Carl Barks made a few handfuls of stories, in which the ducks (primarily Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck, and the nephews) were busying themselves in different waterdiving activities as vital and necessary parts of the overall plotlines*. Most of these stories are presented below in chronological order based on their first publication dates.

* Barks made several more stories in which the topic of Diving was merely transient actions. As for Donald, we have seen him in stories as a lifeguard, as a board diver into his swimming pool, and as a regular suicidal jumper from a high mast into a very small water basin - just to name a few varied examples...

 

 

 

    WDCS066 'The Elusive Fish' - 1946

Synopsis:
Donald claims to be an expert on ice fishing but he immediately gets into trouble with a large fish. Perhaps dynamite is the solution?

Comments:
D
onald is nearly killed on several occasions from lack of fresh air when he attempts to catch the fish in its freezing element, so he turns to wearing a diver's outfit in order to even out the elusive fish's advantage.

 

    WDCS097 'Diving for Pearls' - 1948

Synopsis:
Donald is diving for pearls but during a dive he winds up inside a giant oyster. That spells trouble!

Comments:
This is the first of two stories in which Donald tries to make a living diving. But contrary to the second one, W
DCS292 Instant Hercules, he is constantly unlucky trying to perform his tasks. Notice the gimmicky helmet that Donald wears; it has a special space for his beak!

 

    FC0495 'The Horseradish Case' - 1953

Synopsis:
Chisel McSue presents Scrooge with a valid paper that enables him to obtain all Scrooge's wealth. It can be avoided, though, if he finds a certain case of horseradish at the bottom of the sea...

Comments:
Scrooge immediately steps into action, because he will lose all his assets if he cannot find the - highly indifferent - object within a time limit of 30 days! So he uses most of them up by diving in the vast Atlantic Ocean rather aimlessly, until he gets a novel idea...

 
 
 
    U$05 'Atlantis' - 1954

Synopsis:
Scrooge buys all the 1916 quarters in the world just to chuck them into the ocean. Except for one. It will be worth a fortune...

Comments:
But Scrooge happens to destroy the 'land-based' quarter and now has to dive deep into the ocean to get at least one more from its wet safe. So he has to get the world's best scientists to invent a super type of diving suit that can withstand the pressure of 3,000 feet of water, and it must also have a helmet that refreshes the air inside it. Now the ducks are ready to dive for the coin and they manage to discover the sunken Atlantis at the same time...

 

    U$05 'Diving for Money' - 1954 (1-pager)

Synopsis:
Donald and Scrooge are watching the folklore from a cruise ship that has anchored near a tropical coast.

Comments:
An activity that draws Scrooge's attention is to see how the native boys dive for coins that the passengers throw overboard. He is quite overbearing, because they merely throw pennies, but all of a sudden Scrooge dives into the water himself! Upon his return, Donald asks why he did not adhere his own preaching, and Scrooge happily reveals that a passenger had thrown a dime! In several stories we have witnessed Scrooge's madcap stinginess, but this action probably tops the bill...

 

    WDCS169 'Playing Hooky' - 1954

Synopsis:
It is the first day of school and the nephews are, of course, playing hooky. But Donald was expecting it. Now the chase is on...

Comments:
The nephews escape on a houseboat, but Donald is on to them. Using a full SCUBA (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus) gear he sabotages the boat by drilling a hole in it from below thus forcing the nephews to abandon their 'get-away' boat and make it to safety to a small island.

 

    WDCS172 'Submarine Christmas' - 1955

Synopsis:
Scrooge forces the Ducks on a trip in his submarine to find a sunken treasure. On Christmas Eve! That is most unbearable for the nephews...

Comments:
Diving to the ocean floor is not a problem when you have your own submarine - and the treasure is also duly found.
The owning of submarines is normally restricted to nations as demonstrated in WDCS232 Under the Polar Ice, in which most of the action took place onboard a military submarine. And in WDCS190 'Mischievous Swimming Race' Donald stoops to cheating in order to win a swimming bet over his nephews; he simply uses a special miniature submarine to bring him quickly to the finishing point.

 

    WDCS177 'The Bathysphere' - 1955

Synopsis:
Vacation at last! The nephews want to go to the mountains but Donald longs for the beach. A trip inside a diving sphere makes him change his mind.

Comments:
Donald volunteers to be a guinea pig trying out a new invention - a bathysphere that can withstand the colossal water pressure when descended into the ocean deep. The invention works fine until the attached wire snaps! This was not a concern in
U$46 Lost Beneath the Sea, where the ducks used another, power-driven and considerably bigger, diving sphere to roam the ocean floor in search of Scrooge's Number One Dime.

 

    WDCS292 Instant Hercules - 1965

Synopsis:
Donald runs a blooming diving and salvation business until he one day encounters a sea monster...

Comments:
This is the second and last story in which Donald makes his living from diving. He has his own business with a sign saying: Donald Duck Diving Co. - Salvage - My Business is all Wet. And that he is good at it is shown throughout the story; he simply masters all the strange tasks he is given to perfection.

 

    U$68 Hall of the Mermaid Queen - 1967

Synopsis:
One day all the money from Scrooge's Money Bin disappears into the ocean through a hole. The ducks encounter mermaids and mermen in their quest to recover it.

Comments:
In order to dive deep into the ocean Scrooge's scientists invent a novel type of elastic diving helmet that filters oxygen from the water. Combined with special anti-pressure pills this enables the ducks to stay under water indefinitely.

 

 

EXTRA

 


FC0386 Only a Poor Old Man

Barks often showed us how Scrooge even mastered the spectacular art of dry-diving; he could simply dive around like a porpoise in his money.

 

 


http://www.cbarks.dk/THEDIVINGSTORIES.htm

  Date 2013-07-26