| Oolated Luck | |
|---|---|
| Story code | AR 110 |
| Story | Don Rosa |
| Ink | Don Rosa |
| Hero | Donald Duck |
| Pages | 10 |
| Layout | 4 rows per page |
| Appearances | Donald Duck Gladstone Gander Huey, Dewey and Louie Scrooge McDuck |
| First publication | Walt Disney's Comics and Stories #528 April, 1988 |
Oolated Luck is a comic story about the rivalry between Donald Duck and Gladstone Gander. It was written and drawn by Don Rosa, based on a small item appearing in an earlier story by Carl Barks.
The story starts with Donald and his nephews reading an ad about an oolated squigg company and its second annual contest. The first prize is an ocean liner cruise which Donald wants to win. It's gonna be difficult, since Gladstone Gander also wants the prize.
The rules say there's 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 decided to get all the raffle tickets within the balloons, Donald tries to grab them as soon they are released. Unfortunately, it caused Donald to float away with the balloons. The nephews pointed a balloon floating near Gladstone, who didn't want to make the effort of lifting his arm to get it, said 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 get them out of Killmotor Hill. When he hears about a contest, the idea of paying more taxes because of the prizes horrifies Scrooge to the point where he agrees to give the balloons to the first one who claims them.
Donald, who was under all the balloons, claims all for himself and heads for the company to claim the prize. As they arrive at the company, the contest organizers are shocked with the idea of one person having all the tickets, but Huey, Dewey and Louie say there's only 9,999 of the 10,000. Donald didn't like the way it sounds, specially with Gladstone around the universe. One of the organisers says that one of the entries got stuck in the factory and never was released. Donald tried 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 figured a way to make Gladstone's luck work against him. They've submitted only one ticket in the name of Donald. All others were for Gladstone. While Gladstone was picking the winning ticket, the nephews comment about Gladstone's luck beating the odds. That's when Gladstone figured 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 have worked, as Donald wins the cruise and Gladstone gets a 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 who the odds were for or against. Then he reads an article at the newspaper about the cruise ship getting stuck in an iceberg and he later finds a diamond ring eaten by one of the squiggs. The story ends with Donald in the iceberg having nothing to eat except squiggs recently fished from there.