DuckTales (1987)/Fridge

Fridge Brilliance

• Scrooge McDuck's money bin. As a kid, I had a vague idea that you shouldn't store all of your money as pennies and store it in a single building for the sole purpose of swimming through it. As I got older and learned about real-world economics it made even less sense. And then I thought: Scrooge knows about this. He is so freakin' rich he can afford to keep his funds liquid and inefficiently stored like that.
  • Oh my... those funds are 'liquid'. As in 'the usual contents of a swimming pool'. I've just this minute got that.
• I came to a different but similar conclusion... everyone tends to have loose change that they likely keep in a piggy bank or in a jar. Scrooge McDuck is so rich that he needs AN ENTIRE BUILDING to hold his loose change! The fact he can swim in it is just a plus. -Game Guru GG
  • This have given rise to my own little Fridge Brilliance: that's why, no matter how it might be just a drop in the bucket of his vast wealth, he guards it with such voracity. It's the money he's made with his sweat and hard work; it means more to him than all the wealth in the world. Friggin' sweet!
• There's a more practical reason for Scrooge's moneybin. Scrooge is so ridiculously rich that if he actually spent or invested all his money, he would destroy the world economy with a lethal level of inflation! By keeping so much of his money in his money bin and out of circulation, he avoids global economic devastation. At the same time, whenever he feels like shocking someone with a little fiscal "dragon awe", he has immediate access to his gazillions.
  • "Coins are only valuable when they're rare... and Scrooge McDuck is the one who makes 'em rare!" (Don Rosa, "The Money Pit")
    • You're 40 years late. The original quote "And I'm the guy that makes 'em scarce!" comes from "Money Pit"s predecessor, the 1951 Carl Barks comic "The Trouble With Dimes". He's also the guy who thought of a money bin in the first place, back in '51.
• El Capitan was once, as his title implies, the captain of the ship full of gold that Scrooge and the boys discover in "Treasure of the Golden Suns: Part 2." It's never stated outright, but when the "Old Wheezer" is taking inventory of the ship, one of the triplets remarks, "Boy, he's actin' like he used ta own this ship!" Plus, later on, in Part 5, we find find out he's at least 400 years old. Well, just today this troper was watching Part 3, where the conquistador Joaquin Slowly explains his family history - how, 400 years ago, his ancestor Marching Slowly looted the Valley of the Golden Suns with a traveling companion, but the captain of their ship abandoned them and sailed away with the spoils. We then get a shot of the ship's captain - and it's a dog character who looks very much like a younger version of the El Capitan we're familiar with.

Fridge Logic

• In the episode "The New Gizmo Kids On The Block", how could Fenton fit his Gizmo suit into his washing machine, why would you put a metallic suit into a washing machine, and how could it shrink in the first place?
  • It was actually Fenton's mom who washed it, just throwing everything into the washer without checking it (still doesn't explain why the suit was among the laundry). And it shrunk because it was a special "polyester aluminum blend." Yeah, it makes even less sense now.
  • In "Wrongway to Ronguay," how did Scrooge and his nephews manufacture golden planks so quickly? But even if we accept that ... they patched up the ship's holes with gold but didn't do so symmetrically. What happens to a ship when one side weighs WAY WAY MORE than another?

---

Back to DuckTales (1987)