THEQUESTIONNAIRE

A few generations ago - in the 'good old days' when radio and television were not an option - people had other means of enjoying themselves in the long evenings and at parties. So-called parlour games were the in-thing in Victorian times and one of the most widely enjoyed was the Questionnaire*. It was a game of cooperation with a social structure that consisted of a written list of all sorts of both social and personal questions that each participant had to answer truthfully. The questionnaire (that would often reveal volumes about the writer) could then be used in numerous ways; it could, for instance, be a good platform to start valid discussions on certain topics, or the lists could be collected and some would be read out loud whereupon the participants were to guess who's list was the chosen one.

Nowadays - when all sorts of technical appliances have taken over our evenings - these parlour games have practically vanished. Still, it is interesting to learn that Carl Barks once filled out a questionnaire which has been reproduced below. It reveals several opinions that are not commonly known, and it should be read as Barks' honest answers to various questions.
Unfortunately, it is uncertain where and when Barks took the 'test', but judging from the typing errors and sometimes less than perfect English he did not create the form. His answers indicate that the year is approximately 1964. For some of Barks' answers you will find explanatory notes further below.

* The most well-known questionnaire in history was filled out by the French author and intellectual Marcel Proust and the questionnaire below was undoubtedly based on Proust's version. It can be seen in its full length HERE.

3: Barks' favourite meal since youth. His daughter Peggy has confirmed it.
6: Barks refers to the world-renowned American Thomas Alva Edison, inventor of the light bulb, the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and hundreds of other remarkable objects.
8: Scarlett O'Hara is Margaret Mitchell's heroine in the classic novel Gone With the Wind. Nancy Drew is Carolyn Keene's heroine in the classic mystery book series of the same name.
9: Popular American artist who painted many different works - paintings, magazine covers, vignettes, story illustrations, posters, advertisements, calendars, and more - with remarkable warmth and often humour.
10: American song writer with a tremendous impact in the world of folk songs. My Old Kentucky Home, Swanee River, Beautiful Dreamer, and Oh! Susanna are among the best known.
15: Barks did in fact have a secret dream of becoming an inventor for many years.
21: Bingo!!!
23: A fatal typing error leads Barks to think of the baking ingredient instead of a ... flower.
25: Barks is thinking of the American author Erle Stanley Gardner's most famous hero, the attorney Perry Mason, who was later embodied by actor Raymond Burr in countless TV programs.
26: American poet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow is probably best known to Disney buffs for his poem The Song of Hiawatha, the small Indian boy who became immortalized in a few Disney cartoon shorts.
27: Football is a sport very little known outside the USA. It is played on a rectangular field with a special looking, oblong ball and the players are heavily padded. In his last years Barks enthusiastically took time out to watch football: 'Finally time to watch the football series on TV', he said in 1999.
29: Porkman de Lardo is the villain in U$41 The Status Seeker from 1963. Bleakwhistle J. Morningfog is a character in a letter to a fan in March, 1961 (see HERE).
31: German philosopher Karl Marx is best known for his social-revolutionary, communism inspired ideas named after him. He wrote the manifest Das Kapital about the ideology.
32: The French general and self-appointed Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte tried to subdue greater parts of Europe, but was finally defeated.
37: ...as you would have them do to you. A popular line from the Christian Bible, Luke 6:31. Barks was not especially religious but he owned a bible in which he scribbled some thoughts.