Donald Duck universe

The Donald Duck universe is a fictional shared universe which is the setting of stories involving Disney cartoon character Donald Duck, as well as Daisy Duck, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Scrooge McDuck, and many other characters. Life in the Donald Duck universe centers on the city of Duckburg and is a part of the larger Mickey Mouse universe. In addition to the original comic book stories by Carl Barks, the Duckburg cast was featured in Little Golden Books, television series such as DuckTales (1987–1990), Darkwing Duck (1991–1992), and the DuckTales reboot (2017–2021), and video games such as DuckTales (1989), QuackShot (1991), Goin' Quackers (2000), and DuckTales: Remastered (2013).

"Donald Duck universe", sometimes called Duckverse or Scrooge McDuck universe, are unofficial terms used by Disney, but are sometimes used by fans. Disney comics artist/writer Don Rosa has also used the terms Barks Universe and Italian Duck Universe to describe different versions of history. According to Carl Barks, the comic book creator of Scrooge McDuck, Duckburg, and its original cast of characters and themes (who also developed Donald Duck and created Daisy Duck and Huey, Dewey and Louie for the early Donald Duck cartoons) — "Now we're beginning to read about Batman's universe, the Spiderman universe. All of those guys had their own universe, and so the ducks have their own universe." Barks adds, "Whenever I wrote the script and it was drawn by some other artist ... it came out looking so different, it didn't look like it belonged in the duck universe .. .Didn't look as real, or I use the word, 'sincere'. You couldn't tell whether the guy who drew it was really interested in turning out a nice product or not."

The core Duckverse family dates back to the golden age of American animation, generally introduced in Disney shorts, weekly newspaper comics, or comic books of the period as supporting characters for Donald Duck, who premiered in 1934 in The Wise Little Hen (but was mentioned as a friend of Mickey's as early as 1931). Donald's nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, debuted in 1937 in a comic strip adaptation of an in-production film, Donald's Nephews. Daisy Duck, Donald's on-again-off-again girlfriend premiered in 1940, in Mr. Duck Steps Out. Grandma Duck also appeared in 1940, as a character in the comic strip. Scrooge McDuck, the family's elderly uncle and "richest duck in the world", was created in 1947 by Carl Barks for the comic book story Christmas on Bear Mountain.

Scrooge McDuck appeared in the 1960 Disneyland Records LP, Donald Duck and His Friends, in a plot that involved Donald and the Beagle Boys. With the exception of Scrooge's brief cameo in The Mickey Mouse Club opening theme, this marked the first appearance of a Barks-created character in a medium other than the comics and story books. Later, in 1963, the Beagle Boys played a role in Chipmunk Fun, an LP that also mentioned Scrooge.

Most of the characters have appeared in the 1980s Disney cartoon series DuckTales. Disney's Darkwing Duck series is nominally set in the separate DuckTales universe, in a metropolis called St. Canard, although aside from sharing the denizen Launchpad McQuack, and a few crossover episodes involving Gizmoduck, there is no interaction. Much of the DuckTales and all of the Darkwing Duck material do not appear in Barks' comics, as the two TV series were created decades after Barks's active years as a comic artist. Later, a few characters would be the main characters in the show Quack Pack.

However, in the magazine Disney Adventures, there was a five-part crossover/storyline titled "Legend of the Chaos God" which began with TaleSpin, and continued with Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, Goof Troop, and DuckTales, then concluded with Darkwing Duck.

Duckburg was the setting of the 1987 animated series DuckTales. The cartoon's version of Duckburg was based loosely on the comics' version. Duckburg appeared in the 1990s animated series Quack Pack. In Quack Pack, Duckburg was populated almost entirely by human beings, with Donald, Daisy, and Donald's nephews as the only anthropomorphized animals that usually appeared. Moreover, the Money Bin is nowhere to be seen. Duckburg was the setting for one of the three initial levels of the video game Quackshot and also for the second level of the video game Donald Duck: Goin' Quackers.

Duckburg was also used for the setting of Mickey's Birthday land (later Mickey's Starland) at Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom from 1988 to 1996. It even included Grandma Duck's Farm and a statue of Cornelius Coot, though it was more of a rural town than a burgeoning metropolis. The connection to Duckburg was removed as the land was renovated in 1996 to become Mickey's Toontown Fair. However, the Cornelius Coot statue remains.