Flip Decision, also printed as Heads or Tails, is a comic story written and drawn by Carl Barks. It features Donald Duck, Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck, Daisy Duck, Judge Owl, and, in their debuts, Professor Batty, April, May and June, and a mention of Daisy's Sister.
Plot[]
A chance meeting with exuberant crackpot Professor Batty turns Donald Duck over to “flippism”, the quasi-religious belief that you should never worry about any important life decisions, and instead leave them up to a coin toss. As he applies these teachings with unfailing enthusiasm, Donald just as unfailingly drags his nephews into trouble…
References[]
- Daisy Duck has a sister who lives in a Duckburg flat that's right next to Professor Batty's.
- “Downtown Duckburg” is far enough from Donald Duck's House that Huey, Dewey and Louie would need their uncle to take them there by car.
- Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck, and April, May and June, are quite keen to go see a new horror movie entitled Gore in the Gully.
- Professor Batty has written a book about flipism, Science of Flipism. He sells a copy of it to Donald for $1.
- Hogtown and Noplace are cities in Calisota.
Continuity[]
- Donald Duck would encounter Professor Batty again over 60 years later in Family Ties (2014), where the crazy theorist has forsaken flipism and found new (and equally bonkers) research subjects.
Behind the scenes[]
Written in June of 1952, this story was first printed in February of the next year in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #149. It was reprinted in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #365, #507 and #561, as well as in the various Carl Barks Libraries, in the Australian Walt Disney's Comics #83, Giant #247 and Walt Disney's Comics #297, and (under the title of Heads or Tails) in the British Donald Duck Annual 1980.
The story is considered a classic among Barks's ten-pager, and, as earlier noted, is also notable for introducing Daisy Duck's nieces April, May and June, who would go on to become recurring characters.