to sustain a long-running franchise

I think it would have been interesting to see how Donald's history would've happened if Gus remained with him instead of going to live with Grandma Duck

Back in the Silly Symphonies days, you'd also get Goofy and Clarebelle occasionally turning up. One alternative would have been to team up Donald with Horace, since he'd been largely sidelined in the Mickey strip by that time. It's not a common pairing, is it?

My favorite odd couple is still Gus Goose with Gyro Gearloose. Gyro is task-focused, while Gus is Gus-focused. They rarely team up, it's hilarious when they do.

[Orora]

Oct 13, 2021 9:17:59 GMT That Duckfan said:

Oct 12, 2021 22:31:27 GMT Fethryfan said:

Yep. before Barks came to the comics Donald only had cousin Gus, HDL, Grandma Duck and Daisy. Not enough to sustain a long-running franchise

I think it would have been interesting to see how Donald's history would've happened if Gus remained with him instead of going to live with Grandma Duck

Back in the Silly Symphonies days, you'd also get Goofy and Clarebelle occasionally turning up. One alternative would have been to team up Donald with Horace, since he'd been largely sidelined in the Mickey strip by that time. It's not a common pairing, is it?

My favorite odd couple is still Gus Goose with Gyro Gearloose. Gyro is task-focused, while Gus is Gus-focused. They rarely team up, it's hilarious when they do.

I don't remember many Gus/Gyro stories, but the one that comes to my mind is that Barks (?) story where Gus brings Gyro to a planet of lazy people, and they accidentally cause them to make extremely quick technological discoveries. It was a fun story.

[That Duckfan]

Oct 13, 2021 9:30:21 GMT Orora said:

Oct 13, 2021 9:17:59 GMT That Duckfan said:

Back in the Silly Symphonies days, you'd also get Goofy and Clarebelle occasionally turning up. One alternative would have been to team up Donald with Horace, since he'd been largely sidelined in the Mickey strip by that time. It's not a common pairing, is it?

My favorite odd couple is still Gus Goose with Gyro Gearloose. Gyro is task-focused, while Gus is Gus-focused. They rarely team up, it's hilarious when they do.

I don't remember many Gus/Gyro stories, but the one that comes to my mind is that Barks (?) story where Gus brings Gyro to a planet of lazy people, and they accidentally cause them to make extremely quick technological discoveries. It was a fun story.

There's a few others: a story where they build a theme park together and another one.

[Orora]

Oct 13, 2021 9:40:29 GMT That Duckfan said:

Oct 13, 2021 9:30:21 GMT Orora said:

I don't remember many Gus/Gyro stories, but the one that comes to my mind is that Barks (?) story where Gus brings Gyro to a planet of lazy people, and they accidentally cause them to make extremely quick technological discoveries. It was a fun story.

There's a few others: a story where they build a theme park together and another one.

Oh, darn, no French printings.

[Ramapith]

Oct 13, 2021 9:17:59 GMT That Duckfan said:

Back in the Silly Symphonies days, you'd also get Goofy and Clarebelle occasionally turning up. One alternative would have been to team up Donald with Horace, since he'd been largely sidelined in the Mickey strip by that time. It's not a common pairing, is it?

It seems to be a little more common than the parameters of your search showed. When I look for stories with Donald and Horace that don't include Mickey, I get a bunch of Western Publishing stories, nominally starring Daisy, that make Clarabelle Daisy's friend/sidekick—and pair off Donald and Horace similarly.

Whether it works is up to the reader, I guess. As a kid, forced to take these stories in bags with other Whitman comics, I intrinsically liked Donald and Horace together but wished the stories themselves were better; more a comment on the talents involved than the pairing.

[That Duckfan]

Oct 14, 2021 17:26:20 GMT Ramapith said:

Oct 13, 2021 9:17:59 GMT That Duckfan said:

Back in the Silly Symphonies days, you'd also get Goofy and Clarebelle occasionally turning up. One alternative would have been to team up Donald with Horace, since he'd been largely sidelined in the Mickey strip by that time. It's not a common pairing, is it?

It seems to be a little more common than the parameters of your search showed. When I look for stories with Donald and Horace that don't include Mickey, I get a bunch of Western Publishing stories, nominally starring Daisy, that make Clarabelle Daisy's friend/sidekick—and pair off Donald and Horace similarly.

Whether it works is up to the reader, I guess. As a kid, forced to take these stories in bags with other Whitman comics, I intrinsically liked Donald and Horace together but wished the stories themselves were better; more a comment on the talents involved than the pairing.

I looked for stories with only Donald and Horace, which was a little unfair. I did see those late Western stories but I didn't think much of them, as this was the first time I learned those stories even existed! I think Donald and Horace could make for an interesting pair, both are headstrong types with a sense of initiative and adventure. But I have a harder time figuring out the dynamic between them. A Donald+Horace adventure would be more of a Laurel and Hardy affair, rather than two very different personalities like Donald+Fethry.

While we're on the subject of unlikely duos: I recently read a story with Goofy and Gladstone as heroes. It seems to be the first time they've ever shared the titles together, along with this story published later that year. It's an good story, that first one: both Goofy and Gladstone win a prize at a raffle, but where Gladstone quickly stacks up a rack of "trophies", Goofy goes by his friends to help them, and gets a little surprise party given in his honor. Which of the two is the luckiest in the end?