Organization
The Junior Woodchucks of the World is a fictional scouting organization appearing in Disney comics and the DuckTales animated television franchise, most notably in adventures feat…
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The Junior Woodchucks of the World is a fictional scouting organization appearing in Disney comics and the DuckTales animated television franchise, most notably in adventures featuring Disney characters Huey, Dewey, and Louie as members.
The Junior Woodchucks of the World is a fictional scouting organization appearing in Disney comics and the DuckTales animated television franchise, most notably in adventures featuring Disney characters Huey, Dewey, and Louie as members.
The Junior Woodchucks were created by Carl Barks in 1951, in the story "Operation St. Bernard" (Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #125). Later stories introduced a similar organization for girls, the Littlest Chickadees, to which Daisy Duck's nieces, April, May and June, belong. The hallmark of the Junior Woodchucks is their spirited dedication to environmental protection, animal welfare and international peace, as well as the preservation of knowledge and the furtherance of science & technology. They are also known for their exalted titles & ranks (Huey, Dewey, and Louie being promoted to become Ten-Star Generals in the 1951 story of the same name) and the awarding of buckets of badges, along with strict ideals as to their certain decorum. In this way Barks poked gentle but pointed satire at some aspects of the Boy Scouts of America.
Members always carry with them a copy of the Junior Woodchucks' Guidebook, a fictional guidebook filled with detailed and pertinent information about whatever country or situation the Woodchucks find themselves, ranging from the basic to the incredibly obscure. Its depth of coverage is remarkable, considering that it is a small paperback book. Narratively, the book is a device that allows the story's writer to insert any information or exposition that's needed to move the story forward.
Most of the early Junior Woodchucks stories appeared in Walt Disney's Comics and Stories, with some notable appearances in Uncle Scrooge. In 1966, they got their own title, Huey, Dewey, and Louie and the Junior Woodchucks, published by Gold Key Comics for 62 issues, and then continued by Whitman Comics for another 20 issues until 1983. The stories which Carl Barks wrote for this comic book, among the last comic book stories he scripted, were drawn by Kay Wright, John Carey and Tony Strobl. More recently Daan Jippes has been commissioned by Egmont to redraw these stories emulating Barks' style and drawing inspiration from the sketches of Barks' storyboard-like scripts.
The non-Disney strip Big Nate also features a scouting organisation with the same name, to which eponymous Nate Wright and his friends Francis Pope and Teddy Ortiz belong, which was later changed to the Timber Scouts.
The Junior Woodchucks first appeared in Barks' 10-page Donald Duck story "Operation St Bernard" (WDC&S #125, February 1951). While the Woodchucks ultimately became a familiar and beloved element in the Duck universe, Barks' original intention was satirical. Thomas Andrae says, "Throughout the story, Barks satirizes the Woodchucks' elitism, obsession with rank, and paramilitary discipline. Major is the lowest rank in the Woodchucks, and every trooper has a lofty title and wears quarts of medals... Parodying the mystique of military language, Barks makes a running gag of converting Woodchuck titles into unintelligible acronyms."
The Junior Woodchucks stories tended to "civilize" the nephews, who were usually seen as mischievous and immature in the 1940s. In the second Woodchucks story, "Ten-Star Generals" (WDC&S #132, Sept 1951), the boys are very serious about passing their scout tests in the proper Woodchuck way, refusing to be tempted by Donald's encouragement to take shortcuts. Just a month later, they would be playing hooky from school. In a 1975 interview, Barks explained that he appreciated the mutability of the characters: "I began making them into sort of smart little guys once in a while, and very clumsy little guys at other times, and always, I aimed at surprise in each story so that nobody could pick up a comic book and say, 'Well, the nephews are going to behave thus and so.' They wouldn't know until they read the story just what those little guys were going to be up to in a particular sequence."
The Junior Woodchucks' Book of Knowledge was first mentioned in "The Secret of Atlantis" (Uncle Scrooge #5, March–May 1954). In the next issue's story, "Tralla La", the book made its first appearance as The Junior Woodchuck's Guidebook (Uncle Scrooge #6, June 1954). Historian Michael Barrier claims that the use of the Guidebook had a negative influence on the nephews' characterization, saying, "The Guidebook soon became something like a crutch. Faced with a dilemma, the nephews were more likely to rely on the Guidebook, seemingly a compendium of all human knowledge, than on their wits."
Barks introduced a female version of the Woodchucks — the Chickadees, featuring Daisy's nieces April, May and June — in "The Chickadee Challenge" (WDC&S #181, Oct 1955), headed by the stern Mrs. Ramrod. The Junior Woodchucks' official hound, often called General Snozzie, was added to the cast in "Dodging Miss Daisy" (WDC&S #213, June 1958).
The Junior Woodchucks had a backup feature for five years in Mickey Mouse, from issue #106 to 128 (April 1966 - Feb 1971), written by John Carey and drawn by Tony Strobl.
Gold Key Comics published a Huey, Dewey & Louie Junior Woodchucks comic starting in August 1966. The comic began as an annual, featuring stories by Strobl and writer Vic Lockman. In 1969, Barks — who had retired three years earlier — was prevailed upon to write some scripts in storyboard form for the comic, which became a quarterly. Under Barks, the stories came to focus on environmental themes. Other stories in the series were drawn by Jerry Siegel (co-creator of Superman) and Bob Gregory. The series ended with issue #81 in 1984.
Source: Junior Woodchucks (CC BY-SA)
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In 1992, the Barks stories for the Junior Woodchucks title were redrawn by Dutch Disney comics artist Daan Jippes for Donald Duck Weekblad.
In 1993, Don Rosa published a memorable story about the history of the Junior Woodchucks Guidebook called "Guardians of the Lost Library", which was first published in the US in Uncle Scrooge Adventures #27 (July
