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"In the US you cannot make jokes about failure"

There is also the phenomenon that serial failure Donald Duck is still a very popular character in several European countries, while we don't care about Mickey Mouse at all. Isn't it the other way around in the US?

Mickey always does good and always wins, that's deeply boring. Donald is flawed and relatable.

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Interestingly growing up as an American, I watched Duck Tales which while tangentially related to Donald Duck it’s about his ultra rich uncle going on awesome adventures and just being so smart and awesome. Donald shows up every once in awhile but I don’t really remember much about him.

Duck Tales is basically an attempt at doing Carl Barks era adventure style minus Donald, but Scrooge being made more heroic/sympathetic (he's pretty much a lovable jerk at best in the old stories). I think Disney really wanted to tell the Donald stories Europe loved to Americans.

The persistence of Carl Barks and Don Rosa style stories here is surprising even to me. My son, born 2005, seems to know every single Barks story by heart - and I can't say I pushed it that hard.

I don't think many people care about Mickey as a character. They like the image but that's about it.

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