A SHORT SYNOPSIS

FC0282 The Pixilated Parrot - 22-pager - 1950

Donald Duck and the nephews have bought a laid-back, good-natured, talking parrot, who is talkative in a most unusual way; it quietly spends all of its time counting anything in sight! Donald gives the bird to Scrooge McDuck on his birthday, so it can count his money for him.
As it turns out Scrooge's memory is so bad that he is unable to recall the numbers of his safe combination (which is 86-26-77-53, by the way). But the parrot's memory is unsurpassed; in the first half of the story it counts bananas from memory - 17,440, 17,441, 17,442...! When it has finished that 'job' it starts counting potatoes - 1, 2, 3... - and it ends up counting dishes.
But more importantly, it remembers the crucial safe combination, which is in reality the parrot's 'excuse' for being part of the plot in the first place. So at the end of the day - it saves the day...

The story establishes several new main ideas and inventions that Barks would start using officially in the near future. See more later.

A FEW COMMENTS

The parrot is a male but is nevertheless called Polly by the nephews. The name Polly is usually associated with female gender, but it can actually be traced to the early 1600s, in which the British playwright Ben Johnson used it in the comic play Volpone for a character named Sir Politic Would-Be, or Pol for short.
Later on, the American President Andrew Johnson owned an African grey parrot named Pol, that was famous for shouting obscenities at visitors. Over the years the male name Pol has turned into the cutesier diminutive Polly. - Donald refers to Polly as the 'hooknosed adding machine'...

Polly must have an astounding photographic memory combined with distinct X-ray abilities. At least, he counts bananas that he has seen in a ship's cargo rooms weeks before. When the nephews buy him he is actually 3 days behind with his counting...

Barks introduced some sort of chaotic love story, when Polly was eagerly chasing a sexy female parrot with a clear wolfish intent of getting to know her better! Presumably, the heated scene must have been close to the censor's hatchet.

Barks used a similar beginning to the story as he had done in an earlier one. In WDCS065 'Joe From Singapore' the nephews were also browsing the harbour, and they were also handed a parrot from a sailor.

At the start of the parrot story a boat carries bananas from Costa Rica in Central America, which is still today a major exporter of the curved fruit. The last half of the story takes place in the fictional country of Tropicania that is supposedly also situated in Central America.

Scrooge is using his cannon as a guard dog pointing at possible burglars that might turn up in his office. Besides gunpowder and an assortment of cannonballs we also see - for the first and only time - the necessary ramrod used to push the ingredients to the bottom of the gun barrel.

In a rage Scrooge happens to knock down the pyramid of cannon balls, sending them all over the office floor, but immediately after they are stacked nicely again...

The stories have had several locations and means for storing Scrooge's money before and after the Money Bin appeared. Examples: FC0386 Only a Poor Old Man (high-rise building), FC0495 'The Water Tank Bin' (movable Money Bin), WDCS124 'New Management' (money barn #68), WDCS126 'The Money Bin Crib' (corn container), and WDCS130 'The Rare Coin' (scanty office). In the parrot story Scrooge keeps his money in a 'gold-plated office building'.

The story was by no means the only time Scrooge needed to remember the combination of his safe. Other examples: In DBP 'The Impenetrable Money Bin' he had it tattooed on his chest, in U$09 The Lemming with the Locket it was written on a piece of paper, and in U$60 The Phantom of Notre Duck it was played as a melody on a flute!

You will find a telling example of Scrooge's stinginess and boastfulness in this proclamation from the story: When it dawns on Scrooge that the parrot eats crackers for 10 cents a box he yells to Donald: Parrots eat crackers, and crackers cost money! What do you think I am - a billionaire?
Well, according to the inventory we witnessed early in the story he is exactly that as he has counted to more than Nine Billion Trillion when he was interrupted...

THE PERPLEXING TITLE

Barks' use of the term Pixilated in the story's title does come across as rather odd nowadays where the term mostly means Intoxicated, and this was of course never his meaning. Another definition of the term is Eccentric which comes much nearer his intention. But Barks actually used the term in the meaning Crazed (or even Mentally Disordered) as it was used in those days.
It was an old and rarely used Americanism that started in the middle of the 1800s and lasted for a century. So Barks just managed to incorporate the term as meaning Crazed before it became obsolete.

Long after Barks titled his story the term has had a revival; spelled Pixilated (or Pixelated) it refers to groups of pixels used for resolutions in modern technology such as computers and cameras.