170

In the Ducktales series, Uncle Scrooge is famous for highdiving into his money bin.

I've always wondered how he does it without hurting himself. Wouldn't he bang his head and knock himself out? Is there an in-universe explanation?

JohnP
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TheAsh
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    He makes sure that all his funds are in liquid assets. – Mike Scott Nov 14 '17 at 17:51
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    https://scifi.meta.stackexchange.com/questions/11519/is-ducktales-on-topic – TheAsh Nov 14 '17 at 20:19
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    You have a cartoon with intelligent, talking, civilized animals and "dive into money without hurting" is what breaks the suspension of disbelief? :) – DVK-on-Ahch-To Nov 15 '17 at 06:22
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    You're not the first one to wonder about this. In the comics, there is no explanation as to how he does it (because, well, you really can't do this), but it is at least made clear this is a skill unique to Scrooge -- when the Beagle Boys did it, they just landed on a very hard pile of gold. – Jeroen Mostert Nov 15 '17 at 11:29
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    To wake for an answer, but as a kid I once read a comic, where some adversaries (I think the Beagle Boys) where defeated by letting them try to dive and knock themselves out in the process. So it was used as a plot device even. – kratenko Nov 15 '17 at 12:37
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    @JeroenMostert here is the comic you referenced (thanks @Quasi_Stomach) https://imgur.com/a/ivTc6 – TheAsh Nov 16 '17 at 18:44
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    I remember a comic where he loses that ability for some reason. If somebody can identify that comic, it might shed some light on this mystery. – BlindKungFuMaster Nov 17 '17 at 10:26
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    This is perhaps the only time Family Guy presented a more realistic portrayal of what would happen. – Indigenuity Nov 18 '17 at 22:07
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    Golden currency is about as fluid as assets can get! Literally. The most fluid asset is cash, but golden cash is both legal tender and a universally recognized valuable, so it's basically as liquid as an asset could be. – Nat Nov 19 '17 at 05:52
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    @kratenko As a kid I read a comic matching your description. Scrooge had hidden all of his money in a lake (I don't recall why he needed to hide them). The Beagle Boys discovered it and after various failed plans to steal the money from the lake they acquired a piece of land downhill and tricked Scrooge into pouring termites over a wooden dam keeping the water in the lake. Scrooge then tricked the Beagle Boys into trying to jump into their newly acquired fortune by showing them how fun it was without letting them know how much training it takes. – kasperd Nov 19 '17 at 15:29
  • "A millionaire who broke his neck trying to dive into a pool of coins, just like in a neck brace bein' like, 'You gotta aerate your coins. That's where I went wrong. You can't dive into still coins. That's what McDuck does. Watch playback. He aerates that pool. I know it...'" -Brooks Wheelan, Saturday Night Live Stuff from this is cool, right? – heliumdream Nov 20 '17 at 01:56
  • @Indigenuity The clip: https://youtu.be/viDL2W0HcJw – TheAsh Sep 18 '19 at 17:44
  • Have you never watched any other cartoon before? How is Wile E. Coyote still kickin'? It's a very common cartoon trope, that physics is whatever they want it to be at the time. – Villan Sep 20 '21 at 12:38

2 Answers2

199

It took him years of practice.

This question was finally answered in-universe in the new Ducktales S01E3 "The Great Dime Chase":

[Huey attempts to dive]

Scrooge: Are you out of your head? You'll crack your skull open!

Huey: But you swim in money all the time!

Scrooge: Yes, but I worked hard to perfect that skill, building muscles and dexterity.

Ducktales - The Money Bin Jump - Promo

Valorum
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TheAsh
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    I don't think this is even an answer. If we knew the technique he practiced for example ... I btw always thought he was able to because he is a cartoon duck – Raditz_35 Nov 14 '17 at 17:29
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    @Raditz_35 There wouldn't be a realistic technique for doing that. I assume it was the show poking fun at the idea of a pool of money. – JMac Nov 14 '17 at 17:31
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    @Raditz_35 The show felt it was indeed an answer, or at least a skill that can be learned.... – TheAsh Nov 14 '17 at 17:32
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    He seems to be saying "Yes, but I worked hard to perfect that skill", not what is currently written. – Harris Nov 15 '17 at 01:43
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    I always assumed that scrooge was more dense than his gold... – hamsolo474 - Reinstate Monica Nov 15 '17 at 04:21
  • @JMac - If it was a thick bed of crumpled notes, with a thinner layer of coins on top, he could possibly (certainly using cartoon laws of physics) have practised enough to see where the coins are thin enough to make his entry without cracking his skull. – Guy G Nov 15 '17 at 09:41
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    According to the Pooled Funds page of TV Tropes, in another story he simply says "There's a trick to it". – Medinoc Nov 15 '17 at 20:09
  • @Recelica - But it is, because in the show we actually see Louie starting to learn to do it for himself. – Xavon_Wrentaile Nov 15 '17 at 23:53
  • It's his super power. – nu everest Nov 18 '17 at 15:45
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    "If you want something, you work hard to get it" - sounds about as convincing for diving into money as it does for becoming spectacularly rich. – einpoklum Nov 18 '17 at 22:40
  • It's episode two – ClayKaboom Sep 28 '19 at 14:32
154

In the comics there is also an explanation: in the eleventh part of the comic book The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, by Don Rosa (The Empire-Builder from Calisota), where Scrooge is pushed off a cliff by some bandits planning to hijack his train full of gold.

"[...] Scrooge thought "it's the end" but he miraculously found that he could dive through the hard metal coins as if they were liquid [...] Apparently, his years of bathing and burrowing through his money had taught him some instinctive trick [...]".

enter image description here

RDFozz
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Vangaorth
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    This doesn't really explain anything, though, as Barks (wisely) avoids going into detail about how an ability to "bathe and burrow" through his money (which is already implausible, especially if he moved to any significant depth) would extrapolate to suddenly becoming able to dive into it with great force. The cheeky "it works only in cash" is the icing on the cake. A masterful application of handwaving. :-) – Jeroen Mostert Nov 15 '17 at 18:33
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    @JeroenMostert yeah, absolutely right. Mind you, it also doesn't explain how an intelligent talking duck exists either. – gbjbaanb Nov 15 '17 at 19:24
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    @JeroenMostert - Note: Don Rosa, not Carl Barks. Don would be the last person to claim credit for something Barks used first - it's only fair to note what Don himself added to the canon. – RDFozz Nov 15 '17 at 19:33
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    @gbjbaanb: but that's different. The talking duck is clearly a given, and asking how talking ducks exist in the Ducktales universe would just be silly. :-) – Jeroen Mostert Nov 15 '17 at 20:33
  • @RDFozz: noted. For some reason my mind just immediately jumped to Barks, even though the answer clearly says otherwise! – Jeroen Mostert Nov 15 '17 at 20:33
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    And don't forget that Barks addressed this in his very first full-length Uncle Scrooge story "Only a Poor Old Man". https://imgur.com/a/ivTc6 – Quasi_Stomach Nov 16 '17 at 17:18
  • Great find! Note however that the question was referring to Ducktales canon, which often contradicts Barks and Rosa canon. Only Ducktales, which is scifi, is on-topic on this site. The Barks stories rarely feature such scifi-like universes. – TheAsh Nov 16 '17 at 18:34
  • @Jeroen How is a talking, intelligent, money-making duck more of a given than a talking, intelligent, money-diving duck? – Janus Bahs Jacquet Nov 19 '17 at 12:37
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    @JanusBahsJacquet: Good question. I don't know. It would take a deeper understanding of the nature of fiction than I have. Fact is that if you asked "how come ducks in the Ducktale universe are intelligent and can talk?" it would most probably get closed, whereas asking "how does Scrooge McDuck dive into money?" can get 100+ upvotes. That's not just the site's users being capricious. – Jeroen Mostert Nov 19 '17 at 19:40
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    Scrooge just gets so gosh darn excited by the sight of all the cash, he vibrates very, very fast. We all know what happens when things vibrate really fast ;) – RozzA Nov 19 '17 at 23:28