Editing Scrooge McDuck (section)

=== Scrooge as a major character ===
''The Magic Hourglass'', first published in September 1950, was arguably the first story to change the focus of the Duck stories from Donald to Scrooge. During the story, several themes were introduced for Scrooge.

Donald first mentions in this story that his uncle practically owns Duckburg, a statement that Scrooge's rival [[John D. Rockerduck]] would later dispute. Scrooge first hints that he was not born into wealth as he remembers buying the Hourglass in [[Morocco]] when he was a member of a ship's crew as a cabin boy. It's also the first story in which Scrooge mentions reading and speaking other languages besides his native English; during the story, he reads and speaks [[Arabic alphabet|Arabic]].{{Citation needed|date=November 2017}}

Scrooge's proficiency in languages would become apparent in future stories. Barks and Rosa depicted Scrooge as being fluent in Arabic, Dutch, German, Mongolian, Spanish, Mayan, Bengali, Finnish, and a number of Chinese dialects. Scrooge acquired this knowledge from years of living or traveling to the various regions of the world where those languages are spoken. Later writers would depict Scrooge having at least a working knowledge of several other languages. He also encountered several historical figures during his lifetime, such as [[President of the United States|U.S. President]] [[Theodore Roosevelt|Roosevelt]] (''[[The Buckaroo of the Badlands]]'', ''[[The Invader of Fort Duckburg]]'', and ''[[The Sharpie of the Culebra Cut]]''), [[Apache]] leader [[Geronimo]] (''[[The Vigilante of Pizen Bluff]]''), [[Czar]] [[Nicholas II of Russia]] (''[[The Empire-Builder from Calisota]]''), and [[Philology|philologist]] [[Elias Lönnrot]] (''[[The Quest for Kalevala]]'').{{citation needed|date=September 2020}}

In ''The Magic Hourglass,'' Scrooge is shown in a more positive light than in previous stories, but his more villainous side is still evident. He is seen attempting to reacquire a magic hourglass that he gave to Donald, before finding out that it acted as a protective charm for him. Scrooge starts losing one billion dollars each minute and comments that he will go bankrupt within 600 years. This line is a parody of [[Orson Welles]]'s line in ''[[Citizen Kane]],'' "You know, Mr. Thatcher, at the rate of a million dollars a year, I'll have to close this place in ... 60 years."<ref>See [https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0033467/quotes Citizen Kane quotes] from the [[Internet Movie Database]]</ref> To convince his nephews to return it, he pursues them throughout Morocco. Scrooge interrogates Donald by having him tied up and tickled with a feather in an attempt to get Donald to reveal the location of the hourglass. The former finally manages to retrieve it, exchanging the item for a flask of water, as he had found his nephews exhausted and left in the desert with no supplies. As Scrooge explains, he intended to give them a higher offer, but he just could not resist having somebody at his mercy without taking advantage of it.