Barksisms and Donald's weight

Kristian PEDERSEN K.PEDERSEN at OBERTHURCS.com
Mon Apr 23 10:07:55 CEST 2001


A couple of comments to recent mails (sorry, there've been too many digests
recently for me to go back and check the exact references).

Barksisms: I remember lots and lots of quotes from my childhood reading, but
brilliant though many of these are, they are more accurately termed
"Rindomisms", from the Danish translator of the stories, Sonja Rindom. When,
as an adult, I started reading Barks in the original American versions, I
was surprised at the difference in tone. Barks' lines sound to me much more
colloquial - more slang it seems. Or at least a very different kind of slang
from the Danish ones.

However, some of Barks phrases original phrases have also stuck with me. One
of them is "Oh my stars and little comets!". Another is "Well doesn't that
take the cake" (Scrooge's reaction upon seeing the seven cities of Cibola,
as I recall). Although I suppose "That takes the cake" was a fairly common
expression long before Barks.

Question: Somebody recently mentioned the Uncle Scrooge story - the one with
the "Wages of Fear"-trucks - in which Donald is suspended by ropes over a
collapsed bridge and swings into the side of a llama. I've been meaning to
ask about that scene: from the nephews' calculations, shown in close-up, it
would seem to be the case that Donald weighs 23 kg (or at least that *they*
estimate this mass!) Is this a 'Barksian Fact', I wonder, or did Don Rosa
make it up himself? The mass actually cancels out in the calculation, so
there would've been no need to use a specific number!

Best regards,
Kristian



More information about the DCML mailing list