Grandma Duck as Scrooge's sister: where does it come from ?

[drakeborough]

Apr 2, 2017 22:05:24 GMT Scroogerello said:

Similarly to the illustration I posted above, this story: coa.inducks.org/story.php?c=I+PM++187-2 shows flashbacks of young Grandma, Scrooge and Gideon together in Scotland. It seems like a very interesting story, but it seems like it won't be reprinted anytime soon... Here's a scan I could find on an Italian wiki:

(look at the little Loch Ness monster in the background )

I recently read this story, which was published on the first day of 1996 and is probably the second-to-last Italian story to use the sibiling idea (but I am not 100% sure of that). Now that this story has been mentioned, all the Italian stories that I knew of that used the sibiling idea have been mentioned in this thread. Of course, I have only read a small percentage of Italian stories, so it's possible that the idea is used in many other stories I don't know of.

Anyway, I found this story boring: it is too didactic and linear, and you could see the plot twist coming from a mile away (if it was meant to be a twist at all).

Despite using the sibiling idea, the story has a few continuity references: Grandma Duck is called Elvira many times, we can see the McDuck tartan (worn by Scrooge and Gideon in the flashbacks and -sigh- hanging on a wall of Grandma's farm), and we can also see a picture of uncle Jake and one of Sir Roast's armor (both pictures are -sigh again- on a wall on Grandma's farm). Incidentally, I was so used to Rosa's young Scrooge design that in a flashback (not the one from the picture above) I thought Gideon was Scrooge, but I quickly realized it was not the case since the other kid has Scrooge-like sideburns.

By the way, I hadn't noticed the Loch Ness monster in the background, you had a good eye!

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Apr 2, 2017 22:05:24 GMT Scroogerello said:

Similarly to the illustration I posted above, this story: coa.inducks.org/story.php?c=I+PM++187-2 shows flashbacks of young Grandma, Scrooge and Gideon together in Scotland. It seems like a very interesting story, but it seems like it won't be reprinted anytime soon... Here's a scan I could find on an Italian wiki:

(look at the little Loch Ness monster in the background )

Yeah, I read that story and I actually loved it for all this continuity. True, some of the present-day stuff is a bit predicatable, but It's the only story I've seen that actually takes the 'sibling' idea and makes it into a real continuity that fits with previously-established stories and creates a real dynamic based on that between Scrooge and Elvira.

[Scroogerello]

A cameo by uncle Jake & Sir Roast McDuck? Interesting! Also, does the storyline involve a lot of Scrooge/Gideon/Grandma's past, or does it moslty focus on the present? On the INDUCKS, I found another panel from the story, where Gideon calls Grandma "Elvira":

[drakeborough]

Apr 3, 2017 15:08:40 GMT Scroogerello said:

A cameo by uncle Jake & Sir Roast McDuck? Interesting!

I can confirm the cameo for both of them, in the form of pictures, despite the fact that Inducks does not list them. Uncle Jake's design is pretty generic for a background picture, so the artist added the label "zio Jake" ("uncle Jake") to help readers recognize him. Sir Roast's armor is very distinctive so the picture of it has no label. It also seems to me that a duck in another picture (without labels) could be Downy, but maybe I am seeing it too much.

And speaking of uncredited (by Inducks) appearances of Sir Roast's armor, there's also this 2002 Italian story I read recently. As the first panel shows, there is the armor (this time not a picture but the real thing) and the McDuck tartan. There are also a few continuity references like the Whiskervilles and their hound, but I'll stop here to avoid another off-topic.

Apr 3, 2017 15:08:40 GMT Scroogerello said:

Also, does the storyline involve a lot of Scrooge/Gideon/Grandma's past, or does it moslty focus on the present?

It mostly focus on the present, with three short flashbacks: the first is two-panel long (but the second panel is as big as four panels), the second is two-panel long (but the second panel is as big as two panels), the third and last is one-panel long (it's the one with the Loch Ness monster).

Apr 3, 2017 15:08:40 GMT Scroogerello said:

On the INDUCKS, I found another panel from the story, where Gideon calls Grandma "Elvira":

The name Elvira is used four times in the story, and in all four instances the one using it is Gideon. Also, the first time Gideon calls her Elvira (picture above) Scrooge comments  "Ih! Ih! I am not used to hear you called by name, sister!"

At the moment I am not able to provide scans, but I see that Inducks has two more images: the first one is in Italian...

and the other one is in Greek:

By the way, since in this thread we also discussed stories portraying them as cousins (in addition to the ones portraying them as sibilings), I'll mention this 2006 Italian story: it's a costumed story in which Grandma Duck's alter ego (creatively called Elvira Mc Coot) is a cousin of Scrooge's alter ego. Of course, since it's a costumed story they are not really Grandma and Scrooge so their relationship doesn't count: in costumed stories the relationships are often different from the "real" ones. For example, in at least one costumed story Scrooge's alter ego and Donald's alter ego are not related to each other at all. Still, I thought it was worth a mention.

[phantomduck]

I did a post on Mouseton thread to continue there that part, sorry for the offtopic.

[drakeborough]

So far we have addressed the original question of the thread, i.e. the origin(s) of the idea of portraying Scrooge and Grandma as sibilings. A related question would be: which countries use, or used, this idea?

We already mentioned Italian, German and Dutch stories. We also mentioned the possibility (unconfirmed) that the idea is used in some S-coded stories (of course, there's no country called "S-coded", but you know what I mean).

What about other countries? Here is a Norwegian family tree from 1973:

Here is a Finnish tree from 1981:

And here is a French tree from Picsou Magazine #240 (January 1992):

In all these trees, Scrooge and Grandma are sibilings, but of course this doesn't mean that they are regularly portrayed as such in Norwegian, Finnish and French stories. In particular, I am pretty sure they are not portrayed as sibilings in French stories (the French tree is just a remake of an earlier German or Dutch tree).

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Related question: in any universe where Grandma and Scrooge are siblings, is it automatically also assumed that Grandma is Donald's mother? Otherwise, Scrooge would be Donald's granduncle.

EDIT: Based on some of the trees above, I guess this isn't always the case.

[drakeborough]

May 2, 2017 15:54:49 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

Related question: in any universe where Grandma and Scrooge are siblings, is it automatically also assumed that Grandma is Donald's mother? Otherwise, Scrooge would be Donald's granduncle.

That is the whole problem with the idea, and the reason why Grandma and Scrooge should not be portrayed as sibilings. For example, Italian stories say that Grandma is Donald's grandmother and Scrooge is Donald's uncle/HDL's greatuncle... and yet at the same time they have often said, starting in 1960, that Grandma is Scrooge's sister, though in Italy this idea was never used after 1999.

In another thread I called this a textbook example of Orwellian doublethink, since one's grandma is not his/her uncle's sister.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doublethink

"Doublethink is the act of simultaneously accepting two mutually contradictory beliefs as correct"

Hopefully Dutch authors/editors will also realize this and stop calling them sibilings.

Anyway, people who try makng a family tree based on the idea that they are sibiling have a hard time doing that, because they must either portray Scrooge as Donald's granduncle rather than uncle, or they must portray Grandma Duck as Donald's mother or aunt (usually aunt). Here are two more of such trees: Ahnentfel der Ducks, 1995...

and Johnny A. Grote, 1999:

[Minotaur]

The funny thing is, if they seriously took the idea as Grandma Duck being Donald's mother and HDL's grandma, it would make sense to portray Donald living with her when he was a child.

[drakeborough]

May 4, 2017 14:06:35 GMT Minotaur said:

The funny thing is, if they seriously took the idea as Grandma Duck being Donald's mother and HDL's grandma, it would make sense to portray Donald living with her when he was a child.

Well, if Grandma Duck were Donald's mother then like you say it would make sense that in the Paperino Paperotto (Donald Duckling) series Donald lives with her... except that, in the series, he always refers to her as his grandmother, and she refers to him as his grandson.

[sirtao]

She calls him "nipote" which means both "grandson" and "nephew".

And, IIRC, everybody calls her "Grandma" or "Grandma Duck", Gladstone included

[Minotaur]

May 4, 2017 16:00:23 GMT drakeborough said:

May 4, 2017 14:06:35 GMT Minotaur said:

The funny thing is, if they seriously took the idea as Grandma Duck being Donald's mother and HDL's grandma, it would make sense to portray Donald living with her when he was a child.

Well, if Grandma Duck were Donald's mother then like you say it would make sense that in the Paperino Paperotto (Donald Duckling) series Donald lives with her... except that, in the series, he always refers to her as his grandmother, and she refers to him as his grandson.

I knew. That's why I said "if they took [it] seriously". 

[drakeborough]

May 4, 2017 22:06:18 GMT sirtao said:

She calls him "nipote" which means both "grandson" and "nephew".

True, but we can safely say that in this case "nipote" means "grandson" because Donald refers to her as "mia nonna" ("my grandmother") and other characters refer to her in relation to Donald as "tua nonna" ("your grandmother") or "nonna di Paperino" ("Donald's grandmother"). Even when other characters call her "nonna" ("grandma") or "Nonna Papera" ("Grandma Duck"), they never refer to her as "mia nonna" ("my grandmother"), so there's no doubt as to whose grandmother she is meant to be.

Despite what I just said, I wonder if the Grandma-and-Scrooge-as-sibilings idea in old Italian stories may have started from the fact that both of them call Donald "nipote".

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Perhaps some evidence that Taliaferro thought of Scrooge and Grandma as siblings comes from a newspaper strip that was posted on the old DCF. I don't remember the date and can't find it online, but hopefully someone knows what I'm talking about and can post it here. In it, Donald makes a comment about Scrooge never giving anyone anything, and Grandma responds that as a child, he gave his brother measles (or some such). The implication is that Grandma grew up with Scrooge (although admittedly it's not definite evidence that they're siblings). However, IIRC, the "Grandma" in this strip was not identified and looked very different, and we were debating whether it was Grandma at all. To make it Rosa-compliant, maybe it was Matilda McDuck! Also, in an attempt to bring varied (Scarpa, Van Horn, Rosa) universes together, we concluded that this "brother" could only be Gideon (since Rumpus wasn't raised as a brother to Scrooge)!

[drakeborough]

May 5, 2017 13:18:43 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

Perhaps some evidence that Taliaferro thought of Scrooge and Grandma as siblings comes from a newspaper strip that was posted on the old DCF. I don't remember the date and can't find it online, but hopefully someone knows what I'm talking about and can post it here.

It's the daily strip of May 4, 1966, written by Bob Karp and drawn by Al Taliaferro:

I remember that until recently Scrooge was indexed by Inducks as being mentioned in that strip, but I see that he was removed because he does not appear. Too bad: indexing characters that are only mentioned would help many researches.

May 5, 2017 13:18:43 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

In it, Donald makes a comment about Scrooge never giving anyone anything, and Grandma responds that as a child, he gave his brother measles (or some such). The implication is that Grandma grew up with Scrooge (although admittedly it's not definite evidence that they're siblings).

Even letting aside the debate of who wrote the strip (I think it was Karp per the credits, while the earliest Grandma strips were probably written or co-written by Taliaferro even though he is not credited for that), I don't think this strip imply that Scrooge and Grandma are sibilings. There are other stories which don't portray them as sibilings and yet have them grow up together in America, conveniently ignoring that Scrooge is supposed to come from Scotland. Or, they don't ignore it but assume that he went to America at an early age (that is, even earlier than 13 as Rosa would establish later).

At any rate, this strip is from 1966, and we know Italy used the sibiling idea since at least 1960, so the inspiration for the idea was not this strip, which never appeared outside of the USA anyway (and even in the USA, it was never reprinted).

May 5, 2017 13:18:43 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

However, IIRC, the "Grandma" in this strip was not identified and looked very different, and we were debating whether it was Grandma at all. To make it Rosa-compliant, maybe it was Matilda McDuck!

Looking through this gallery of the 53 daily strips/Sunday pages in which Taliaferro drew her, I think she was meant to be Grandma Duck, and the different appearance is simply caused by Taliaferro not having drawn her since 1961. Trying to retcon her into being Matilda doesn't seem a good idea to me, as she doesn't even look like her.

May 5, 2017 13:18:43 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

Also, in an attempt to bring varied (Scarpa, Van Horn, Rosa) universes together, we concluded that this "brother" could only be Gideon (since Rumpus wasn't raised as a brother to Scrooge)!

All of this is fun as long as it is taken as a game and people don't start assuming that Karp and Taliaferro may have meant this brother to be Gideon, as Disney Wiki does:

In one of Al Taliaferro's newspaper strips, printed in 1966, an older relative of Donald briefly mentions Scrooge's brother, saying that "When [Scrooge] was nine years old he gave his brother something...Chicken pox!"[4] It is unknown whether this was meant to be a reference to Gideon or not.

Even though Gideon was created in 1956, he didn't appear in the USA until 2015, so it's obvious Karp and Taliaferro had not him in mind while creating this strip.