Of Ducks & Mice

xephyr@cwnet.com xephyr at cwnet.com
Tue Oct 29 21:41:03 CET 2002


Sigvald said:
>In Rich Bellacera's famous HooZoo pages can read about Daisy here:
> http://users.cwnet.com/xephyr/rich/dzone/hoozoo/daisy.html
>
> This page says this about Daisy:
> "KNOWN ALIASES: Donna Duck"
>
>Can you please enlighten us more about this Rick?

Sure.  As of the discussion I started recently about "Donna & Mac"
the entries in the HOOZOO for Daisy AND Donald will certainly need
to be updated to reflect the new information we all learned.  

It is being reworked to reflect that, still, Donna Duck is an
alias of Daisy's, and that, at least as far as the "animated" Daisy
Duck is concerned, she still evolved from the Donna Duck character
appearing in "Don Donald."  The official Disney sources claim that
the "animated" Daisy Duck was originally called "Donna Duck", and
some sources even claim that the name "Donna" was a "role" that
Daisy played for the film.  However, for "comics," Donna and Daisy
are two distinctly different characters.  I will reference the
Taliaferro comics, and the actual first meeting between the American
Daisy and the Mexican Donna, and the brief role Donna played as
Donald's co-star in his early comics.  However, her supposed role
as Daisy's genetic sister and the mother of April, May and June
is soley a matter of idle speculation among us Disney fans and,
until there is some Disney publication which at least furthers this
concept, I see no reason to account for or discount it in the HooZoo
at this time.

AND....

Not to contradict "The Maestro" :-) (David Gerstein) , since I do
respect what you say and have said in the past, but...

David Gerstein wrote:
> Actually, it happened *faster* than you suggest:

I agree with the timing.  As I said, "as the story progressed..." I meant
indeed that the story itself revealed that they were indeed Mickey's
genetic nephews, but I was referring to the fact that, in the beginning (of
the story) there was no genetic connection inferred.

> As for Mrs. Fieldmouse, she wasn't lost to obscurity. She returned
to pick the nephews up after their first visit to Mickey in 1932; 

I agree with this too... the "obscurity" comment was meant in the sense
that she doesn't reappear in any future stories (to my knowledge...), but
then you write....

> a 1939 story mentioned her again;

I didn't know that... thanks. :-)

> and at Egmont we frequently show her today.
> In Egmont continuity, the kids live with her when they're not with
> Mickey. And yes, in our continuity she is Mickey's sister. She has
> to be, if the kids are to be real nephews.

That makes perfect sense... just as Daisy's neices live with her sister,
their mother, when they are not visiting Daisy.  

> The name Amalia (note spelling; I used to be wrong about this, too)
> is actually her Dutch name, not her Italian one. In Egmont stories,
> she has the English first name of Felicity.

So the name is "Felicity Fieldmouse" then, eh?  Thanks. ;-) Has a "Mr.
Fieldmouse" ever appeared or any mention of his whereabouts?

	As for Minnie's nieces,

> Actually, to the best of my knowledge, there's one story where
> they're called Melody and Millicent, and one story where they're
> Pammy and Tammy. The names didn't formally change from one to the
> other. More like two stories were written, one without knowledge
> of the other.

Both stories 
"The Late, Late Show" October, 1962 
http://stp.ling.uu.se/cgi-bin/starback/dcml/story?W+01518+A-06
"Mickey's Close Call" July, 1963 
http://stp.ling.uu.se/cgi-bin/starback/dcml/story?W+MM+88-05
which I found while scouring my collection looking for possible 
Twin nieces for Minnie several years ago, were drawn by Paul 
Murry, who, at least artistically, insinuated that they were 
the same nieces.  The writer for both stories, who is unknown,
either did not know of the other story, or did not care.
Melody, by herself, was created by Jim Fletcher for the Studio
as I understand it, and was used much more frequently in comics
published for European and South American audiences.  Fortunately,
I have many of those Melody stories, even though she is sadly
a very disliked character among the DCMLers.  I just think she's
very misunderstood ;-).

About "Millie & Tillie."

> Those names are actually the Danish names, which I discovered
> were used verbatim on an old Egmont character list, and which
> were never used anywhere in English. 
Interesting.  Thanks.

> So they're no longer official. Since 1999, the official reference
> names we use at Egmont are Millie and Melody.
> The beauty of those names, BTW, is that they allow us to be
> consistent all the time. When there are two, it's Millie and
> Melody, and when the girl is singular, it's Melody.

Which was my own contention and speculation too, way back when we
were first discussing the relationships of the singular "Melody"
and the Twins "Melody & Millicent" on the DCML several years ago.
I'm glad to see that at least Egmont concurs.  Did Egmont make 
this change to model Dave Smith's "Archive" or was it decided
independently?

Thanks for clearing that all up, David.  

Of course, this all began when I questioned the DCML, back in the
beginning of the List (1992???) about the reference to Minnie's
Niece as "Molly."  I was glad to help see the change in at least
that one reference, and to learn so much about Minnie's relations.
Thanks,
Rich Bellacera
xephyr at cwnet.com


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