.. do you mean you would exclude a story that had Jaq and Gus (the Cinderella Mice) on an adventure with Jiminy Cricket, for example?
If he's like me, no; what he mans is that unless there was a preexisting story where Mickey meets Shere Khan, we wouldn't assume that The Jungle Book could exist in a Mouse/Duck story just because it's Disney. Indeed, though they are few, there's a couple of Walt Disney Classics which are considered null and void on the Wiki for that reason — not even a cameo in House of Mouse or anything like that to argue for a connection.
Post by Scrooge MacDuck on Oct 30, 2018 18:58:11 GMT
Yeah… I think the key difference between us is that (as part of your "filter" idea) you want the Disney Comics Universe to be, as you say, realistic. Whereas me, I only need it to be self-consistent. So animals who sometimes talk and sometimes not because Plot are out for both of us — but "the Black Forest is timeless and magical" and "there exists an entire shadow-world of sapient rodents whom the 'big people' don't really know of" are acceptable propositions to only one of us, and that ain't you.
Even in the Disney animated cartoons, Chip N' Dale (and Pluto) are clearly animals, and Donald, Goofy and Mickey are clearly humans when they star in the same cartoon.
Pluto is pretty solidly a cartoon animal. Never talks, never behaves much more intelligently than some animals in some Barks stories. He's a cartoony dog, but he's no more than a dog.
Chip'n'Dale though… in old cartoons they are certainly more animal-ish than Donald, but they do talk, and I think there are at least a couple of times where Donald understands them. And as for newer cartoons (House of Mouse, Rescue Rangers), they're certainly people as much as animals. (I can't speak for the recent Nutty Tales series, but this was also the case in Roadster Racers, and, if you count that, in the Kingdom Hearts series.)
This is an interesting take, and one I hadn't considered before. The one problem I have with it is that's a little hard to reconcile the idea of Chip N' Dale being as 'human" as Donald or the Beagle Boys and yet exhibiting primitive behavior like living in trees and gathering acorns in the middle of a modern urban setting like Duckburg, unlike the Peeweegahs that live in a remote environment isolated from modernity.
Sure, it stretches belief a little, but not particularly more than the rodent-world of Rescuers and Great Mouse Detective remaining unseen from humans. Or, for that matter, than the Beagle Boys breaking out of jail every other day, and Glomgold and Rockerduck getting away with half the things they've gotten away with, legally speaking.
(If it helps, remember that Chip'n'Dale's "roughin' it" lifestyle corresponds to their living in the Black Forest, so it may well fall in the same category as Brer Rabbit per my headcanon; and that when we see them living outside of the Forest for a long period of time, in Rescue Rangers, they do wear clothes and live in a more civilized fashion.)
My guess is that our fellow Feathery Society member, Scrooge MacDuck also has a headcanon that exists at this level (?).
Well… not exactly. I have a headcanon that's in the spirit of Level 3 but tries to account for all the Vic Lockman stories that worked on Level 1; that is to say that unlike him I'm going to try and explain how and why all this is happening. Hence Wart can visit Duckburg because Merlin time-travels, not because "huhuh who cares", and Madam Mim is around because she's an immortal witch like Hazel.
As for the MEAS levels, they're an interesting out-of-universe tool but don't really apply in-universe for me. Chip'n'Dale looks more animal to us than Donald, and Donald looks more animal than the Beagle Boys, but they're all equally sentient and evolved beings in-universe for me. Same goes for the Rescuers and Basil of Baker Street. Yes, they choose to stay hidden from the "man-sized" species for the most part, but they are not fundamentally different; their status is about equivalent to Barks's Menehunes and Peeweegahs. Similarly, I consider that Brer Rabbit and company are to be considered "people" on the same level as Grandma Duck; they have animal behavior for some unspecified reason, but there is a reason. (My personal headcanon is that the Black Forest is sort of magical in that way, and bridges gaps — the "humans" act a little more animalistic, and meanwhile the animals become more humans, allowing things like Bambi to exist there.
So basically, I suppose you could say I'm at a sort of Level 3.5 that does demand consistency like Level 3 but is more than willing to make up far-fetched explanations to allow Level-4-style stories to proceed.
who is clearly not related to Mickey (imagine calling your own sibling Mr. or Mrs.!)
Not that I'm arguing Gottfredson did mean for Mrs Fieldmouse to be Mickey's siter, but I have an explanation for that one. I think it was a sort of in-joke between Mickey and his sister that he called her "Mrs Fieldmouse" after her marriage, and she kind of complained because it made her sound old and stuffy and he kept at it for fun's sake. A mirror to Donald's "Dumbella" moniker for Della, if you will (note how Della was "in on it" enough by the time of Donald's Nephews that she signed a letter with that name).
I wasn't aware of the new information, but perhaps the fact that she eventually changed her name to Mouse-Fieldmouse is related to that.
For the record, the Amelia->Amely change has been implemented over on the $crooge McDuck Wiki.
As I've stated before, the performance itself was fine, it's the voice. Simply put, I find it weird and off-putting to see a deep (or deep-ish) voice coming out of a duck — they don't all have to be quacky, but high-pitched is essential. Alan Young as Scrooge was already stretching it.
Ah, I see. It's an understandable position, of course, considering the Ducks' diminutive size compared to most other characters. But there are other deep-voiced Duck characters on this very show, aren't there ... Glomgold and Fergus, for example. It doesn't bother me personally (perhaps because I subscribe to the theory that these characters are humans that look like ducks because of the lens we see them through), but I do wish that in Fethry's case, Tom Kenny had used one of the higher voices he's employed in his voice-over work before; not because Fethry's a duck, but because that's the kind of voice I've always thought of him as having.
Agreed on Fethry. Fergus was, in fact, a little too deep for my liking also, and as for Glomgold, 2017!Glomgold is big enough that he gets a pass — but comic-Glomgold would have to sound higher-pitched.
the voice actor chosen for him was perfect. He projects the perfect degree of pseudo-chumminess and smarminess, completely believable as the smooth kind of guy who acts like he wants to be your best friend but will betray you at the first chance, the insufferable egotist.
As I've stated before, the performance itself was fine, it's the voice. Simply put, I find it weird and off-putting to see a deep (or deep-ish) voice coming out of a duck — they don't all have to be quacky, but high-pitched is essential. Alan Young as Scrooge was already stretching it.
Post by Scrooge MacDuck on Oct 28, 2018 10:09:21 GMT
I have no relevant authority on the Disney Wiki, but on these grounds, I shall rename the $crooge McDuck Wiki's page to "Amely" instead of "Amelia". The notes of "Felicity" and "Amelia" will remain, as they always did.
Way things are going we're going to have to end up making a Feathery Society-sponsored wikia or something. Although sadly it'll never get as big as the Disney one.
I fear that would not go very far. I tried getting help for the Scrooge McDuck Wiki on here and there was very little interested.
Post by Scrooge MacDuck on Oct 27, 2018 21:41:04 GMT
Look, for the second time, it's not a "fan name" like, say, Marley McDuck. It comes from an official, albeit foreign, source, and it was in use for longer than Felicity. If most people know her as Amelia, the name has an easily-traced history to an official source, and a note is still made of the alternate, retconned name on the page, where's the harm?
and "Amelia Fieldmouse" wasn't even ever a real thing in official means,
It was, in the Dutch version. There's an argument, of course, that the English name trumps whatever foreign names may predate it, but it's not a clear-cut one.
Post by Scrooge MacDuck on Oct 27, 2018 20:39:30 GMT
No one's talked about the music yet, but I find it's getting better and better. Gotta love the many variatons of the "wonder theme", especially the dark minor-key version. And the music throughout the climax is nothing short of amazing.
He didn't even need to be the highlight of the episode, but to take this energetic, quirky, kooky, narcissistic, borderline-unhinged, self-proclaimed genius and recast him as a stuffy bureaucrat whose main role was to play straight-man to Scrooge and Beakley's eccentricities was a waste of his character. As you say, any character could have played that role (not to mention the anachronism of old-Ludwig with young-Scrooge and the far-fetched concept of Scrooge as a secret agent in the first place; the whole scene was poorly conceived on so many levels).
's not really an anachronism, though. Scrooge and Ludwig are still the same generation — born in the second half ot he 19th century. Scrooge in the flashback is already in his 90's. Demogorgana and all that.
As for the wider point: I dunno… Ludwig was out of place, but as such, he looked like himself and was voiced right. This is more than I can say for Gladstone, who acted right but sounded and looked all wrong.
Post by Scrooge MacDuck on Oct 27, 2018 20:37:16 GMT
Amelia was the name in the Dutch translation of her original Gottfredson appearance, as I understand it. Fans picked up on it, and it became "accepted fact" that her name was Amelia Fieldmouse, rather like it's "known" that Walter Elias Mouse is the name of Mickey's father.
Later on, when Egmont decided to start using Morty and Ferdie's mother in new stories, they were unaware of (or, for reasons unknown, decided to go against) the fanlore, and created the name Felicity for her, alongside the name Frank for her husband (though that one hasn't actually been used on-page).
I, and the Disney Wiki folks (obviously), are of the opinion that they really shouldn't have messed with the fandom like that and that it's our darn right to keep calling her Amelia. I mean, it would have been so easy to throw us a bone, but no, they had to go with Felicity because we just gotta have alliterations everywhere, right?
…So it's fine if you prefer to use Felicity in your headcanon, but you're unlikely to change many of our minds. Amelia came first and we'll stick with it.