Post by Scroogerello on May 1, 2018 0:05:11 GMT
OK, I can't believe I never knew of this until recently, but I read about an animated Scrooge McDuck short from the 1950s, that was to have been Scrooge's animated debut. On this page: www.seriesam.com/barks/detc_ancru_1955-uxx.html I read the following:
Now I managed to get my hands of WDC&S #601 which shows a few storyboard drawings from the opening sequence (see attachments). The article from the issue takes an overly critical approach towards the concept, in my opinion, saying that Scrooge is out of character for "using his money as a toy" and his "casual relationship" with money. I mean, in Barks' stories, Scrooge plays with his money all the time, and often has heaps of it laying around in his office.
Anyway...Those are only a fraction of the surviving art, according to the article. Plus, what sounds every more interesting to me is the Scrooge McDuck model sheets/character studies that the article talks about. After a bit of searching, I think that this article: inducks.org/story.php?c=Qus%2FCBL+4P , printed in the Carl Barks library #4 (1985) might have more of the drawings in them. I was wondering if anybody who has access to the book could confirm this for me (I'd buy the book myself, but I can't find it anywhere online)
Such a shame that these shorts were never made--Barks even provided a detailed script & sketches for a Scrooge short that same year! As a fan of the Golden Age of animation and Barks' work, that would have been a perfect combination...Although I guess it' understandable given that animated shorts were a dying medium at the time, anyway.
Hannah's comment reveals that the animators did not really understand Uncle Scrooge. Perhaps they abandoned Barks' synopsis because they felt it necessary first get a feel for McDuck and to give their audience a basic introduction to Donald's uncle. The twenty-one storyboard drawings that survive in the Disney Archives show one artist's attempts to come to terms with an unfamiliar character and explore its potential for humor.
The drawings fall into three types. First comes an opening sequence in which the camera pans in through the window of Scrooge's mansion to watch him rise in the morning and take his money swim. The intention seems to be to capture a typical day in the old duck's life.
A second group of storyboard sketches consists of unrelated gags showing Scrooge having fun with his money, as if it were simply a toy. He plays checkers with coins, tosses money sacks instead of bean bags, and makes hand towels and Dixie cups from dollar bills. [...]
The third group might be called model drawings. These are capsule character studies, sketches of Scrooge pacing, shouting, running, and smiling that seem to be based on drawings by Barks. In each pose, the artist has managed to capture an emotion - worry, anger, eagerness, greed - but without providing an occasion for it. In one drawing, the artist has tried to use Scrooge's tag phrase "I'm just a poor old man!"
The drawings fall into three types. First comes an opening sequence in which the camera pans in through the window of Scrooge's mansion to watch him rise in the morning and take his money swim. The intention seems to be to capture a typical day in the old duck's life.
A second group of storyboard sketches consists of unrelated gags showing Scrooge having fun with his money, as if it were simply a toy. He plays checkers with coins, tosses money sacks instead of bean bags, and makes hand towels and Dixie cups from dollar bills. [...]
The third group might be called model drawings. These are capsule character studies, sketches of Scrooge pacing, shouting, running, and smiling that seem to be based on drawings by Barks. In each pose, the artist has managed to capture an emotion - worry, anger, eagerness, greed - but without providing an occasion for it. In one drawing, the artist has tried to use Scrooge's tag phrase "I'm just a poor old man!"
Now I managed to get my hands of WDC&S #601 which shows a few storyboard drawings from the opening sequence (see attachments). The article from the issue takes an overly critical approach towards the concept, in my opinion, saying that Scrooge is out of character for "using his money as a toy" and his "casual relationship" with money. I mean, in Barks' stories, Scrooge plays with his money all the time, and often has heaps of it laying around in his office.
Anyway...Those are only a fraction of the surviving art, according to the article. Plus, what sounds every more interesting to me is the Scrooge McDuck model sheets/character studies that the article talks about. After a bit of searching, I think that this article: inducks.org/story.php?c=Qus%2FCBL+4P , printed in the Carl Barks library #4 (1985) might have more of the drawings in them. I was wondering if anybody who has access to the book could confirm this for me (I'd buy the book myself, but I can't find it anywhere online)
Such a shame that these shorts were never made--Barks even provided a detailed script & sketches for a Scrooge short that same year! As a fan of the Golden Age of animation and Barks' work, that would have been a perfect combination...Although I guess it' understandable given that animated shorts were a dying medium at the time, anyway.
Attachments:
