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Jeff I can understand Donald just fine. I guess reading the comic books after all those years has helped me understand him a little bitter.

Quote from user: Robb_KI can understand Donald, and would love the other Ducks to speak like Ducks, too. But, I also understand that it might be difficult for actors to continue to use that type of voice with large parts, throughout a feature-length film. They'd get awfully hoarse.
Well... Ducky Nash could have done it.. But he's gone to sleep with the ducks a long time ago now...

To clarify...I can understand Donald from years of watching the cartoons, but sometimes it can be difficult, even for someone who has watched the toons many times. :) I still think that no matter who can understand him, if they were ever to do some strong Barks or Rosa adventure stories in animation that it would benefit Donald to have a more easily understood voice, just as they updated Daisy (she originally talked like Donald of course) and later the nephews.

Sounds good to me, LadyQ. Frankly I think playing his "speech impediment" for laughs does a disservice to the character.

I can really hear no one but Alan Young for Scrooge. He'd be hard to replace, but I'm sure it could be done if necessary, just as both Mickey and Donald have over the years. I'd love to hear Russi Taylor try Hortense McDuck. I love how her HDL voice has that raspy duck-like quality yet still intelligible. It's the perfect balance imho. And while I know Donald's voice is so iconic, I wouldn't mind Tony Anselmo doing a little experimentation to try and find some compromise to make Donald more intelligible. I can understand Donald just fine most of the time, but I think Disney doesn't think people can, which is why Donald wasn't in Ducktales much to begin with and maybe why we don't see many animated project with Donald much anymore. A little compromise and updated on Donald might change that for the 21st century. But this is also why L&Tof SM would be a perfect project for Disney to do. Scrooge is intelligible, unlike Donald, and one of the greatest heroes Disney has in their repertorie imho. Ducktales was ages ago. It's more than past time for a reboot and L&TofUS would make a perfect 12 part animated miniseries to air on TV. A movie would be way too short, imho. If it's successful it could lead to more seasons of the animated show, but Disney needs to do SOMETHING to bring the Ducks back as major characters, and if kids aren't reading comics in America anymore, animation is the next best thing and could pave the way for a major Duck revival.
Forgive my ranting, but an animated L&TofSM would be a dream project to see, and I just can't comprehend why Disney doesn't seem to care about the wonderful Duck characters as major characters anymore and don't see the wealth of potential that still rests in their "fab 5" and such (since even Mickey projects seem rare these days) and why no one is taking the initative to at least try something bold and new with Donald and co. And when I saw Donald's 75th birthday pass by last year with Disney doing practically NOTHING to acknowledge it...well, it just makes me mad is all.

Quote from user: Robb_KScrooge McDuck should sound like the original Donald, but with a very heavy Scots brogue. I could hear Robbie Coltrane doing the voice. He should sound like a Duck and sound like a Scot. Alan Young's brogue was FAR too weak, and he didn't sound like a Duck a'tall. I don't agree with Disney watering down the accent and the animal like voice just to have more people understand more of the words. Classic work should be authentic. People should move to the Scottish Highlands for a few years if they can't understand a genuine Scots accent. It's just like singing Italian Operas in English or reading Topolino stories in English. It shouldn't be done. Learn Italian to appreciate these things.

To me, Ducktales' Scrooge wasn't a Duck, wasn't related to Donald and hadn't been born and raised in Scotland (even a post-nuclear holocost Scotland).
I wonder if the same rules apply to American exports or works throughout history that have been translated? Or for Carl Barks himself who didn't seem to write Scrooge for a thick Scottish accent as evidenced by the way Scrooge is written (sounds a heck of a lot more Americanized than any Scotsman I've ever met). Perhaps Barks should have visited Scotland so he could study the way a genuine Scotsman would talk. It would have helped him appreciate those things. =)

To me that approach is going to go a long way towards shrinking the audience that can enjoy these wonderful characters rather than expanding it. Which says nothing about how pretentious it ends up sounding.

Like so many other stories, there're going to be different approaches and interpretations. One is not inherently better than another, just different. Donald's voice doesn't have to be the end-all be-all and it doesn't render other duck voices "useless." In fact not all the other ducks of the old cartoons sounded garbled like Donald. For the same reason I don't expect Gladstone Gander to sound like Gus Goose, I don't expect all ducks to sound like Donald.

I'm trying to make a list right now of every speaking character in the Life and Times series, as we now only have talked about Scrooge. I'll mark the background character and cameo's.
I also think we need different people for different ages, just like you see in movies. There's kid Scrooge, who's got a high voice and a really Scottish accent, there's young adult Scrooge, who has a slighter accent and a young man's voice and there's old Scrooge, who just got a slight Scottish accent and an old voice.*

*Barks noted that Scrooge almost lost his accent, but not completely. Read "Lost Beneath The Sea", in which a Martian says: "They speak Earth language number 623X [English] with a slight 737K [Scottish] accent!"

Quote from user: Robb_KHuey, Dewey and Louie had "Duck" voices. Daisy did not. I hated that.

I would have loved Barks writing Scrooge's dialogue written in a heavy brogue. Even at 6-7 years old, I'd have asked others to tell me what it meant, or done research to learn about it. My parents, being Canadians, would have been able to translated it and sound it out for me. As it is, I learned about Scotland through research spawned by reading about Uncle Scrooge. There is a website that translates Standard English into Scots Highland dialect. It is extremely amusing.

I guess we differ. I like things as realistic as possible (even fantastic fantasy fiction). That's why I like Barks more than most things. He attempted to make even the ridiculous at least plausible.

Yes (absolutely), that applies to American works throughout history. That is why so many Europeans buy the American printings of Barks, so they can read Barks in his own context. The translations change the meaning. The German, Dutch, Danish and Swedish translators changed the meaning from the original. I don't even want to comment on what The Israeli, Arabic and 3rd World translators have done to Barks (no real fault of their own, but more due to the differences in syntax, context and way of thinking between their languages and English).
I hear you, I guess some of it might be a generational preference as well. I grew up on Ludwig Von Drake, Daisy not talking like a duck, cartoons in which Donald changed his voice with a spray (indicating that his voice was not necessarily the norm for ducks) and Ducktales. To me the many incarnations of these characters is what helps mold them into a more complete form. Some stories show the more humorous moments of their lives, others the more serious. Many Carl Barks stories had their own set of things that could potentially break the belief factor (traveling to outer space to mine gold and the occasional strange appearances of humans in stories). However, the long-term survival of these characters depends on their ability to connect with new generations. As adult fans I think we sometimes lose sight of that fact and get cranky when things don't remain how we remember them. Simply put, they cannot and should not be expected to remain the same. That's how things get lost, and eventually, forgotten. I freely admit that my first exposure to Scrooge McDuck was in Mickey's Christmas Carol and Ducktales. While some people consider those appearances bastardized versions of the character, I wouldn't be talking about him today if they didn't exist. Frankly I think it's where Duck fans go wrong sometimes. In an effort to honor Bark's greatest creation, they walk a fine line of holding it back. I love Don Rosa's work, but I almost can't help but feel his insistence on clinging to all things Bark's sometimes has a negative impact on things. It becomes limiting, and while amazing, prevents a lot of cool adventures and moments from happening.

To some extent, we have to be willing to let these characters expand a little. Even if it isn't what we were first exposed to and feel initially comfortable with.