Donald Duck - Instant Millionaire
An examination of technological predictions...in a children's book
Today we have a bit of a book review. But it's not typically the kind of book I'd recommend to you fine readers.
No, today we're going to examine a fantastic little discovery I made with my daughter from the "free" bin in the lobby of our local library.
The book was published in 1978 and it's called "Donald Duck: Instant Millionaire." It seems important to mention that no specific author is credited here, it’s just from “Little Golden Books”.
You may be asking yourself, why on earth am I about to read a quasi book review for a children's book that's nearly fifty years old? Well let me tell you. This book may be one of the best predictors of the technology of the future!
Recently I recommended the book "The New Megatrends" as a way to predict what might happen in the not-too-distant future. Well Donald and Scrooge in this book may be Megatrend spotters themselves.
First, we’ll run through the wacky plot of the story. Then we’ll look at the examples of technology that are depicted in the book. I’ll run through each piece of tech to examine just how futuristic it was at the time of publishing. Finally, I’ll evaluate if the version of the tech that I own currently is on par with the version that rich Uncle Scrooge has in the book. Am I currently living a better life than a fictitious duck millionaire from 1978? Let’s find out!
The Plot
In this book, Donald Duck and his precocious young nephews Huey, Duey, and Louie (wouldn't "Luey" make more sense?) are asked to watch over rich Uncle Scrooge's house while he's out of town.
There isn't a whole lot of context here, but they're excited to be able to live in Scroogie's high-tech mansion for a few days. So let's just roll with that idea. But this isn't just an old rich man's house with all the expected pomp and circumstance that come with it. No, this house is special. Huey refers to it as a "super-automated" house. We're talking about a glimpse into the far-off future once you enter this house. Think “The Jetsons”. Or picture the weird things that may be included in the house's of rich eccentric people like Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos today. All modern billionaires are in the mold of Scrooge McDuck if you ask me.
At first, things seem great! The quartet of ducks admire the automatic dishwasher. Donald marvels at the sight of the robot lawnmower. The nephews gawk at the 68-inch TV set and then decide to go for a swim in the ruby-and-emerald pool.
Of course, this wouldn’t be much of a story if everything went swimmingly during their stay at the mansion. The ducks soon realize that staying in this house isn’t going to be as easy and luxurious as they hoped.
The automated pool cleaner inadvertently roughs up the boys as they were still frolicking in the water. Their round of bowling was cut short because Scrooge’s solid gold bowling balls were too heavy. They couldn’t get the high-tech TV to turn on because it was locked out until 6 pm (great tactic to limit screen time employed here by Scrooge. He’s evidently as stingy with TV watching as he is with money!) As the team share their complaints about the accommodations, the automatic sprinkler turns on and drenches them.
As they try to re-enter the house, they’re chased up the stairs by a rogue mopping robot. The hungry birds then decide to settle into a family dinner only to find that the electric food server wouldn’t dispense any vittles until its programmed dinner time of 7pm. Aw fooey! These ducks just can’t catch a break!
At long last, dinner was ready. But no one told the robot butler to allow some extra dining time for the houseguests. The bot cleaned up their plates before they had finished! The ducks then hear the glorious sound of an ice cream truck outside. A nice dessert will wash away the annoyances caused by Scrooge’s technology.
Except, that sound isn’t actually an ice cream truck. It’s those no-good Beagle Boys! They’ve escaped from Duckburg Penitentiary only to come rob Scrooge McDuck in broad daylight! Donald inexplicably opens the electric gate (presumably thinking he’s letting an ice cream truck come right up to their house?) The Beagle Boys were now on the premises and the book takes a serious turn.
But what’s this? The automated home comes to the rescue! The robot mop chases one Beagle Boy right into the clutches of the robot butler. The butler promptly soaks the young dog in the automatic sudser. Apparently this Beagle hadn’t had a bath in 20 years which made it especially frightful! As another Beagle attempted to swipe emeralds from the swimming pool, the automatic pool cleaner springs into action. The high-tech vacuum system “whooshed” him into an opening. in the wall where he was trapped along with a second-rate umbrella and and old hat rack.
Sadly, the third Beagle Boy may have gotten the worst treatment of all. He got too close to the automatic pinsetter in the bowling alley. You can imagine how that went. Lots of lifting and dropping on his poor little Beagle head. Just as it appeared things couldn’t get much worse, Scrooge McDuck himself inexplicably showed up early back at his house. Maybe he was wirelessly notified of the goings on back at the mansion, maybe it was just dumb luck. But at any rate, he was able to restore order and free the Beagle Boys from their technological torment.
Scrooge declared that he was “proud of his marvelous house”! The home had protected itself against intruders even with Donald’s careless finger on the button of the electric gate. It’s almost like a high-tech robot version of Home Alone if you think about it. The Wet Bandits nor the Beagle Boys stand a chance when entering a home that’s designed to fight back like this.
And what happened to Donald and the boys? They seem to write-off Uncle Scrooge and his high-tech house of horrors. Donald vows to never return as they scamper home to their own meager abode that’s devoid of all tech. We can all agree that 100% of the problems could have been avoided by maybe reading a manual or having common sense, but Donald instead blames the robots for the whole ordeal. I want to quote the final line of the book verbatim as it really sets the tone for the lesson the uncredited author intended all along.
“Living in an automated house may be fine for Uncle Scrooge, but for just plain folks, it’s just plain hard work!”
Hmm, it makes us wonder. In today’s world, are we all Uncle Scrooges or just “plain folks”?
Now, let’s examine some of the technology from the book.
The Technology
So what kinds of futuristic things are we looking at here? Some may seem quaint by today's standards, but others were quite a leap to write about in the 70s.
Automatic Dishwasher - This one is pretty commonplace both now and even in 1978. The illustration makes this seem more like a contraption with arms manually cleaning every dish in the sink rather than a traditional front-loading dishwasher. It's a fairly common luxury for a modern home. I can humbly say that I do have one in my house.
Robot Lawnmower - This one felt pretty radical for the 70s. In the picture, it looks kinda like giant electric razor with a radio antenna cruising around the lawn. And honestly, it's pretty spot-on for the technology we have today. I am fortunate to say that I do have a robot lawnmower and it appears to use more or less the same technology. And yes, sometimes it seems to chase my pets in the same way it's chasing Donald!
Master Control Panel - It’s hard to tell exactly what this. It seems like some sort of switchboard like you’d see in an air-traffic control building or something. Donald mentions that they need to protect any intruders from accessing it. This seems like a pretty major plot hole. Uncle Scrooge has this amazing high-tech house with a control panel. But he doesn't have any automated alarm system to keep nefarious scalawags from breaking in and wrecking havoc? It also makes it seem like in Uncle Scrooge's world, all this fun technology speaks with each other in one central place. I suppose the only natural comparison in our current world would be something like Google Nest Hub or Google Home app that allows you to control most of your smart home technology in one place. I use my hub as a central control panel of sorts, it isn't perfect, but it's pretty convenient.
68-inch Television Set - Interesting that the author went with 68 inches as the futuristic television size. As if they couldn't possibly comprehend a screen any larger than that. I can't say I was alive in the 70s, but a quick search shows that 25 inch TVs were considered "big screen" at the time. So the 68-inch estimate was almost triple the largest screen at the time. Fairly ambitious. There is unfortunately no illustration of it in the book or indication of any other bells and whistles it may have had. I'll be honest. I don't have a TV that large in my house today. It's almost embarrassing as I'm supposed to be a big high-tech guy. Our largest TV tops out at 55 inches and seems plenty big. I do have a projector that I use for backyard movie nights that will pass that 68-inch threshold if I so choose. So take that Uncle Scrooge!
Automatic Pool Cleaner - This seems like it wasn't too farfetched for the late 70s. I can't say that I'm up to date on the latest pool cleaning technology but I think the early pool cleaners were really basic. I think a lot of the advances in automated robot vacuums have followed the lead of robot pool vacuums. It seems like these could work faster and more efficient over time, but pools (and the amount of dirt in them) haven't changed very much in the last four decades. No, I don't have a pool, but if I did there would definitely be an automatic pool cleaner.
Automatic Lawn Sprinkler - Again, this one seems pretty easy to imagine in the 70s. A quick search shows some examples of automatic sprinklers as far back as the late 1800s. Golf courses and parks had some form of more advanced automated sprinkler system at this time. Sure, maybe not every backyard had timers on when to water their lawn, but it didn't take a great leap to see this becoming commonplace. Yes, I do have an automated irrigation system in my yard. The Rachio systems are pretty sweet and use apps and weather sensors to maximize the efficiency of water times. Scrooge would have been blown away by how far this technology has come.
Robot Mop - This illustration is really interesting. It's not a robot mop or vacuum as we have them today. It looks more like an anthropomorphic thing from Fantasia. No, we don't have mops that grow legs and wash for us. This thing looks pretty heavy duty, I'm sure it would make quick work of most messes in the bathroom or kitchen. I'm happy to say that I do have an iRobot automated mop but isn't not the best tech in my home. It usually doesn't do as good of a job as a traditional mop. It's still nice for regular maintenance cleaning, but it won't do the hardcore scrubbing that's sometimes needed. I think Scrooge wins this round.
Electronic Food Server - It's hard to tell exactly what this technology is. Is it just a convection oven? Is it like one of those high-tech smart ovens where you can leave frozen food in it all day and set a time that you want to eat? Donald makes it seem like the food is locked inside and unable to be eaten unless you abide by the pre-scheduled timer. I don't think I currently own anything like this. I have a microwave, a slow cooker, and an InstantPot. I guess if I added a toaster oven to that mix it would equal whatever this kitchen powerhouse is. Let's face it though, I'm sure Scrooge McDuck also has a personal chef. He's not putting all his meals in the crazy electronic food server on his own. He's the richest duck in all of Duckburg for christ’s sake!
Robot Butler - This may be the most impressive bit of tech that Ol' Scroogie has. It's basically an automated cyborg of some sort. They refer to it as a robot butler, but it seems to have endless possibilities. He seems to bring things to his master whenever requested. I think he helps out with the dishes and cooking as well. Perhaps he is the stand-in for that personal chef we were just alluding to. He could prep all the items before they go into the electronic food server. He could probably also operate things like the electronic mop or vacuum. Basically, this butler needs his own spin-off book because I have a lot of questions about what he's capable of. Needless to say, I don't have anything like this in my home. I think we could all have our own personal robot butlers in the next 20-30 years (as I wrote about recently). But until then, Scrooge has me beat in this category.
Not that it's a competition here, but I think I can confidently say that I have better tech than Scrooge in at least five out of the eight categories. Let's recap.
Automatic Dishwasher - Got it!
Robot Lawnmower - Book it!
Master Control Panel - Certainly!
68-inch Television Set - Well, they definitely exist, and my projector gets that big. Fine, it's a tie.
Automatic Pool Cleaner - I don't have a pool, you win McDuck!
Automatic Lawn Sprinkler - Yep, I have one!
Robot Mop - I have one, not the best, but I have it!
Electronic Food Server - I'm not sure I can compete with this one.
Robot Butler - Check back in 20 years and I may have this one too.
Chris - 5
Scrooge - 3
Tie - 1
Well there you have it! If we are comparing myself in 2022 to Scrooge McDuck in 1978, I come out on top just barely!
Thanks for having some fun with me today. Kudos to my daughter for spotting such a great book at the library. I think this may send me down a whole new rabbit hole of futuristic technology found in old children’s books.
Anyone else have an example like this?
POLL
Thanks for reading, I’ll see you next week!
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