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Topic: The Disney Olympic Thread!

(14 messages)
MrCleveland
The 2012 Olympic Games in London are finishing up the 1st week and there has been many comics that have Mickey, Donald, Goofy, and others in the Olympic Games.
Inform me what your favorite story/cover/comic that involves The Disney Ducks and others in the Olympics!
Synthetic Hermit
The only one I've read is Don Rosa's "From Duckburg to Lillehammer", and it's great!
Robb_K
Barks story of Duckburg's tryouts for The Olympic team, from Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #188, in which Donald tries out for all events, against Ramjet Rocketflash, Chief Bounding Rabbit, Fuldrip Pulpbugle, Trestleman Truckhorse, and Whirlman Dervish.
Synthetic Hermit
^ Oh yeah, forgot about that one.
I still prefer Rosa's (it's longer and more epic).
Timoro
There are lots of olympic themed stories in Italian production. For instance:
http://coa.inducks.org/hr.php?image=http://outducks.org/webusers/webusers/2006/04/it_cwd_045b_001.jpg&normalsize=1
Pippo e i parastinchi di Olympia (Goofy and the shin pads of Olympia)

In this French comic Mickey travels in time to the very first ancient olympic games:
http://coa.inducks.org/hr.php?image=http://outducks.org/webusers/webusers/2010/03/fr_jm_1891c_001.jpg&normalsize=1

Timo
Dutch Duckfan Down Under
Incidentally, what is the oldest Olympic-themed Disney comic? The oldest one I can think of is Barks' "Olympic Tryout", which was made for the 1956 Olympics in Melbourne. The oldest Disney Olympic-centered product would be the 1932 cartoon "Barnyard Olympics", I think.

I don't know which comic is my favorite Olympic-themed comic. The Spirit of the Olympics (Athens, 2004) is a really good one. But I was reading this comic yesterday, and I think it bears the unique distinction of being the first Disney comic ever to deal with racism. The plot is basically that the Phantom Blot is stealing Olympic gold medals, because he has a time machine and wants to change history. (It makes sort of sense in context, where it's explained that he can't just do that, he has to make up for it by destroying things of historical value.) Mickey, Goofy, Donald, Scrooge, Huey, Dewey, Louie, Marlin, Zapotec and Battista (Scrooge's butler) have to stop him. They travel back in time as well to prevent him from getting the last medals he needs at Moscow, 1980 (where the Cold War is hinted at), London, 1908 and most surprisingly, Berlin, 1936! But General Pete von Peglegstein locks them up in a guarded cottage when they arrive. Then this happens.

Hours later...
Donald: Oof! Where's my hammock?
Scrooge: We're not in Duckburg, nephew!

Mickey: What a blow!
(They had all just been hit by Von Peglegstein.)
Donald: Time travelling is a heavy task! Grumpf!

Scrooge: But where are we, and where...
Voice: Out of town and in trouble!

Scrooge: Are you also a prisoner?
Shadow: Yes, unfortunately!

Man: Pleased to meet you! James Cleveland Owens! Call me Jesse!

Donald: Do you know this guy?
Mickey: And how! He's a legend! He's gonna win four gold medals here...

Mickey: ...well, at least if he can participate!
Donald: Why wouldn't he?

Mickey: Because he's got a dark skin color!
Goofy: ?

Donald, Scrooge and Goofy: ---

Goofy: So what?

Goofy: Why does that matter?
Mickey: Exactly, Goofy!


I think they handled it quite well. Meanwhile, the Beagle Boys are being superfluous.
Beagle Boy, pulling a weird face: Well, who am I acting like now?
Other Beagle, bored: Grandpa Beagle! Yawn!
First Beagle: My, you're good!
Gyro Gearloose
The Lilehammer story is ruined for me by Rosa's sadistic treatment of Donald; the running "gag" of his beak crashing into things and becoming increasingly bandaged is too painful to be funny. Rosa's abuse of Donald frequently crosses the line and mars his stories; his realistic drawing style and his lingering on the after-effects of slapstick pratfalls don't mix well.
Debbie
The Disney Comics (publisher) September 1992 issues of Donald Duck Adventures #28, Uncle Scrooge#270 and Walt Disney??s Comics and Stories #575 featured a tribute to the Summer Olympic Games with a left-hand corner emblem proclaiming the comic as an ??Official Licensed Product of the U.S. Olympic Committee.? WDC&S was a reprint of Barks' Olympic story, Uncle Scrooge featured Vicar's 10 cent Marathon, and I am unaware of the story in DDA at the moment.
Synthetic Hermit
Just remembered another good one. Vicar's "The Starkos Statue". Scrooge, Donald and the boys are shipwrecked, and end up in a time warp to Ancient Greece where they compete in the Games for a gold statue.
Dutch Duckfan Down Under
Quote from user: Gyro GearlooseThe Lilehammer story is ruined for me by Rosa's sadistic treatment of Donald; the running "gag" of his beak crashing into things and becoming increasingly bandaged is too painful to be funny. Rosa's abuse of Donald frequently crosses the line and mars his stories; his realistic drawing style and his lingering on the after-effects of slapstick pratfalls don't mix well.
Other stories that I can think of that have that same problem are the end of "Treasure Under Glass" and the beginning of "The Dutchman's Secret". Later in that story, he does it right luckily. When Donald has a dynamite stick glued to his hand, slapstick suddenly becomes drama.

But there's a deeper level to that problem: there are in fact, two Donalds. Cartoon's Donald and comic's Donald. Comic's Donald is a mostly sympathetic character, cartoon's Donald is not. (That's also why I'm having more and more of a hard time liking cartoon's Donald.) Cartoon's Donald is a good victim for slapstick because he's so unsympathetic, but with comic's Donald it just doesn't look good. Same thing why I hate Daisy's abuse of Donald. It's not funny, and my opinion of Daisy drops like a rock. And Don Rosa's drawing style certainly doesn't help indeed. But to me "Lillehammer" still kind of works as a funny story, until the final gag. I hate it when the nephews have this "Unca Donald is a loser" attitude. When they're bratty, okay. But when they're genuinely sorry for him (see also "Whadalottajargon") I feel there's something wrong. He is their caretaker, after all.
GeoX
I agree with all y'all about Rosa's treatment of Donald being sometimes problematic--to me, the worst offender will always be the part in "Last Lord of El Dorado" where Scrooge gives every appearance of not giving a shit whether Donald falls to his death, as long as he gets his treasure map. Not cool. And yet, on occasion he DOES allow Donald to be the hero, so I imagine he saw it as more or less balancing out, on the whole.
Still, Barks could be a bit much too sometimes, albeit in a less physical way. Speaking of Olympic stories, for instance, I see no one has mentioned Barks' OTHER venture in that regard, "The Olympian Torch Bearer" from 1963, and for obvious reasons: definitely one of the most dispiriting things the man ever wrote, along with "Bubbleweight Champ."
Kimba_1962
Quote from user: GeoXI agree with all y'all about Rosa's treatment of Donald being sometimes problematic--to me, the worst offender will always be the part in "Last Lord of El Dorado" where Scrooge gives every appearance of not giving a shit whether Donald falls to his death, as long as he gets his treasure map. Not cool. And yet, on occasion he DOES allow Donald to be the hero, so I imagine he saw it as more or less balancing out, on the whole.

Still, Barks could be a bit much too sometimes, albeit in a less physical way. Speaking of Olympic stories, for instance, I see no one has mentioned Barks' OTHER venture in that regard, "The Olympian Torch Bearer" from 1963, and for obvious reasons: definitely one of the most dispiriting things the man ever wrote, along with "Bubbleweight Champ."

Yep, the cynicism positively drips from those tales.

Wasn't there a REALLY long Olympics-themed story that ran in TOPOLINO at the time of the 1988 Seoul Games? "Paperolimpiadi" was the title, I believe.
Mr. M
My only problem with "From Duckburg to Lillehammer" is the way Gladstone looses at the end, which I found a pretty lazy resolution and I think Rosa could come up with a better idea how Gladstones luck could turn agianst him in this one...
Matilda
Dutch Duckfan-- HD&L are clearly ashamed of Donald at the beginning and end of Barks' No Such Varmint. Definitely have a "Unca Donald is a loser" attitude.
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