Assuming you’re a Disney fan overall, your memories and appreciation of Scrooge McDuck, or Uncle Scrooge to his friends and family, largely depends on how old you are. 
Folks of the “Silent Generation”, all born before 1946, will remember him from his debut comic book in 1947, Christmas on Bear Mountain.
Baby Boomers will remember him from the Uncle Scrooge comic book series, started in 1952. Then there are the folks who watched his animated debut in Scrooge McDuck and Money in 1967, which also starred his nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie. The youngest among us know him most from DuckTales and its many more recent offshoots on cable and Disney+. Of course, all along, creator Carl Barks not only created the character, but developed the many facets of his quirky personality over the many years he worked singlehandedly on him, starting all the way back in 1947.
Because Mickey Mouse, who was most known through his shorts, wasn’t featured in a theatrical short between 1953 and 1983, he lost a great deal of popularity for a time. Scrooge was developed largely in comic books, and as such has been a constant, and so too have his fans.
In large part, Scrooge’s fame is centered on his richness. Sitting on over 65 billion, Scrooge is perched atop the Forbes Fictional 15 as the richest fictional character, above #2 Smaug (who raised a fortune marauding) and #3, Twilight’s Carlisle Cullen, whose 11-figure fortune was built through hundreds of years of compounded interest. Tony Stark comes in a distant 4th, with only 12 billion, but none of these folks come close to real-life moneybags and far less beloved windbag Elon Musk, who is worth over 240 billion.
Scrooge was born in Glasgow, Scotland in 1867. It was his sister Hortense that mothered his closest nephew Donald Duck. After making his first American dime as a shoeshiner, he emigrated to the US to make his fortune. From there, he would variously embark on global adventures in search of treasure. We only know his age from the 1955 Carl Barks one-page comic Watt An Occasion (Uncle Scrooge #12) in which he celebrates his 75th birthday.
Scrooge, as portrayed in 1947, started as a true “grumpy old man”, and there are times in his life where he has little contact with his family or friends. However, he becomes more and more compassionate and kindly through his relationship with Huey, Dewey, and Louie. They accompany him on a number of treasure hunts, and he always has time to them and for friends in need.
All that being true, he loves nothing more than diving around in his money bin. And why not? He earned every penny!
To many of his fans, Scrooge McDuck, who starts with nothing and becomes the richest duck in the world, celebrates the belief that with determination and hard work, prosperity is possible. He never fails to show the value of hard work and earning money honestly to his young charges.
It was creator Carl Barks who developed Scrooge’s character. In the 1949 comic Voodoo Hoodoo, Scrooge was shown bathing in his money for the first time. Barks also made Scrooge quite erudite and smart, as exampled by being fluent in over 10 languages, including a number of Chinese dialects.
Barks, called by Will Eisner “the Hans Christian Anderson of comic books”, had a life that in some ways inspired the character of Scrooge. He started out in a family without means, and traveled a number of times in childhood. The constant travel and a hearing problem resulted in him not moving up at school as a child, and although that caused hardship for him as a young man, and (like his fictional creation, Scrooge McDuck) he never finished a formal education, Barks ultimately turned what he loved to do into a job, and it was there that he found lifelong success. Scrooge as a hardworking, determined seeker of the American dream is directly influenced by Barks’s experiences.
Barks also had a huge influence on the acceptance of animation and cartoon art as a viable, “real” art form. Between 1993 and 1998, a number of images based on Barks comics and stories were released in fine art form. He toured the world and showed his art in galleries, including one gallery tour across 11 European countries in 1994. (You can see an interview with Carl Barks conducted while on the tour just above…) His original paintings, especially those featuring Scrooge McDuck, go for hundreds of thousands of dollars!
Three of the most famous voice artists who lended their talents to Scrooge McDuck were far more famous and were all nominated or won awards for their work on other shows . Alan Young, who voiced the character for over 40 years, played Wilbur Post in Mr. Ed. David Tennant, who portrayed the Scottish duck in Rescue Rangers and is an ACTUAL Scotsman, is beloved as the 10th doctor in Dr Who. Eric Bauza, who briefly voiced Scrooge on 2018’s Legend of the Three Caballeros, has several Emmys for his portrayal of over 20 different Looney Tunes characters, including Bugs Bunny. Bill Thompson, who voiced another famous Scottish character, Jock in Lady and the Tramp, was hired by Disney for the 1967 short Scrooge McDuck and Money. Watch David Tennant talking about the character, and the pressure he felt voicing such a fan favorite:
We are thrilled with the rise in popularity of DuckTales we’ve seen with our collectors and friends – largely due to the show being featured on Disney+. On it, Scrooge shows his love for his family, and the aspects of his rather complicated personality that draws his biggest fans. He may be rich, but he also has a huge heart. My favorite explanation of this is in, of all places, a Jesuit blog about looking beyond the surface of what we see in the people around us. You can read it HERE.
In the meantime, enjoy (while it lasts online!) the financial wizardry and training Scrooge demonstrates in Scrooge McDuck and Money. I love that the video was uploaded by a French financial advisor, and at the end of his description, he warns, “This post is for educational purposes only ; it is not an investment advice.” LOL.
and here’s another great video on the life and times of Carl Barks:
As to art available featuring Scrooge McDuck, you can find it all HERE.
See below for a few favorites that might interest fans of Disney’s Uncle Scrooge:
