I don't buy the idea of the Kinney/Hubbard stories happening earlier, but I do like the idea that Tabby ended up in Fethry's care which is why he hasn't appeared as Donald's pet in years.
The Kinney/Hubbard stories taking place after Donald's naval service (whatever that was exactly) when he met José and Panchito, but before HD&L came under his care, works for me because it explains the absence of HD&L and Scrooge. Della (and possibly Hortense as we discussed on other threads) would still be alive during this time, so it fits nicely in my headcanon. Why do you not like it?
Not to get too off-topic here, but since we're discussing cats in the Duckverse, I recently read a theory that the reason we never see Tabby (Donald's cat in the Kinney/Hubbard Fethry stories that many believe are set in the days before HD&L came to live with Donald, who cowered in fear every time Fethry came to visit with his latest hare-brained scheme) is because he was ultimately adopted ... by Fethry! That struck me as hilarious. I'd love to see how Fethry wormed his way into Tabby's heart to the point where he'd be willing to actually live with him. And the explanation beats alternative reasons for Tabby to be missing in stories with HD&L, such as his having died or been adopted by total strangers. A cat named Tabby did make a one-time appearance in a Barks ten-pager, but "Tabby" is too generic a name for Kinney/Hubbard to have meant the two to be the same character. An in-universe explanation may be that Fethry needed someone to pet-sit for the weekend or some such.
In this story Huey says to Donald that "our TV set's busted". So they already live there with him (or they brought their TV from Della's house). While Donald tries to repair the television with butter knife, fork and spoon, Fethry sits on Tabby's tail. (Well, they never call the cat Tabby there, but it's supposed to be him.)
The Kinney/Hubbard stories taking place after Donald's naval service (whatever that was exactly) when he met José and Panchito, but before HD&L came under his care, works for me because it explains the absence of HD&L and Scrooge. Della (and possibly Hortense as we discussed on other threads) would still be alive during this time, so it fits nicely in my headcanon. Why do you not like it?
Unless otherwise noted by the authors themselves (as with Don Rosa's stories), I prefer to see stories as happening at the time of writing (which is implicitly when the authors meant them to happen). This goes manifold for the Fethry stories because Fethry as a character is much more rooted in the 60's than the 40's. There's also a characterization problem to consider — the conformist-straight-man Donald from the Kinney/Hubbard stories doesn't seem to square at all with the still youthful, very impulsive Donald of 40's Barks and Taliaferro stories.
A nephew appearing in the story jjfatte mentioned is the final nail in the coffin.
In this story Huey says to Donald that "our TV set's busted". So they already live there with him (or they brought their TV from Della's house). While Donald tries to repair the television with butter knife, fork and spoon, Fethry sits on Tabby's tail. (Well, they never call the cat Tabby there, but it's supposed to be him.)
I was under the impression HD&L never appeared in the Kinney/Hubbard Fethry stories. This sort of puts a damper on the theory that these were all chronologically earlier stories, I guess. Too bad.
Drat! I was expecting to find out about a story I didn't know, in which Scrooge makes a pact with The Devil, to make him rich, but has given up his immortal Soul. Later, he regrets what he had done, and Donald and Huey, Dewey and Louie are hired at 30¢ an hour, to save his Soul. But, in the end, it takes 2 lowly mice (including a really thick-headed one) to outsmart the evil King of The underworld. Would have been quite a memorable Disney story!
Is that a real story?
Of course it is not a Disney story. But that theme is in "Faust" and "The Devil and Daniel Webster".
In this story Huey says to Donald that "our TV set's busted". So they already live there with him (or they brought their TV from Della's house). While Donald tries to repair the television with butter knife, fork and spoon, Fethry sits on Tabby's tail. (Well, they never call the cat Tabby there, but it's supposed to be him.)
I was under the impression HD&L never appeared in the Kinney/Hubbard Fethry stories. This sort of puts a damper on the theory that these were all chronologically earlier stories, I guess. Too bad.
There is also a little problem with Scrooge. Even if you want to erase from your canon the many stories by Kinney and Hubbard were Fethry and Donald work for Scrooge (most notably as journalists for his newspaper) and only count the early ones not featuring Scrooge, still there is this story were Donald asks Fethry why he puts all his junk/pop-art material in his garden and not in Scrooge's one. To which Fethry answers that Scrooge has put armed guards around his. If this story takes place before Donald had HDL in his home, then it takes place also before Christmas on Bear Mountain, i.e. when Donald was not in touch with Scrooge.
But of course, you can erase these little details to built a more or less coherent canon in your head. If ever there is a problem here, it is the one on the character of Donald pointed out by MacDuck. Kinney's Donald behaves much more like the late Barks's Donald than the one from the 40's. (Maybe there is also some influence of the late Donald's cartoons - new ones were still produced for tv in the 60's - where he was clearly less hot-tempered then before.)
On the other hand, we must also admit that the setting of those Donald-Fethry routines does not match with Barks's universe either. Think of the fact that Donald has a car completely different from the 313. Probably Kinney has read (or at least he has internalized) less Bark material than what we may think. EDIT: Or maybe was Hubbard more unaware of Barks' comics? I mean, now that I think about it, maybe in Kinney's storyboards the car looked like the 313, and Hubbard was the one not giving a dime about it.
I am one of those who choose to believe that Fethry came around and bothered Donald when Donald was living alone as a young adult, before HDL came to live with him. As I've said before, my theory is that at some point Fethry moved to Italy to be a reporter for Topolino. This allows me to have Fethry (and, more importantly to me, Tabby!) in my headcanon while explaining why he doesn't appear and isn't mentioned in the Barks and Rosa stories or in any of the stories I read in my childhood. But I have always known that this is an idiosyncratic headcanon decision, since HDL do appear in some Kinney Fethry stories (though not in most). As with all other situations of conflict among Duck stories, I pick and choose those stories that fit my headcanon. Not all Barks stories make it into my headcanon. Not all Rosa stories do, either. And sometimes I mentally edit a story to make it fit my headcanon, deleting or changing some element which is not essential to the plot.
As for what became of Tabby, I assume that he died, as pets do. We don't know that Donald got him as a kitten, so there's no reason to assume he should have lived 15 years after the Fethry stories. Since Tabby would view living with Fethry as a fate worse than death, I can't picture that as a happy ending, though I admit it's amusing to imagine scenarios where that could come about, involving some conversion of one or both of them. The Tabby I know would repeatedly run away, if Fethry tried to take him in. If he were successfully shut in Fethry's house/apt, he would hide during the day and come out to eat only when Fethry was asleep. Not the life I want for such a smart, funny cat.
On Scrooge's cat: I stick with Clementine and her kittens, first appearance in a Barks one-pager, then revisited by Gary Leach in a two-pager, and cameoed by Lars Jensen in a TNT story. Once Scrooge resigns himself to keeping the kittens as well as Clementine, I assume he feeds them adequately and shows them affection in private. We know he teaches them the knack of swimming in money! I'd guess he probably does neuter the kittens, since it would save him time and hassle in the long run, and he's already landed himself with kittens to care for once.
In my headcanon Duckiverse there are no feature film characters except Mim (and I encountered her as a sympathetic character in Duck comics long before I saw The Sword in the Stone). So, no Gus and Jaq at Grandma's farm, and no Lucifer at Scrooge's bin. Though I suppose I'd be willing to accept a Lucifer-clone as an earlier pet of Scrooge's, pre-Clementine. Such a cat might have served Scrooge right, in his most misanthropic period, before he reconnected with family.
Re: MEAS level... Tabby is not the only MEAS 2 cat who thinks in whole sentences I've allowed into my Duckiverse. Mim's cat Spitfire (now there's a good name!) has articulate commentary in thought balloons in some stories, as well.
Re: MEAS level... Tabby is not the only MEAS 2 cat who thinks in whole sentences I've allowed into my Duckiverse. Mim's cat Spitfire (now there's a good name!) has articulate commentary in thought balloons in some stories, as well.
Tabby would be MEAS-1, wouldn't he? He isn't shown to "talk" to other cats or other "animals", the hallmark of MEAS-2. Inner monologues don't necessarily elevate the character to MEAS-2 level (maybe that should be the distinguishing feature between 1a and 1b?). What if the inner monologue is narrated (e.g., "I've really done it this time," thinks Pluto)?
Re: MEAS level... Tabby is not the only MEAS 2 cat who thinks in whole sentences I've allowed into my Duckiverse. Mim's cat Spitfire (now there's a good name!) has articulate commentary in thought balloons in some stories, as well.
Tabby would be MEAS-1, wouldn't he? He isn't shown to "talk" to other cats or other "animals", the hallmark of MEAS-2. Inner monologues don't necessarily elevate the character to MEAS-2 level (maybe that should be the distinguishing feature between 1a and 1b?). What if the inner monologue is narrated (e.g., "I've really done it this time," thinks Pluto)?
Yeah, I first wrote "2 or 1b"--if we agree that "talking" articulately in thought balloons defines 1b. Since it's always more difficult to prove a negative, I can't say for sure that Tabby and Spitfire never talk to another animal, but I don't remember that happening. Personally, I wouldn't count thoughts reported by the narrator, as that could be human theories of what the animal is thinking. Pluto is MEAS-1a to me. (But then, I don't really care about the Mousiverse.) I think I'd keep Bolivar as MEAS-1 despite the fact that he beat Helper at checkers. (Would that make him 1b?) And Snozzie as well--just an exceptionally gifted dog.
As for what became of Tabby, I assume that he died, as pets do. We don't know that Donald got him as a kitten, so there's no reason to assume he should have lived 15 years after the Fethry stories. Since Tabby would view living with Fethry as a fate worse than death, I can't picture that as a happy ending, though I admit it's amusing to imagine scenarios where that could come about, involving some conversion of one or both of them. The Tabby I know would repeatedly run away, if Fethry tried to take him in. If he were successfully shut in Fethry's house/apt, he would hide during the day and come out to eat only when Fethry was asleep. Not the life I want for such a smart, funny cat.
I'm sure Donald wouldn't give Tabby to Fethry against his will ... which makes me think that Fethry and Tabby somehow not only made peace with each other but grew to like one another. Given Tabby's horrified reaction to the very possibility of Fethry's visits in the Kinney/Hubbard stories, the idea that this even could be possible is highly amusing. INDUCKS says that Tabby is actually portrayed as Fethry's cat in some Italian stories, so perhaps he took him with him to Italy when he became a reporter for Topolino? Can anyone who's read these stories shine a light on what the Fethry-Tabby relationship is like in them?
I'm also curious about how the Fethry/Tabby relationship is depicted in stories where Tabby is portrayed as Fethry's cat. I somehow doubt that anyone told a story which believably explained their rapprochement, though. I'd guess it was more "Tabby and Fethry are funny together and Tabby apparently doesn't live with Donald in most stories, so...."
Interesting! Thanks for the story references...I will see if I can find any of them. Does Bolivar talk back, in "Way Out Yonder"? If so, then Bolivar also is MEAS-2 according to Lars Jensen. And are there other stories which show both Bolivar and Tabby living with Donald (and HDL) at the same time? I just put Bolivar and Tabby as characters in the story search on Inducks, and I got eight stories, one by Rawson, two by Petrucha, and the rest by Jensen. Naturally, I can't tell by that for sure whether all those stories show both pets living with Donald simultaneously.
p.s. I actually read Jensen's "Nothing New" (but don't currently have it), and didn't notice that both Bolivar and Tabby showed up in it. It looks from the first page on Inducks that they are shown together in Donald's house--I don't remember whether they play any significant role in the story.
p.p.s. I can see from the first page of Petrucha's "Ana of a Thousand Sways" on Inducks that Bolivar and Tabby definitely both live in Donald's house in that story. Can't tell whether either of them thinks/talks in the story, though.
p.p.p.s. Ah, I do have "Bah Wilderness" (in French). I see that in that story, when the mountain lion and Tabby talk to each other, it is written in regular (non-cloud-shaped) dialogue balloons as something like "meow meow grff", with an asterisk to a translation into human language in a narration box. So the theory is that when Tabby speaks in complete sentences ("Oh, the long-haired one is only a distant relation") so that another animal can understand it, that speech sounds like cat vocalizations to a human listener. This is the same thing Barks sometimes does, say, with an eagle, right? It's also how I mentally edit Chip & Dale stories to keep them from transgressing the MEAS levels I want to see in Duckburg: I imagine that they speak so that other animals can understand them, but to humans (including the Ducks) it sounds like chipmunk chatter.