be free to write a script for a Scrooge McDuck 7-minute animated cartoon. Scrooge was a huge success in the comic books at the time, and Disney now wanted to introduce the miserly duck to theater audiences as well. Barks supplied the studios with a detailed 9-page script, telling the story of the happy-go-lucky Donald Duck working for the troubled Scrooge who tries to save his money from a hungry rat. Barks also sent number of sketches of his ideas for the short, including a money-sorting machine, which Barks had already used on the cover of one of the Uncle Scrooge issues. The script was never used as Disney soon after decided to concentrate on TV shows instead. Scrooge's first appearance in animated form (save for a brief Mickey Mouse Club television series cameo) was in Disney's 1967 theatrical short Scrooge McDuck and Money (voiced by Bill Thompson), in which he teaches his nephews basic financial tips. In 1974, Disneyland Records released an adaptation of the Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol. Eight years later, Walt Disney Pictures produced a featurette of this same story, this time dubbed Mickey's Christmas Carol (1983). He also appeared as himself in the television special Sport Goofy in Soccermania (1987). Scrooge's biggest role outside comics would come in the 1987 animated series DuckTales, a series loosely based on Carl Barks's comics, and where Alan Young returned to voice him. In this series, premiered over two-hours on September 18, 1987, while the regular episodes began three days later, Scrooge becomes the legal guardian of Huey, Dewey and Louie when Donald joins the United States Navy. Scrooge's DuckTales persona is considerably mellow compared to most previous appearances; his aggression is played down and his often duplicitous personality is reduced in many episodes to that of a curmudgeonly but well-meaning old uncle. Still, there are flashes of Barks' Scrooge to be seen, particularly in early episodes of the first season. Scrooge also appeared in DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp, released during the series' run. He was mentioned in the Darkwing Duck episode "Tiff of the Titans", but never really seen, apart from on a billboard in Duckburg, in the aforementioned episode. He has appeared in some episodes of Raw Toonage, two shorts of Mickey Mouse Works and some episodes (specially "House of Scrooge") of Disney's House of Mouse, as well as the direct-to-video films Mickey's