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Titus McDuck, also nicknamed “Seafoam” McDuck and “Dirty Dingus” McDuck, was an anthropomorphic duck.
Description
The son of Potcrack McDuck, Titus McDuck was Scrooge McDuck's thrifty paternal grandfather.
Early in his life, Titus McDuck was a "lazy spendthrift", losing the McDucks what little remained of the family fortune.[1] However, as he matured up, Titus made up for it, working hard as a coal miner; he married Molly Mallard, with whom he had several children.[2] When he had finished raising the needed money, Titus McDuck bought a boat, which he called the Golden Goose, presumably in honor of his grandfather Captain Seafoam's own ship.[3] He moved to America with it, and used it as a trading ship on the Mississippi, though he unfortunately arrived in time to get caught in the Secession War.[4]
Later, in 1876, Titus wanted to get the American nationality, but as soon as he obtained it was informed that he now had to become a soldier in the U.S. Army. Titus, who had no intention of doing so, escaped back to Scotland[5] aboard the Golden Goose; to try and profit from that forced trip, he made a deal with merchant Diddle O'Way to carry a barrel of marbles to the Cape of No Hope on the way. Unfortunately, Diddle O'Way was a crook who sabotaged the Golden Goose to ensure Titus would not deliver the marbles; for a small print in the contract he had signed with Titus said that Titus's boat and belonging would belong to O'Way if the McDuck could not meet his end of the deal.[6]
Titus finally made his way back to Scotland, and he was welcomed back into the McDuck Clan; he became their patriarch and, in 1877, was tasked with overseeing the young generation of McDucks' "stinginess test", where all the children would be given a half-a-pound note, with the winners being those who would wisely keep it (or invest it in something profitable) rather than spending it on sweets. A young Scrooge McDuck succeeded in the test, contrary to his cousin Cyril.[7] At some point, Prosper McBeagle bet Titus a dime he wouldn't spend a night in Castle MacAdam. Titus refused to spend the night in what was touted as the most haunted castle in Scotland, but kept the dime, which he instead gave to little Scrooge, who would one day use it as his first business investment, this dime becoming the root of his fortune.[8] Titus seems to have died shortly thereafter, as he was not there to say goodbye to Scrooge in 1878 when he left for the United States of America.[9]
Behind the scenes
Titus McDuck first appeared in March of 1960: he appeared in flashback in The Search for Cyril and, the very same month, was mentioned in Carl Barks's Hound of the Whiskervilles.
In Don Rosa's Duck Family Tree, Rosa gave Scrooge's grandfather the name of Dingus McDuck, not having been aware of The Search for Cyril’s already christening the character "Titus". He stated that had he been aware of The Search for Cyril when he created his Tree, he would have used the name "Titus". Finally, in 2019, Chris Moreno's Duck Family Tree (an update to Don Rosa's tree adding Don Dugo) confirmed that Dingus was a mere nickname, thereby allowing Titus to indeed have been his name all along with no conflict.
Footnotes and references
- ↑ According to Altar to Riches.
- ↑ According to Carl Barks in Hound of the Whiskervilles and to Don Rosa in his Duck Family Tree, The History of Clan McDuck and The Last of the Clan McDuck.
- ↑ According to the DuckTales episode Down and Out in Duckburg.
- ↑ According to Guido Martina and Romano Scarpa in Zio Paperone e i cannoni del Mississippi.
- ↑ All according to Guido Martina and Pier Lorenzo De Vita's Zio Paperone va alla guerra.
- ↑ According to the DuckTales episode Down and Out in Duckburg.
- ↑ In the 1960 story The Search for Cyril.
- ↑ In the 1965 story When A Dime's A Dime.
- ↑ At the end of Don Rosa's The Last of the Clan McDuck.