Scrooge McDuck

Scrooge McDuck is a cartoon character created in 1947 by Carl Barks and licensed by The Walt Disney Company. Scrooge is an elderly Scottish anthropomorphic white duck with a yellow-orange bill, legs, and feet. He typically wears a red or blue frock coat, top hat, pince-nez glasses, and spats and is portrayed in animations as speaking with a slight Scottish accent, also sometimes known as a Scottish burr. His dominant character trait is his thrift, and within the context of the fictional Disney universe, he is the World's richest person.

Named after Ebenezer Scrooge from the 1843 novel A Christmas Carol, Scrooge is a wealthy Scottish business magnate and tycoon. He was in his first few appearances characterized as a greedy miser and antihero (as Charles Dickens' original Scrooge was), but in later comics and animated shorts and the modern day he is more often portrayed as a charitable and thrifty hero, adventurer, explorer and philanthropist. Scrooge was created by Barks as a comic book character originally as an antagonist for Donald Duck, first appearing in the 1947 Four Color story "Christmas on Bear Mountain" (#178). The character soon became so popular that McDuck became a major figure of the Duck universe. In 1952 he was given his own comic book series, called Uncle Scrooge, which still runs today. Scrooge was most famously drawn by his creator Carl Barks, and later by Don Rosa. Comics have remained Scrooge's primary medium, although he has also appeared in animated cartoons, most extensively in the television series Duck Tales (1987–1990).

Along with several other characters in the Disney franchise, Scrooge has enjoyed international popularity, particularly in Europe, and books about him are frequently translated into other languages. He is the maternal uncle of Donald Duck, the grand-uncle of Huey, Dewey and Louie, a usual financial backer of Gyro Gearloose, and the employer of Launchpad McQuack. His "money bin" and indeed Scrooge himself are often used as humorous metonyms for great wealth in popular culture around the world, but Scrooge suffers even more fears of financial insecurity than "normal" Duckburg citizens - a usual catchphrase of his, when pleading his famous Duck relatives for help before or after yet another robbery by the Beagle Boys, Magica DeSpell, Flintheart Glomgold, John D. Rockerduck or other villains, is his fear that if he does not receive help, he will soon "be only a poor old man!"

Although never confirmed by Barks, it is possible that Scottish-American industrialist Andrew Carnegie, who left his country for America at age 13 as a near-penniless immigrant teenager and eventually became the world's second-richest industrialist of his era, served as a model for Scrooge, who also immigrated at 13 according to Disney canon. Another possible inspiration is an unnamed character in the 1943 Donald Duck short film The Spirit of '43 who was a representation of Donald's thrifty conscience. This anonymous character had many of Scrooge's characteristics including sideburns, pince-nez glasses, and a Scottish accent.