Rockerduck eating his hat

[drakeborough]

Jun 30, 2017 18:29:40 GMT drakeborough said:

And even though what I am going to say has nothing to do with the subject of names, I am curious about something: which is the first story in which Rockerduck eats his hat?

Jun 30, 2017 20:23:26 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

Not sure; clearly, it's based on Glomgold eating Scrooge's hat at the end of The Money Champ.

Jun 30, 2017 21:17:43 GMT Zantaf said:

Regarding Rockerduck eating his hat: First of all, here's the Inducks link with all the Rockerduck appearances in chronological order. I just went through the earliest stories in my collection (which is far from complete as I only have all the stories that have been published either in Greece or in the U.S). The earliest story that I found in which Rockerduck eats his hat is "Zio Paperone e il segreto di Villa Mistero" (I TL 649-A) by Guido Martina & Romano Scarpa from 1968. Martina wrote only two stories with Rockerduck before that and I do have them both: (I TL 627-C & I TL 638-B). He doesn't eat his hat in any of those. Of course that means nothing as the notion might have originated in a story I don't have (either Italian or S-coded) by another author and Martina just decided to adopt it in his third ever Rockerduck-featuring story. But if that isn't the case, then I TL 649-A is a good candidate: In the very next Rockerduck story drawn by Scarpa, "Zio Paperone e il traguardo difficile" (I TL 667-A, with script not by Martina, but by the Baroso brothers) Rockerduck does not eat his hat! And while I'm missing the next Martina one (I TL 671-A) as it was never published in a language that I can read, in the following Martina story, "Paperino e il bacio della gloria" (I TL 673-A) Rockerduck is seen eating his hat again in the finale! Furthermore, in the next story, which was not written by Martina, "Paperino e l'inevitabile ricaduta" (I TL 678-B, script by either Osvaldo Pavese or Giulio Chierchini) Rockerduck predictably does not eat his hat! So a pattern emerges and here is my hypothesis: since from the stories mentioned above, only in the Guido Martina ones does Rockerduck eat his hat, the notion started with the third ever story that Martina wrote with Rockerduck in it, and that is I TL 649-A. (Which of course, as Scrooge MacDuck mentioned above, is inspired by Glomgold eating Scrooge's hat at the end of The Money Champ). If anyone has further knowledge on the subject, please feel free to support or disprove my hypothesis!

Jul 1, 2017 9:42:20 GMT drakeborough said:

Jun 30, 2017 20:23:26 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

Not sure; clearly, it's based on Glomgold eating Scrooge's hat at the end of The Money Champ. 

It may be, but I'm not 100% sure about that. There is an idiom in English saying "I'll eat my hat if..." to mean "I'll be really surprised if...". Barks obviously had that idiom in mind when he had Glomgold say "If you can't win, at all, I'll eat that hat of yours!", and toyed with it by taking literally what is supposed to be only taken as a metaphor. It's possible that the story that introduced Rockerduck's hat-eating habit was inspired by The Money Champ, but it's also possible that the writer of the Rockerduck story was simply inspired by the same idiom.

It wouldn't be the only time that something similar happens in Disney comics: for example, Goofy carrying his Super Goobers under his hat to avoid other people knowing about them is probably a play on the idiom "keep it under your hat", used to mean "keep it a secret".

I guess that knowing which story introduced Rockerduck's hat-eating habit could provide a clue as to whether the idea was inspired by The Money Champ or not. It's worth noting that the reason Rockerduck replaced Glomgold as Scrooge's rival in Italian stories is that when the first Italian Rockerduck story was written he was the Barks rival with the most recent Italian appearance compared to Glomgold.

[...]

Jun 30, 2017 21:17:43 GMT Zantaf said:

Regarding Rockerduck eating his hat: First of all, here's the Inducks link with all the Rockerduck appearances in chronological order. I just went through the earliest stories in my collection (which is far from complete as I only have all the stories that have been published either in Greece or in the U.S). The earliest story that I found in which Rockerduck eats his hat is "Zio Paperone e il segreto di Villa Mistero" (I TL 649-A) by Guido Martina & Romano Scarpa from 1968. Martina wrote only two stories with Rockerduck before that and I do have them both: (I TL 627-C & I TL 638-B). He doesn't eat his hat in any of those. Of course that means nothing as the notion might have originated in a story I don't have (either Italian or S-coded) by another author and Martina just decided to adopt it in his third ever Rockerduck-featuring story. But if that isn't the case, then I TL 649-A is a good candidate: In the very next Rockerduck story drawn by Scarpa, "Zio Paperone e il traguardo difficile" (I TL 667-A, with script not by Martina, but by the Baroso brothers) Rockerduck does not eat his hat! And while I'm missing the next Martina one (I TL 671-A) as it was never published in a language that I can read, in the following Martina story, "Paperino e il bacio della gloria" (I TL 673-A) Rockerduck is seen eating his hat again in the finale! Furthermore, in the next story, which was not written by Martina, "Paperino e l'inevitabile ricaduta" (I TL 678-B, script by either Osvaldo Pavese or Giulio Chierchini) Rockerduck predictably does not eat his hat! So a pattern emerges and here is my hypothesis: since from the stories mentioned above, only in the Guido Martina ones does Rockerduck eat his hat, the notion started with the third ever story that Martina wrote with Rockerduck in it, and that is I TL 649-A. (Which of course, as Scrooge MacDuck mentioned above, is inspired by Glomgold eating Scrooge's hat at the end of The Money Champ). If anyone has further knowledge on the subject, please feel free to support or disprove my hypothesis!

So, the earliest example you found of Rockerduck eating his hat is "Zio Paperone e il segreto di Villa Mistero", which his 43rd appearance... checking all his stories before that one is going to take a lot of work even if we had access to all these comics.

Anyway, we can exclude his first story (Barks' "Boat Buster"), and from what you said we can also exclude his 39th story (I TL 627-C) and his 42nd story (I TL 638-B). We are left with 39 stories to be checked.

Jul 1, 2017 15:09:13 GMT Zantaf said:

Here's the full list of the stories that I've already checked and thus can be excluded, marked with number of appearance:

1. W WDC 255-01 "Boat Buster" (Barks)
3. S 64007 "Around the World in 80 Daze" (Kinney/Scarpa)
5. I TL 489-A "Zio Paperone e la gara ferroviaria" (Scarpa)
7. I TL 495-A "Zio Paperone e la balena a pois rosa" (Dalmasso/Carpi)
8. I TL 496-B "Zio Paperone e l'oca d'oro" (Dalmasso/Carpi)
9. I TL 504-A "Zio Paperone e il grande party" (Dalmasso//Scarpa)
10. I TL 504-B "Paperino e l'affare delle terre rare" (Pavese/Carpi)
29. I AT 115-A "Paperino e lo sprint fulminante" (Pavese/Scarpa)
33. I TL 585-B "Zio Paperone e il sabotatore delle Ande" (Missaglia/Bordini)
38. I AT 128-A "Zio Paperone e il socio d'occasione" (Missaglia/M.De Vita)
39. I TL 627-C "Zio Paperone e il domestico elettrodomestic" (Martina/Perego)
42. I TL 638-B "Zio Paperone e i merluzzi di Lakemerl" (Martina/Capitanio)

12 stories in total, so that leaves us with 30 stories to be checked

Jul 1, 2017 15:46:59 GMT drakeborough said:

Maybe one of these days I'll check which ones of these 30 stories are part of my collection.

Ok, I have checked 6 more stories and none of them had Rockerduck eating his hat. These are the stories I checked:

4. I TL 425-A "Zio Paperone e il coniglio ranista" (Barosso brothers/Scarpa)
19. I AT 110-B "Zio Paperone e la trasvolata del triplano" (Pavese/De Vita jr.)
22. I TL 536-A "Zio Paperone e il nipote portasfortuna" (Chendi/Scarpa)

32. I TL 583-A "Zio Paperone e il richiamo turistico" (P. Carpi/Chierchini)
34. I TL 586-B "Zio Paperone e la pillola Pit" (P. Carpi/Bordini)
35. S 66132 "Hopeless Luck" (?/Bradbury)

Now we are left with 24 stories to be checked.

[Hector]

The first time in my life i read a Rockerduck story, when he said ''if i lose, i'll eat my hat'',
i didn't know it was a running gag, and i was like ''gosh, it would be fun if he actually does it''.
When i saw him eat his hat in the last panel, it killed me!

[dancruz]

Today I asked my father what's the first thing he remembers about Rockerduck. He said "well, he always eats his hat!"
Funny.

[cacou]

It's not there in
37 (I TL 608-B)
36 (I TL 601-B)
30 (S 65040)
28 (S 65187)
27 (I AT 114-A)
26 (S 65162)
23 (S 65111)
21 (S 65107)
20 (S 65156)
18 (I TL 528-B)
16 (S 65124)
15 (S 65080)
12 (S 65014)

11 more to go.

[Zantaf]

Thanks cacou, we are getting really close!