Scrooge McDuck and Lucifer

[Baar Baar Jinx]

I guess for some characters, MEAS level varies by story ... and by whether there is opportunity to talk to another member of their MEAS level (or higher level)! Chip 'N' Dale, for example, always have each other to talk to, so there's never a doubt that they're MEAS-2s. But sometimes they also talk to Donald, so they become level-3s. Do they retain their level 3 status in stories where they only talk to other level-2s? I'd say not. So apart from those characters that are at the lowest end (e.g., MEAS-1as like Pluto) and at the highest end (MEAS-4b2s like O'Hara), all the other characters may move from level to level depending on the writer. (Technically, even Scrooge and Donald may be classified as 4b1s or 4b2s depending on whether they are referred to as "ducks" or "men" in a given story; but the former is so common that a permanent 4b1 designation seems appropriate.)

As for how Tabby let Fethry adopt him, Tabby has demonstrated that all his Fethry-related perturbation is easily overcome by the right inducement (for example, the promise of delectable duck meat in the infamous "Retriever" story), so maybe Fethry appealed to Tabby's love for Italian food?

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Jan 22, 2018 4:21:48 GMT Matilda said:

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.

This would be a classic example of MEAS-2 communication (indecipherable to humans but comprehensible inter- and intra-animal species), which I generally don't like in Duck and Mouse stories, but then Tabby's highly articulate internal monologue is already very close to that, so I guess it's not too much of a stretch. Ideally, I would like all Duck characters to be MEAS-1s or MEAS-4s to keep things neat.

[Hyaroo]

Jan 22, 2018 1:22:03 GMT Matilda said:

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...."

Can't help you with story titles or anything because it's a long time since I read the stories, but in the comics I did read where Tabby was Fethry's cat, they got along okay. Seems like Fethry learned how to handle the cat better, or Tabby learned to chill a little around Fethry... at least in those stories he doesn't have the extreme hatred for Fetrhy that he sometimes displays in the Kinney/Hubbard stories -- at most he has a sort of "what-have-I-done-to-deserve-this" reaction when he thinks Fethry is being especially stupid, but he doesn't seem to mind him on the whole.

There's one story -- I think it was a Brazilian one; it was one of those stories where Daisy is a tough beat cop -- where Fethry has both Tabby and a pet dog whose name I think is Poochie. (Tabby gets inner monologues with thought bubbles, but Poochie doesn't.) In the story, a couple of thieves stole an extremely valuable pet collar with jewels on it, and since Officer Daisy was on their trail they hid the collar on Poochie, who happened to be nearby. Poochie ran back home to Fethry, who took one look at the collar and decided that it didn't look good on a dog, but would look smashing on a cat. So he gave the collar to Tabby, who loved it and spent the entire rest of the story defending it from both thieves and Officer Daisy.

Tabby is definitely Fethry's cat in that story. He lives with Fethry, and when Donald drops by for a visit he doesn't say anything about Tabby being his cat -- but he does comment on the nice collar, after Tabby has spent a few panels posing and waiting for Donald to see it. 

Come to think of it... I'm pretty sure that was the first story I ever read that featured Tabby. He's really a pretty cool character; he should be in more stories.

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Jan 22, 2018 16:16:58 GMT Hyaroo said:

Tabby is definitely Fethry's cat in that story. He lives with Fethry, and when Donald drops by for a visit he doesn't say anything about Tabby being his cat -- but he does comment on the nice collar, after Tabby has spent a few panels posing and waiting for Donald to see it.

Which, I suppose, raises another possibility ... that Tabby was Fethry's cat first, and Donald subsequently adopted him because Tabby ended up traumatized by his experiences under Fethry's care. That doesn't mesh with my preferred idea that Fethry took Tabby to Italy with him, though.

[Hyaroo]

Well... there is one Italian story, Paperin Tarzan e il formidabile.  where Fethry has taken a job in an African village for Scrooge, and brought Tabby along with him, so there is at least one official story where Fethry has gone abroad and taken Tabby along.

(Of course, this story is a rare story where Tabby does not get his traditional inner monologue, but he does drink a growth serum and grow to the size of a tiger -- he's big enough that at one point HD&L all ride him like a horse through the jungle -- and this effect is not reversed at the end of the story.)

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

In 2017 there was this series of 1-pagers with Tubby as protagonist on Topolino.

I know it because months ago I read on the Papersera Forum that people did not like the fact that Tubby seems to be Fethry's cat in this gags.
Which is actually crazy.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Jan 22, 2018 19:02:45 GMT Monkey_Feyerabend said:

In 2017 there was this series of 1-pagers with Tubby as protagonist on Topolino.

I know it because months ago I read on the Papersera Forum that people did not like the fact that Tubby seems to be Fethry's cat in this gags.
Which is actually crazy.

I'll drop it by (since we're discussing him so much around here) that Tabby's French name is the wonderful and bizarre "Catmembert".

Also, what do people make of the Cheshire Cat randomly appearing as Scrooge's pet cat in Powerplay on Killmotor Hill? Because that was weird. Although… I mean, I can kind of imagine the Cheshire Cat deciding to mess with people and pretending to be a random MEAS-1 cat… but… the story doesn't suggest anything like that…

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Jan 22, 2018 19:35:09 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

I'll drop it by (since we're discussing him so much around here) that Tabby's French name is the wonderful and bizarre "Catmembert".

Since he's used as a character far more often than I initially thought, I wish he had a better name than the generic "Tabby" in English. The fact that he isn't even really a tabby cat doesn't bother me as much as how unimaginative his name is. I mean, we have Bolivar, Pluto, Snozzie, Figaro and ... Tabby? Poor guy. 

[Hyaroo]

In Norwegian he's called "Mons," which is THE most common name for a tomcat in Norway. It's actually a legitimate boy's name, but in some dialects, a "mons" is another word for "tomcat." Some stories just call him "Pus," which is of course "Puss" or "Kitty" in Norwegian.

So it's not like unimaginative names are exclusive to the English version... "Catmembert" is a pretty cool name though!

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Jan 22, 2018 20:18:22 GMT Hyaroo said:

In Norwegian he's called "Mons," which is THE most common name for a tomcat in Norway. It's actually a legitimate boy's name, but in some dialects, a "mons" is another word for "tomcat." Some stories just call him "Pus," which is of course "Puss" or "Kitty" in Norwegian.

So it's not like unimaginative names are exclusive to the English version... "Catmembert" is a pretty cool name though!

I suppose they took their cue from the original English name. It all comes back to the Kinney/Hubbard duo, his creators.
What does "Catmembert" translate to, exactly (if anything)? Online translators do not help.

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Jan 22, 2018 20:22:24 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

What does "Catmembert" translate to, exactly (if anything)? Online translators do not help.

It's just a portmanteau of "cat" and "camembert". As in, the cheese. 

[Baar Baar Jinx]

Jan 22, 2018 20:29:46 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

Jan 22, 2018 20:22:24 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

What does "Catmembert" translate to, exactly (if anything)? Online translators do not help.

It's just a portmanteau of "cat" and "camembert". As in, the cheese. 

Okay, I was unfamiliar with the term ... but I like it! And it even makes sense in English!

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Jan 22, 2018 20:40:40 GMT Baar Baar Jinx said:

Jan 22, 2018 20:29:46 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

It's just a portmanteau of "cat" and "camembert". As in, the cheese. 

Okay, I was unfamiliar with the term ... but I like it! And it even makes sense in English!

It is supposed to be an English pun. The French word for "cat" is "chat", the pun only works with knowledge of the English word.

[Matilda]

I've always liked the joke of the Catmembert name, but I can't truly picture Donald coming up with it, even if he were French and knew a bit of English. That's not the way Donald's mind works. HDL, maybe. But they're not in the picture in my headcanon.

Like BBJ, I dislike the name Tabby due to its completely generic status. Even as a child, I was more imaginative in naming pets. It's interesting that the Norwegian translators picked an equivalently generic name. While I don't believe Donald could have come up with "Catmembert", I like to think Donald would have done better than "Tabby". Of course, if he didn't get Tabby as a kitten, it's conceivable that the previous owner was the unimaginative one.

[Monkey_Feyerabend]

You think that a silly joke with the name of the most overrated French cheese is cool? Pff! In Italia his name is Malachia, in honor to Saint Malachy, an archibishop from around the year 1000 who, according to the tradition, had a vision of the upcoming 112 popes (and some antipopes too) till the end of the days.  
I should remark that the first name Malachia is not used anymore, it sounds completely medieval, as it is intended to be in the case of Donald's cat. You know, like 'that cat is as wise (or as crazy?) as the prophet Malachy'.