#flemming andersen

Scrooge, in a terrible disguise and flanked by his nephews: Nobody needs to know. We would like to do business with you, and we can provide information - about some rather spicy interests of Mr. McDuck.

S: Just this: There’s a rubber duck involved.

We begin with Donald reluctantly serving as Daisy’s dress form mannequin for a dress she is sewing. He is however quite reluctant and she is distracted by his furious expression.

She first covers it up with a paper bag, but soon decides that  the best way to hide Donald’s angry face is with a wig and makeup.  Lipstick on a duck bill looks super weird, by the way.

They’re interrupted by a knock on the door and Donald hides in a closet (very symbolic). It is, Gisela, the president of Daisy’s woman’s society and her cousin Wasti, who is an visit from the countryside, judging by his cowboy hat and boots. The club is going to hold a dance party and the cousin doesn’t have a dance partner. And she doesn’t want to leave him out of it, so something must be done. The president suggests a deal: if Daisy leaves Donald at home and instead takes the cousin to the party, Daisy will be made vicepresident of the society.

This makes Donald furious, of course. He rushes out in full drag and punches the living daylights out of Wasti. To explain himself, he then makes up a story that he is actually Daisy’s cousin Donna (which was of course the name of his girlfriend in an old cartoon). And Wasti apparently likes getting punched in the face, because he immediately takes a liking to Donna here. Gisela then makes an alternate deal: Donna can take Gisela’s cousin to the party instead and Daisy will still get the position. And since Daisy’s honor is on the line, Donald has to do it.

And to make sure Donald is convincing as a woman, Daisy is going to train him. The curriculum includes things like walking in high heels and the swinging your hips. Daisy even uses a whip, as if to underline the implied sado-masochism in the scene. Seriously, there are these strange sexual undertones to the whole story. Kids won’t pick up on them, but this is a weird read for adults.

Anyway, at the dance ball, Donna makes her big debut and the reaction is... well, the drawings above speak for themselves, even if you can’t read German. Any sexual subtext has become text at this point.  Notice the bizarre, elongated body propotions Andersen gives Donna.

Anyway, the men soon start competing for Donna, which escalates into a fistfight. The women at the party become jealous of this newcomer. And this leads to a peculiar joke:

“Gisela: What does she[Donna] have which we don’t have?

Daisy: You don’t wanna know...”

What? Is my mind irretrievably in the gutter or did the Shaws just make a dick joke?  And Donald’s reaction is even more remarkable:

Donald: “I did nothing, yet... These men have all lost their minds. Madly in love....  with me! Ha ha! A very exhilarating experience!”

He enjoys it! Yes Donald is bisexual in this story. At least, I can’t read him another way.

Although the emotional logic here is quite odd. Men getting in a fistfight over you might seem flattering in theory, but in practice would be frightening whether you are a man or a woman. This story works from the old stereotypical assumption that women enjoy male sexual attention unreservedly, but reality is of course much more nuanced.

And reading him as transgender is barely a stretch. Even if you don’t, Donald here is undoubtedly gender non-conforming and quite proud of his feminine performance as Donna. He even brags to Daisy that the pupil has surpassed the teacher because the men are more interested in Donna than Daisy. This angers Daisy and a competition about who is the more sexually attractive woman is on.

Of course, this is a very stereotypical, if cynical, portrayal of women and femininity, in which women get into jealous and “catty” competitions over who is most attractive. For all the gender and sexuality transgressions this story contains, it does rely on old-fashioned gender stereotypes.

As you can see, they literally knock the men about with the swinging of their hips, which I must admit is kind of funny. It is like a parody of the extreme hip movements some women in cartoons have (like Jessica Rabbit, for example) . However, one of the men gets too intimate with Daisy. This awakens Donald’s jealousy and anger, which leads to....

Donald loses his temper and starts beating the stuffing out of every man present. They wisely decide to leave. However, the same thing happens to Donald and Daisy, because the women’s society is not so happy about the two ruining their party.

The couple however reconcile, with Daisy interpreting Donald’s jealous anger as a sign of their love. Like everything else in this story, the emotional logic is bizarre.

I don’t what to think of this story. The frantic energy of the storytelling doesn’t allow for a single second of boredom, but the sexual overtones here are often quite disturbing.It’s too weird to be judged by any conventional standard.  Flemming Andersen’s cartoony art is however a perfect fit for this story.

I have complex feelings about the work of the Shaws in general, and this is perfect example of it. They have an ability to take a story idea and run with it as far as the rules of Duck comics will allow. They remind me of a famous review quote about Tom Lehrer, which said that his “muse is not fettered by such inhibiting factors as taste”.

I honestly find this audacity an admirable trait, but the quality of their stories vary wildly. They seem to either don’t think or don’t care about the implications of their stories. This can lead both to very good stories, such as the Lovecraft parody “The Call of C’Rruso“.  But also to terrible stuff like “Ring thrice and I’ll clobber you, my lad.” (shudder).

The story takes place on Donald’s birthday, which doesn’t begin well for him. He falls out of bed and down the stairs, just to start things off. Donald is  understandably in a bad mood because of this and curses his bad luck and wishes he would have never been born.

He comes across a fortune teller, Visionette (I like her personality and design, by the way). She can see nothing but ill fortune in store for Donald. Donald is even more distraught of his lot in life and Visionette takes pity on him. She decides that Donald should plead his case with the big man upstairs, who she is on a first-name basis with. The two drink a potion that makes their souls leave their bodies, as you do:

I like the creepy vacant expression on their literally soulless bodies.

And then they take off for the stars. Are you ready for God? For here he is:

Yes, turns out that God looks and acts like a amiable middle-aged office worker.  A celestial bureaucrat.

Because this is a Disney comic, he is of course not called God explicitly.  In German, he is (roughly translated) called “the Great Registrator”, but I prefer the Swedish version in which he is called “The File Clerk”. And I was not kidding when I said Visionette is on a first-name basis with him. In German she calls him Rudi and in Swedish Knut-Arne, which are both peak middle-aged man names.  For native English speakers, I suppose “Joe” or “Dave” would have similar connotations.

But I wasn’t joking when I said The File Clerk is God, or a sufficiently similar substitute there of. With his computer, he determines the lives of everyone on Earth. He programmed it himself way at the dawn of time and can change the fate of every person at will. I strongly doubt it was intentional, but this is actually a quite frightening idea if you think about it. There is no free will or happenstance in life, everything is determined by the will of a powerful being. Even Jean Calvin didn’t go that far.

When Donald learns this, he angrily berates The File Clerk and asks why must get all the bad luck, as his old theme song goes. It is literally the standard question of the self-pitying person: “Why me, God?”

The File Clerk first tells him to just accept his lot in life, but eventually agrees to change Donald’s fate. He removes all the accidents and mistakes in Donald’s file, past, present and future. And instead The Clerk writes a new life for Donald in which Donald is rich, famous and successful and surrounded by beautiful women.

When this is done, the File Clerk leaves his computer for his lunch break (yes, really). And Visionette decides to commander his computer and give Donald a glimpse of his new life in luxury.

Lucky!Donald lives the cliché rich guy life with a mansion, servants and alimousine. And as you can tell by his expression, living a life without problems has spoiled him and made him into a selfish and arrogant jerk.  It turns out that the catch of being born lucky like Gladstone, also means you develop a personality like Gladstone’s. In fact, this Donald is arguably worse: Gladstone on figurative steroids.

A beggar comes and asks for food and lucky!Donald’s response is to order his hired goons to throw him out. Regular!Donald is of course horrified by his new self: " I’m rich now, why didn’t I just give him a sandwich.” But Visionette explains that his new self has never experienced misfortune. He doesn’t know what bad luck is and therefore he feels no empathy with the poor.

Daisy is now just his maid, who he doesn’t care about. One thing I don’t like about the script is that Daisy still is in love with him, despite lucky!Donald not showing any traits that can justify that love. Her having a crush on him makes no sense whatsoever.

Lucky!Donald is indeed surrounded by women who pretend to be smitten with him, but they are of course only interested in his wealth and are secretly disgusted by him. Think Donald Trump and his wives, and you’re not far off.

Scrooge of course has zero respect for this version of Donald. He is now quite poor, because while he may be the better businessman, he can’t compete with Donald’s luck. Every stupid investment Donald makes somehow turns a profit.

Regular!Donald realizes that practically the entire world hates his new self. But, he says, there is always Huey, Dewey and Louie. Nothing in the world could come between him and his nephews. I’m truly moved, Donald, but let’s see about that:

Donald isn’t exactly wrong, the boys still seem to want his affection. As a birthday present, they give him a cutting board which they have made themselves in school. That’s cute, but...

... lucky!Donald just throws it away. Regular!Donald’s expression says it all, really. Donald realizes what a mistake he has made. The File Clerk returns, fuming about them using his computer without permission. Donald begs him to change everything back to how it he used to be, but...

...No dice. Donald has made his bed and now he must lie in it. He and Visionette return to Earth, where Donald’s spirit finds that his old body is gone.

The spirit of his old self will soon vanish when Visionette’s spell runs out and all that will be left is his horrible new life.

The only ting that can be done is for Visionette to reconstruct him with her magic. However, she needs some part of his old body to do that. Luckily, there are some feathers left.

You’ve brewed a Donald! It works, everything is back to normal.

But this miraculous rescue was in fact a miracle. The File Clerk had arranged it by placing the feathers on the floor, knowing that Donald has learned his lesson. Donald’s case isn’t the first time this has happened. “Strange how no one wants the change, when they actually get it.", he muses.

And so Donald returns to home to his real birthday party. He literally trips and falls into his own birthday cake, but now he knows he wouldn’t have it any other way. The End.

So what do I think about this story? The premise is an interesting and imaginative twist on the “It’s a Wonderful Life” plot, which makes it seem new.

Of course, the premise relies on a high concept, the logic of which doesn’t hold all the way. As stated above, the whole idea of the File Clerk seems to imply the ducks have no free will, although that was probably unintentional.