Thursday, November 28, 2024

I think most billionaires couldn't get three steps into an Uncle Scrooge plan.

Which is almost a shame: there's killer ants later in this one, and I'd love to see billionaires try to get out of that one! ('Try' being the key word there.) From 1990, Walt Disney's Uncle Scrooge #249, "The Puffer" Plot by Paul Halas, script by Dave Angus, US script by Gary Gabner, art by Daniel Branca.
Uncle Scrooge is playing chess, while everyone else is playing checkers; in a scheme to donate his old steamship, the Puffer, to the Duckburg Museum: for a change, this wasn't for cash or a tax dodge or anything, but for glory. Only one problem: where did he put that thing...? This sets up a race against crooked rival McSwine, who sabotages Donald's luggage so they miss their flight, and he gets a one day head start to Burma.
Scrooge and the boys are disappointed to learn, the Puffer had been lost six years prior, when the crew had to abandon ship because of a volcano. They offer to buy the steamship currently in use, but it was on its way to pick up a load of garlic, and McSwine was already on his way to it. They nearly catch up to him when McSwine wrecks his motorboat, but that just gives him the opportunity to steal Scrooge's! As usual, Scrooge refuses to let a setback set him back, and opts to try and head overland to beat McSwine, but they don't need to when they find the beached Puffer! But can they get it back to the river...?
The locals, who had a hard tea harvest coming up, aren't real interested in helping out; until ant swarms attack their tea leaves, and them! It comes down to a race between McSwine's newly purchased Sister Percy and the Puffer: Scrooge had the skill, but his boat was loaded full of villagers and livestock. McSwine probably could've outlasted him, but panics and overstokes his boiler, blowing up his ship. The Puffer is settled into retirement as a museum piece; while McSwine seems to have forgotten why he wanted a steamship, as he tries to wrangle up villagers to salvage the Sister Percy...

1 comment:

Mr. Morbid said...

Man, I really struggled with just not commenting at all because at this point with the things currently are, I’m WAY past the point of being sick of Billionaires, regardless if they’re cartoon or not. Except for Batman, I…can’t seem to hate Batman, so he’s my only exception.
Plus this is Ebenezer Scrooge we’re talking about; he was always an @$$hole at heart, ESPECIALLY the comic’s version. Disney softened him up slightly for the cartoon version, but even then he was pretty irredeemable except for that one Christmas Carol movie adaptation.