And admittedly, Barks's Ray's A Riot, even as it acknowledges dognoses as "dogs" in dialogue, seems to be built on the premise that Donald has never met a talking, walking wolf.
I never heard that story being given that title before. I like it, but where did it come from? I've always called it "Think Box Bollix" (which is what Gladstone called it as well, I believe). Also, I seem to remember "dog" being lettered differently, as if it may have originally read "man" (pure speculation, of course). We discussed this story and all its anthropomorphism-related implications on another thread.
Specially in the Mouseverse, some villains could be some kind of mustelid (like weasels or ferrets), although most could also be dognoses (but one bandit in "Mickey the Rat" is without doubt a weasel or something).
(BTW, what species is Sylvester Shyster supposed to be? I think we discussed that elsewhere but I can't remember what came of it.)
Oh, also, in that old Rosa interview linked to on another thread, he said that Barks originally wanted to have all the background characters be humans, but made them dognoses at the insistence of his editors. How true is that? I mean, Barks did slip in humans on several occasions (which reportedly did cause his editors to become very uncomfortable) but I would have thought the dognose convention came from the Taliaferro strips (as did giving Donald, HD&L black shirts). Can anyone clear this up for posterity?
From the Disney Wiki:
The character has been described by some as a weasel or a rat (the latter being Gottfredson's own interpretation), but his ears suggest that he is rather an anthropomorphic canine.
My first guess was rat too, so I'm glad that was Gottfredson's stance on the matter as well.
I would assume that Taliaferro introduced the dognoses to the Duck universe, and then that became the standard. Thus, the editors did not wish to deviate from it. The only problem with that theory is that the editors back then didn't care about continuity nor consistency, but it's my best guess. Giving Donald and the nephews black shirts was likely done to make them more visually interesting in the black and white pages. Otherwise, they would simply be "hollow" line-art.
I never heard that story being given that title before. I like it, but where did it come from? I've always called it "Think Box Bollix" (which is what Gladstone called it as well, I believe).
I'm being a bit of a stickler by calling it that — although like you I like it on its own merits. It's its earliest title, which it received in its 1964 Australian printing (try saying the title out loud in an Aussie accent!) as a story-specific giveaway book.
The simple reason is that for the Wiki's purposes, in all cases where several titles exist, we decided to go with a story's earliest English title to avoid arguments on whether e.g. Gladstone "beats" Fantagraphics or what-have-you. (There is one exception to this rule, which is The Horseradish Story, which I'm not sure has ever been printed under that title at all, but c'mon, it's The Horseradish Story.)
I would assume that Taliaferro introduced the dognoses to the Duck universe, and then that became the standard. Thus, the editors did not wish to deviate from it. The only problem with that theory is that the editors back then didn't care about continuity nor consistency, but it's my best guess.
They could easily have cared about artistic homogeneity even if they didn't give a fig about "continuity" in the timelines-and-family-trees sense given to it by the likes of Rosa, in much the same way that the Mickey shorts didn't have much in the way of narrative continuity, but did have a "house style" and a regular cast.
Speaking of the cartoons, this brings up an interesting fact: dognoses (sporadically) appeared in the cartoons, at least as early as 1942: this guy appears in one of the "Donald in the army" cartoons, The Vanishing Private.
And this is without going into the Goofy-esque "cartoon dogs" with white faces, black heads, and prominent muzzles who frequently appear in human roles in 1930's Mickey and Oswald cartoons, and are functionally indistinguishable from most dog supporting characters of the contemporary Mickey strip.
I feel like there's a middle ground between the strict "birds-dogs-pigs" approach and Zootopia-ness. Personally, I do like me a random walk-on hippopotamus every now and then, but I recognize that the appeal of it is very much a novelty.
I'm a bit in the middle myself, I'd just like to experiment with different animals than your standard array of dogfaces. Doesn't mean every animal ever needs to be represented. Besides, Zootopia looks on the face of it be to more MEAS-3, whereas I'd like to aim more for MEAS-4.5 myself.
Actually, the examples I gave came about because I've been thinking how to represent non-Western characters without resorting to the typical clichés. An anthropomorphic gazelle or antelope was my 'filter' idea for a character of Nilotic ancestry, who are famously tall and fast runners. The hippopotamus was an idea I got from Fantasia, as a possibility to represent a heavy-set African-American woman. Of course, I know Disney animals types (or whatever you want to call them) were never intended to be based on ethnicity, but there's no rule that say you can't do that if you like. And that's how this thread came about -- I wanted to know if they'd been used before somewhere, partly for reference. I much prefer the old Fred Moore-style Disney designs over today's CGI designs that you see in, for example, Zootopia.
If species is too controversial a term, maybe we need a better term. My original draft said 'animal', but I guess that runs into the same problems. 'Type' is too generic. 'Totem' has problems of its own. Maybe 'taxon'?
Personally I have no issue with "species", which can easily be justified in real-world terms even if you don't think Donald and Mickey are really of different species in-universe. However, if we must come up with a wholly neutral term, I really really like taxons. All say aye?[/quote] Taxon is still a borrowing from biology, however it is considerably less specific than species. I like totem because of its connotations with animalist symbolism, funny animals having evolved from fables and that, but it could also be constructed as a cultural appropriation and it might be a bit too 'out there' for some. I guess it depends on what you want to accentuate -- taxon has my preference as a more 'scientific' term.
Besides, Zootopia looks on the face of it be to more MEAS-3, whereas I'd like to aim more for MEAS-4.5 myself. (…) I much prefer the old Fred Moore-style Disney designs over today's CGI designs that you see in, for example, Zootopia.
Oh, absolutely. I was only using Zootopia as shorthand for "world where just about every mammal you can think of is represented", rather than in terms of MEAS levels or of the artstyle used for the various characters.
That being said, Zootopia is a bit of an egde-case of the MEAS scale in any event because it's essentially sci-fi — it's spotlighting the characters' nature as nonhumans who aren't just their world's counterparts to "our" animals, but species of their own, in a way that garden-variety funny annimals media rarely do. I tend to personally think of the Duckverse as a world somewhat like Zootopia but where the resulting animal-like species are even closer to Homo Sapiens, but that's very much an after-the-fact rationale.
What appears to be a giraffe appears in this crowd shot from Boxing Champion.
Speaking of giraffes, I remember reading a story where an anthropomorphic giraffe appears at the zoo (!). Really? Ridiculous, ain't it? Sadly, I don't remember the title of the story, but if I find it, I'll try to post a scan.
Besides, Zootopia looks on the face of it be to more MEAS-3, whereas I'd like to aim more for MEAS-4.5 myself. (…) I much prefer the old Fred Moore-style Disney designs over today's CGI designs that you see in, for example, Zootopia.
Oh, absolutely. I was only using Zootopia as shorthand for "world where just about every mammal you can think of is represented", rather than in terms of MEAS levels or of the artstyle used for the various characters.
That being said, Zootopia is a bit of an egde-case of the MEAS scale in any event because it's essentially sci-fi — it's spotlighting the characters' nature as nonhumans who aren't just their world's counterparts to "our" animals, but species of their own, in a way that garden-variety funny annimals media rarely do. I tend to personally think of the Duckverse as a world somewhat like Zootopia but where the resulting animal-like species are even closer to Homo Sapiens, but that's very much an after-the-fact rationale.
It's also worth highlighting the fact that I haven't seen Zootopia.
What's interesting about the Duck/Mouseverse is that there are both a variety of sentient taxons, as well as their animal counterparts (what you might call MEAS-0, even below Pluto). Goofy and Pluto are the most famous example, but we have evidence of regular ducks (as stuffed in The Gilded Man, for instance), and we know the ducks are carniverous without it being considered cannibalistic (compare all the Thanksgivings where they eat turkey with Lost on a Desert Island or Good Deeds).
What appears to be a giraffe appears in this crowd shot from Boxing Champion.
Speaking of giraffes, I remember reading a story where an anthropomorphic giraffe appears at the zoo (!). Really? Ridiculous, ain't it? Sadly, I don't remember the title of the story, but if I find it, I'll try to post a scan.
In Zoo Party, booth an antropomorhpical orangutan and an antropomorhpical sloth appear at the zoo, with the gag that both "adopt" (give money to the maintenance) their non-antropomorphical counterparts.
Last Edit: Jun 9, 2020 16:20:46 GMT by crazycatlord
What's interesting about the Duck/Mouseverse is that there are both a variety of sentient taxons, as well as their animal counterparts (what you might call MEAS-0, even below Pluto). Goofy and Pluto are the most famous example, but we have evidence of regular ducks (as stuffed in The Gilded Man, for instance), and we know the ducks are carnivorous without it being considered cannibalistic
Notably, up until about World War II, the Warner Bros and Lantz cartoon worlds worked this way too. Both humanoid and animal versions of various species, with a background of mostly dogs, once again, as the humanized bit players.
This was contemporaneous with Disney, and may reflect the two other studios having "split off" from Disney (with the exception of Walter Lantz himself, both shops were staffed at first by those who had left with Oswald in 1928). Their staffers may have largely shared a sensibility about what a funny animal cartoon world should look like. Late 1930s Warner cartoons were even heavier on the "dogfaces" than Disney, with some complete cartoons (e. g. GOLD RUSH DAZE, HOBO GADGET BAND) focusing on one-off dogfaced bit players without any of the studio stars.
There have always been stories actually making fun of the differences; in "The Retriever," Fethry goes duck hunting, but only after assuring Donald that he's only hunting "mallards" (portrayed as the mom and dad ducks from Disney's UGLY DUCKLING cartoon), not "domestic" ducks like Donald and himself.
(And while it's a bit OT, one of the more recent Looney Tunes series (2010) was based more on the old comics—with a suburban setting—and often had Porky, Daffy, and Bugs meeting up at a restaurant at the start of a story. When there, Porky didn't object to his friends eating pork, but was grossed out by the idea of eating it himself, clearly feeling a kinship to "animal" pigs as a closely related species.)
And admittedly, Barks's Ray's A Riot, even as it acknowledges dognoses as "dogs" in dialogue, seems to be built on the premise that Donald has never met a talking, walking wolf.
I never heard that story being given that title before. I like it, but where did it come from? I've always called it "Think Box Bollix" (which is what Gladstone called it as well, I believe). Also, I seem to remember "dog" being lettered differently, as if it may have originally read "man" (pure speculation, of course). We discussed this story and all its anthropomorphism-related implications on another thread.
According to Inducks, Ray's A Riot was the title used in an Australian edition from 1964. Apparently it's the first English-language edition with a title, and I suppose that's why Scrooge MacDuck is using it on his Fandom Wikia. But it seems like a strange basis to go on, considering that "The Think Box Bollix" is the title which is generally considered the official one today. (Barks' WDC tenpagers of course never had titles when they were published in the U.S. originally.)
According to Inducks, Ray's A Riot was the title used in an Australian edition from 1964. Apparently it's the first English-language edition with a title, and I suppose that's why Scrooge MacDuck is using it on his Fandom Wikia. But it seems like a strange basis to go on, considering that "The Think Box Bollix" is the title which is generally considered the official one today. (Barks' WDC tenpagers of course never had titles when they were published in the U.S. originally.)
Well, for one thing I like it rather better than “The Think Box Bollix”. It's got a lot more character to it. And since the story is recorded as having been printed under that title both on the Wiki and on INDUCKS, well, if there's any confusion, people can just go and look it up. I dunno. There didn't seem to be any confusion when I mentioned it, from context. And as you say, none of these titles are what Barks intended, so I think it's largely up to individual preference which one you're going to use.
(Incidental linguistic note: the $crooge McDuck Wiki is "a Wiki”, or a “a wiki”; it is not “a Wikia”. Wikia is the name of the parent company, with "FANDOM", always capitalized, being an administrative subdivision thereof. Araguably you could wall $MW a “Wikia FANDOM Wiki”, but that's rather redundant.)
(Incidental linguistic note: the $crooge McDuck Wiki is "a Wiki”, or a “a wiki”; it is not “a Wikia”. Wikia is the name of the parent company, with "FANDOM", always capitalized, being an administrative subdivision thereof. Araguably you could wall $MW a “Wikia FANDOM Wiki”, but that's rather redundant.)
Interesting notes; I hadn't thought of that Wikia/Wiki distinction before. But just so you know: if you hover your mouse over the tab of an article on the "Scrooge McDuck wiki", it reads, in full: "Ray's A Riot | Scrooge McDuck Wikia | Fandom". So I think it can still be legit to call this wiki page "Scrooge McDuck Wikia", especially when the site itself identifies it as such. (Also, I'd say it's legit to write "Fandom" with just the first letter capitalized.)
Regardless, though, specifically themed wikis under the fandom.com url have always come across to me as something other than the standard wikipedia.org. Of course, both of them can be just as accurate or inaccurate with facts. But generally speaking (not something I'm applying to the Scrooge McDuck wiki in particular), the fandom wikis I've seen tend to be more heavily laden with fan theories and/or misinformation presented as facts.
Regardless, though, specifically themed wikis under the fandom.com url have always come across to me as something other than the standard wikipedia.org. Of course, both of them can be just as accurate or inaccurate with facts. But generally speaking (not something I'm applying to the Scrooge McDuck wiki in particular), the fandom wikis I've seen tend to be more heavily laden with fan theories and/or misinformation presented as facts.
This is getting a little off-topic, but the thing is, Wikipedia is a Wiki; not all Wikis are from Wikia. That's the thing. Wikia is the most popular platform for Wiki-creating, but not, by far, the only one; the Wikimedia Foundation responsible for Wikipedia is another; I could also cite Miraheze. And TVtropes is a famous example of a wholly independent Wiki, though it's not exactly the pinnacle of reliability.
Which is to say, Wikipedia's difference from a “Wikia FANDOM” Wiki lies more with the number and attitude of the people who edit it than it does with who's hosting it; in theory it's no different from any other Wiki, except inasmuch as it has a wider scope than most.
Generally, a Wiki's only as reliable as its team of administrators. Wikipedia, by virtue of covering real-world topics and of sheer seniority, tends to attract a large number of admins who mean business and can create and enforce rational policy; most fandom-focused Wikis (which form the majority of FANDOM's output) naturally tend to attract less serious people, though the bigger and more institutionalized the fandom, the more reliable the Wiki. Hence Wikis about general topics like the “Fictional Villains Wiki” inevitably devolve into weird cruft, but e.g. the Star Wars and Doctor Who Wiki are thorough and machinelike to the point of it being slightly frightening.
(I'm also aware that Wikia themselves don't actually hold to the proper terminology sometimes, as you rightly point out — but as I said, they don't own the concept of a Wiki, much as they wish they did. It's part of a recent trend of updates that the actual serious Wiki-making community using their platform doesn't actually like.)
(And while it's a bit OT, one of the more recent Looney Tunes series (2010) was based more on the old comics—with a suburban setting—and often had Porky, Daffy, and Bugs meeting up at a restaurant at the start of a story. When there, Porky didn't object to his friends eating pork, but was grossed out by the idea of eating it himself, clearly feeling a kinship to "animal" pigs as a closely related species.)
You could filter that as Porky having vegetarian leanings, I guess. Were there other meats involved?