Comics publishers didn't give a WAK about which "worlds" characters had been established as inhabiting; they cared about keeping the costs of the comic business down, including the mailing costs. From that viewpoint, the character-separation rules that strike "universe"-preoccupied fans as dumb makes lots of good solid sense. I don't get the idea of blaming the publishers here; it would make more sense to blame the Postal Service, which created the regulation which gave rise to the separate characters rule. However, we wouldn't have the long string of solo Gyro stories at all if it hadn't been for that regulation, so I don't really see anything to get in a fuss about.
Yeah, honestly I think it was a positive. Without that rule, Gyro'd likely be basically just a minorly recurring Barks character, on one or two stories, instead of a headliner on his own right.
To be clear, I do think the Gyro stories was a happy result of this... many of them are quite wonderful. But I also think it was taken to a ridiculous extreme when Barks was suddenly restricted from using Donald Duck in a story starring Gyro. Having the stories STAR different characters would have been a better and more reasonable rule.
And honestly, despite the happy side effect of Gyro blossoming as a character, I can't help seeing this as part of the larger picture of how the work circumstances at Western in the 50s changed for the worse. Barks' enthusiasm for his job gradually diminished in the mid-50s onward because of the ridiculous rules and restrictions Western started imposing on him, many of them due to their growing paranoia of The Comics Code (as in, avoid conflicts between Donald and the boys. Use "quiet!" instead of "shut up!" Etc. etc.) Coupled with this came cheaper drawing paper which caused his artwork to decline ('cause Western would do ANYTHING to save money), and Western also started to insert more and more ads in their comic books, often cutting out half-page splash panels or even whole pages of his stories to make room for them. And in addition to all that, the regulation from the Postal Office stipulating that characters could henceforth only be seen in one story in each issue. It's no wonder his stories gradually declined from the late 40s/mid 50s golden age.
That was actually not his choice; due to some weird legal hullabaloo, he couldn't use HDL again in that story if it was to be printed as a backup to a longer story already featuring the same characters, so the publisher ordered Barks to switch them out with other characters, and the only ones he could think of was Morty & Ferdie. (Proof enough, once more, that while he didn't regularly use the Mouse cast himself, Barks didn't see a hard line between the Duck and Mouse casts like Don Rosa does.)
Although I recall a comment he once made to the effect that he was afraid his editors wouldn't like his referencing Mickey in a Duck story (the observation may have been made with regard to the Quiz Show story, but I'm not sure).
Both yes and no, actually. Barks said he was fairly certain that someone at Western came up with the "What's Mickey Mouse's social security number" gag in the quiz show story, as the whole idea for that story came from them (and he wouldn't have felt it permissible to mention Mickey in a duck story). Joakim Gunnarsson recently posted an extract of a handwritten letter from Barks on the Carl Barks - The Good Artist Facebook group. Here's what Barks wrote:
I can't remember the origin of the "Mickey's Social Security number" gag. Probably was in the script as it came from the office. I doubt that I would have felt it permissible to mention Mickey. The writer of the original script was a prolific gagman namen Crenshaw, I think.
Joakim also mentioned that it looks like "Mickey Mouse" in the relevant word balloon has been lettered in by someone else. So apparently, Western changed whatever name Barks had originally written in that panel to "Mickey Mouse".
Going back to the newspaper strips, Donald Duck has made appearances in the Mickey Mouse strips (mostly on Sundays, but in two daily continuities as well, "Editor-In-Grief" and "The Seven Ghosts"), and Pluto, Goofy, Clarabelle, Horace and Donald all appeared in the Silly Symphonies Sunday pages. Once Donald got his own strip, he seems to have dropped out of Mickey's, probably to help sell the Donald Duck feature. Pluto (and some of Mickey's co-stars, but not Mickey himself) appear in two sets of "Pluto the Pup" Sunday pages that appeared when there weren't any other characters to use in Silly Symphonies (interrupted for a Pinocchio adaptation, and replaced with Little Hiawatha after Pluto's second run). Mickey and Donald and most of the major Duckburg/Mouseton cast were left out of the "Christmas Classics" newspaper strips, except for Ludwig Von Drake and The Beagle Boys in two separate stories.
Going back to the newspaper strips, Donald Duck has made appearances in the Mickey Mouse strips (mostly on Sundays, but in two daily continuities as well, "Editor-In-Grief" and "The Seven Ghosts"), and Pluto, Goofy, Clarabelle, Horace and Donald all appeared in the Silly Symphonies Sunday pages. Once Donald got his own strip, he seems to have dropped out of Mickey's, probably to help sell the Donald Duck feature. Pluto (and some of Mickey's co-stars, but not Mickey himself) appear in two sets of "Pluto the Pup" Sunday pages that appeared when there weren't any other characters to use in Silly Symphonies (interrupted for a Pinocchio adaptation, and replaced with Little Hiawatha after Pluto's second run). Mickey and Donald and most of the major Duckburg/Mouseton cast were left out of the "Christmas Classics" newspaper strips, except for Ludwig Von Drake and The Beagle Boys in two separate stories.
There was a discussion about this on the DCF, but I believe it was a requirement of King Features Syndicate that two syndicated newspaper strips not have common characters. That obscure rule, later followed by comic book writers like Barks, is what led to the Separation of Duck and Mouse in comics.
This has to be one of the craziest Disney comic crossovers ever: Pico de Paperis e la legge indiana, a 20-page long Italian comic from 1966 STARRING Ludwig Von Drake AND Little Hiawatha! Whaaat?
The Mad Hatter appeared in a Mickey Mouse story once: inducks.org/story.php?c=I+TL++116-AP The story has nothing to do with Alice in wonderland as far as I know. He just shows up as the owner of a hat store in a random cameo.
Interesting. I wouldn't say there's anything inherently wrong with having a character from another series show up randomly but it does feel awfully weird and maybe even a little pointless, especially what with whatever continuity issues or MEAS incompatibility may arise. That's not to say such issues arise from the Mad Hatter crossing over with Mickey Mouse, but with other characters, they certainly can.
You really need to read Gil Turner's classic Li'l Bad Wolf comic book stories. He had guest appearances by literally EVERYONE, from Donald and Mickey to Dumbo and the Seven Dwarfs.
Interesting. I wouldn't say there's anything inherently wrong with having a character from another series show up randomly but it does feel awfully weird and maybe even a little pointless, especially what with whatever continuity issues or MEAS incompatibility may arise. That's not to say such issues arise from the Mad Hatter crossing over with Mickey Mouse, but with other characters, they certainly can.
You really need to read Gil Turner's classic Li'l Bad Wolf comic book stories. He had guest appearances by literally EVERYONE, from Donald and Mickey to Dumbo and the Seven Dwarfs.
Don't forget that famous movie producer, Dalt Wisney! I think that's also the only time Chicken Little (the proper one) shows up in a comic.
You really need to read Gil Turner's classic Li'l Bad Wolf comic book stories. He had guest appearances by literally EVERYONE, from Donald and Mickey to Dumbo and the Seven Dwarfs.
Don't forget that famous movie producer, Dalt Wisney! I think that's also the only time Chicken Little (the proper one) shows up in a comic.
Hey, that's true. It's a good thing canon doesn't really apply to Disney comics, or he would still be eaten as per the end of the cartoon.
The opposite question could be: which couple of most-common-characters never appeared together?
To answer this question, I took the 10 characters with highest number of appearances:
Donald Duck: 50145 Mickey Mouse: 31090 Huey Dewey and Louie: 23367 Goofy: 20297 Uncle Scrooge: 19664 Daisy Duck: 13539 Scamp: 12390 Minnie Mouse: 9986 Gyro Gearloose: 6793 Morty and Ferdie: 6014 The Beagle Boys: 5352 Winnie the Pooh: 5172
At that point every character has appeared with the other 9 characters. The 11th, however, Winnie the Pooh, never appeared with Scamp.
So a Scamp/Winnie the Pooh encounter could get the title of the most sought-for crossover that has never been observed yet...
After this we get Winnie the Pooh+Gyro, Winnie the Pooh+Beagle Boys, Winnie the Pooh+Fethry etc. but we'd have to go up to the 20th most common character (Piglet) to find a most-common-but-never-happened crossover without Winnie the Pooh, namely Piglet+Huey, Dewey and Louie together in the same story.
we'd have to go up to the 20th most common character (Piglet) to find a most-common-but-never-happened crossover without Winnie the Pooh, namely Piglet+Huey, Dewey and Louie together in the same story.
They've appeared together in several Kingdom Hearts games. Surely those count as "stories".