Turpin Mouse?

[Scrooge MacDuck]

In his 1997 story Early To Bid, David Gerstein repeatedly mentions various ancestors of the Mouse family. There's "yankee rebel Jonathan Tobias Mouse" (from Walsh and Gottfredson's The 'Lectro Box), and Long John Mouse, the pirate and cheese conoisseur, from the 1945 gag Infamous Ancestors. So far so good — I'm a sucker for those types of continuity references. But then, Gerstein goes on to namedrop "highwayman Turpin Mouse". 

And here is where knowledge, wiki and INDUCKS fail me.

The puzzling thing is that Infamous Ancestors does mention a highway-robber as one of Mickey's ancestors… but his name isn't Turpin Mouse, it's Dick "Stand-and-Deliver" Mouse.

Anyone know anything 'bout that?

[Ramapith]

Mar 5, 2018 11:54:29 GMT Scrooge MacDuck said:

The puzzling thing is that Infamous Ancestors does mention a highway-robber as one of Mickey's ancestors… but his name isn't Turpin Mouse, it's Dick "Stand-and-Deliver" Mouse.

Anyone know anything 'bout that?

Nice catch!

This character actually was Dick "Stand-and-Deliver" Mouse in my original 1990s storyline and script for "Early to Bid"; but in recent decades, the name "Dick" and even the phrase "stand and deliver" have both taken on dirty connotations—to such a degree that if I used them together (or even just "Dick Mouse" alone) without any further explanation, many casual readers would perceive a rude joke rather than Gottfredson's original reference to highwayman Dick Turpin.

So for IDW, I went back to my old story and swapped in the nom-de-plume Turpin Mouse. For all we know, as is often the case with crooks, Dick "Stand-and-Deliver" Mouse had an alias or two...

[Scrooge MacDuck]

Thanks!