Plot
The story starts off with Donald and his nephews reading an ad about the Oolated Squigg company and its second annual contest. The first prize is a south seas cruise on an ocean liner, which Donald wants to win. It will be difficult, since Gladstone Gander who is Donald's extremely lucky cousin also wants the prize.
The rules say there is no limit for the number of entries each contestant may submit, so Donald intends to pick all entry forms to make sure Gladstone and his luck won't stop him. Picking the entries won't be as easy as it's originally thought. The company decided to send the 10,000 entry forms inside squigg-shaped balloons through Duckburg.
Still determined to get all the raffle tickets within the balloons, Donald tries to grab them as soon they are released. Unfortunately, it causes Donald to float away with the balloons. The nephews point out a balloon floating near Gladstone, who doesn't want to make the effort of lifting his arm to get it, saying that either a bird will pop the balloon for him or it simply doesn't have the winning ticket.
Eventually, Donald seems to have caught all the balloons, which, as he points out, must have been placed together via a thermal inversion, meaning they must be floating above a place with a low temperature. The place happens to be the Money Bin. Scrooge McDuck, fearing the balloons could be another plot of the Beagle Boys trying to steal his money, shoots them down. As a multitude tries to get the entry forms, Scrooge, who doesn't know about the contest, tries to make the contestants who followed the balloons go away. When he hears about a contest, the idea of paying more taxes because of the prizes horrifies Scrooge where he agrees to give the balloons to the first person who claims them.
Donald, who was under all the balloons, claims them all for himself and heads for the Oolated Squigg company to claim his prize. As they arrive at the company, the contest organizers are shocked by the idea of one person having all the tickets, but Huey, Dewey, and Louie say there are only 9,999 of the 10,000 ballons. Donald doesn't like the way it sounds, specially with Gladstone in the vicinity. One of the organizers says that a single entry got stuck in the factory and never was released. Donald tries to get it before Gladstone, but trips and accidentally kicks the ticket right to Gladstone's hands.
Donald asks what Gladstone was doing there, since he had no entries, and he says the last year's winner gets to draw the winning ticket for this one. Hearing this, Huey, Dewey, and Louie figure a way to make Gladstone's luck work against him. They submit only one ticket in the name of Donald. All others are for Gladstone. While Gladstone is picking the winning ticket, the nephews comment about Gladstone's luck beating the odds. That's when Gladstone figures out their plan: They've put the odds for him and against Donald so Gladstone would be beaten by his own luck. The plan seems to work, as Donald wins the cruise and Gladstone gets a one-year supply of oolated squiggs as the second-placer.
While trying to enjoy his "prize", Gladstone thinks about the contest and deduces that losing a contest is bad luck, regardless of for or against whom the odds were. Then he reads an article in the newspaper about the cruise ship getting grounded on an iceberg, and he later finds a diamond ring eaten by a squigg. The story ends with Donald on the iceberg, having nothing to eat except squiggs recently fished from there.
Gladstone Gander is a cartoon character created in 1948 by The Walt Disney Company. He is an anthropomorphic gander who possesses exceptional good luck that grants him anything he desires as well as protecting him from any harm. This is in contrast to his cousin Donald Duck, who is often characterized for having bad luck. Gladstone is also a rival of Donald for the affection of Daisy Duck. Gladstone dresses in a very debonair way, often in a suit; wearing a bow-tie, fedora, and spats. He has a wavy hairstyle which is depicted either as white or blonde. In the story "Luck of the North" he is described as having a brassy voice.
Huey, Dewey, and Louie are triplet cartoon characters created by storyboard artist (screenwriter) Carl Barks for The Walt Disney Company from an idea proposed by cartoonist Al Taliaferro and are the nephews of Donald Duck and the grand-nephews of Scrooge McDuck. Like their maternal uncles, the brothers are anthropomorphic white ducks with yellow-orange bills and feet. The boys are sometimes distinguished by the color of their shirts and baseball caps. They featured in many Donald Duck animated shorts and in the television show DuckTales and its reboot, but comics remain their primary medium.
The Clan McDuck is a fictional Scottish clan of cartoon ducks from which Disney character Scrooge McDuck is descended. Within the Donald Duck universe, the clan is related to the American Duck family through the marriage of Hortense McDuck and Quackmore Duck, Donald and Della Duck's parents, giving both of them partial Scottish ancestry.
The Donald Duck universe is a fictional shared universe which is the setting of stories involving Disney cartoon character Donald Duck, as well as Daisy Duck, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Scrooge McDuck, and many other characters. Life in the Donald Duck universe centers on the city of Duckburg and is a part of the larger Mickey Mouse universe. In addition to the original comic book stories by Carl Barks, the Duckburg cast was featured in Little Golden Books, television series such as DuckTales (1987–1991), Darkwing Duck (1991–1992), and the DuckTales reboot (2017–2021), and video games such as DuckTales (1989), QuackShot (1991), Goin' Quackers (2000), and DuckTales: Remastered (2013).
The Duck family is a fictional family of cartoon ducks related to Disney character Donald Duck. The family is also related to the Coot, Goose, and Gander families, as well as the Scottish Clan McDuck. Besides Donald, the best-known members of the Duck family are Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Donald's three triplet nephews.
Uncle Scrooge Adventures is a 1987-1997 Disney comic book series published by Gladstone Publishing under license from the Walt Disney Company. It features the adventures of Scrooge McDuck and his nephews Donald, Huey, Dewey, and Louie. It was usually distinguished from the main Uncle Scrooge title in its focus on longer, full-length stories, often in the pulp adventure style.
"A Christmas for Shacktown" is a 32-page Disney comics story written, drawn, and lettered by Carl Barks. The story was first published in Four Color #367, and tells of Donald Duck's attempts to raise money for a Christmas party for the poor children of Shacktown.
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Donald Duck, a cartoon character created by the Walt Disney Company, is today the star of dozens of comic-book and comic-strip stories published each month around the world. In many European countries, Donald is considered the lead character in Disney comics, more important and beloved than Mickey Mouse.
Mythos Island is a nine-part comic series made for Egmont. It is a crossover between the Mickey Mouse universe and the Duck universe. It is written by Pat and Carol McGreal and Per Erik Hedman and drawn by César Ferioli.
"The Golden Fleecing" is a Scrooge McDuck comic book story from 1955, written and drawn by Carl Barks. It's about Scrooge who wants the Golden Fleece to make a jacket.
"The Lost Charts of Columbus" is a 1995 Donald Duck comic by Don Rosa, a sequel to Carl Barks' 1952 story The Golden Helmet.
"A Little Something Special" is a 1997 Disney comics story created by Don Rosa to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Scrooge McDuck's first appearance in Carl Barks's "Christmas on Bear Mountain" in 1947.
"The Money Champ" was originally published in Uncle Scrooge #27 in September, 1959 and is the second of three stories written and drawn by Carl Barks in which Scrooge's rival Flintheart Glomgold appears. Glomgold first appeared in "The Second-Richest Duck" in Uncle Scrooge #15.
"Nobody's Business" is a Donald Duck comic written and drawn by Don Rosa, featuring Donald and Gladstone Gander. The story was first published in Uncle Scrooge #220 in August 1987. "Nobody's Business" was Don Rosa's second comic story, after The Son of the Sun.
"A Financial Fable" is a Donald Duck comic book story written and illustrated by Carl Barks in September 1950. As with many other Barks stories, it was originally untitled. The story deals with what will happen if everyone in a community becomes a millionaire.
"The Duck Who Never Was" is a 1994 Disney comics story written and drawn by Don Rosa. It was written to celebrate Donald Duck's sixtieth anniversary. The story was first published in the Danish Anders And & Co. #1994-23; the first American publication was in Donald Duck #286, in September 1994.
"Race to the South Seas!" is a 22-page Disney comics story written, drawn, and lettered by Carl Barks. Characters in the story include Donald Duck, his nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Gladstone Gander, and Uncle Scrooge. The story was first published in March of Comics #41 (1949), and has been reprinted several times. Race is one of Barks's first stories to present Gladstone's good luck to be something almost supernatural.
"Last Sled to Dawson" is a 1988 Scrooge McDuck comic by Don Rosa. It is Rosa's third full-length Uncle Scrooge story after The Son of the Sun and Cash Flow, both published the previous year. Last Sled is the first story in which Rosa delves into Scrooge's past life, on his journey to becoming the richest man in the world, and so acts as a spiritual sequel to Carl Barks's classic Scrooge story "Back to the Klondike", describing his experiences as a gold prospector during the Klondike Gold Rush.
