Post by Scrooge MacDuck on Nov 3, 2018 14:42:25 GMT
That is *fascinating* stuff. “DuckTales” first created as a Launchpad vehicle before they reinjected Scrooge into it? Carl Barks praising the DT design of McDuck Manor?
Post by Baar Baar Jinx on Nov 3, 2018 15:15:33 GMT
I agree, who'd have thought there was still so much behind-the-scenes information that we'd be just learning now after all these decades? The Wuzzles was one of my favorite shows growing up, so it's nice to know that it, not Gummi Bears, was the show that really kicked off Disney TV Animation. The article suggests that Donald made an appearance on Goof Troop, which I believe is incorrect. There's also no mention of "Maximum Horsepower" or even Quack Pack, which are big oversights. This article, like so many others, cycles through all the reasons Donald didn't appear on DuckTales '87; unwillingness to risk such a big name character on a possible flop, unintelligible voice, concern that he might overshadow the others. I never heard the bit about Launchpad being the original focus of DuckTales, which is very surprising; I have no reason to doubt it, really, but I wonder if it hasn't gotten a little embellished or suffered from faulty memories in the recounting, since every other account we've ever heard suggests that Barks' Scrooge stories were the inspiration for the show, and the new characters flowed from there. I did know that TaleSpin was originally supposed to star Launchpad.
That proposed show about Winnie-the-Pooh living in New York, wearing a suit and having a job ... can't tell if that was a joke or not, but wow. As for Barks' kind words about designs on the original DuckTales, I have no trouble believing it; I don't recall him ever having said anything but the kindest words for other artists/creators' work, regardless of how he may have really felt. By all accounts, he was a class act.
Post by Monkey_Feyerabend on Nov 20, 2018 11:20:46 GMT
Interesting to discover that Walt Disney himself (like me when I was a kid ) did not really like the direction taken by Jack Kinney of voiding Goofy of his personality and making him an 'everyday man' in the latest shorts of the series - although I must admit that those shorts were mostly good:
Peraza: [...]Walt really had a thing against Goofy. Because what happened was, Jack Kinney was the director of the Goofy shorts, did a lot of things where he would treat him as a prop. And Walt was always into personality animation, everything should have a personality, a gag should be based on personality. And so he felt that Goofy was becoming nothing but just a prop being beat around and hit and slapped.
A few interesting points - I always felt HDL had different personalities. Huey came off as more of the leader, Dewey had some middle child tendencies and Louie always seemed like the youngest. And that’s not me looking at through adult eyes — I remember thinking that as a kid. My own kids have seemed to walk away with similar interpretations.
As for the whole concept of Darkwing Duck/ Ducktales existing in separate universes — they’ll always share one in the canon I have in my mind.
A few interesting points - I always felt HDL had different personalities. Huey came off as more of the leader, Dewey had some middle child tendencies and Louie always seemed like the youngest. And that’s not me looking at through adult eyes — I remember thinking that as a kid. My own kids have seemed to walk away with similar interpretations.
I have never, ever gotten the impression from regular Duck comics that HD&L have different personalities. The only exception would be gimmicky stories where they're given different traits just because they're tired of being so similar to one another and leading identical lives (I remember one Egmont story about their birthday that went like this).
A few interesting points - I always felt HDL had different personalities. Huey came off as more of the leader, Dewey had some middle child tendencies and Louie always seemed like the youngest. And that’s not me looking at through adult eyes — I remember thinking that as a kid. My own kids have seemed to walk away with similar interpretations.
I have never, ever gotten the impression from regular Duck comics that HD&L have different personalities. The only exception would be gimmicky stories where they're given different traits just because they're tired of being so similar to one another and leading identical lives (I remember one Egmont story about their birthday that went like this).
I meant in the 1987 television series.
In the comics, no, never really got the impression of different personalities.
I have never, ever gotten the impression from regular Duck comics that HD&L have different personalities. The only exception would be gimmicky stories where they're given different traits just because they're tired of being so similar to one another and leading identical lives (I remember one Egmont story about their birthday that went like this).
I meant in the 1987 television series.
In the comics, no, never really got the impression of different personalities.
Can you cite/link to some specific examples in the DuckTales series? Because I've watched quite a lot of 1987 DuckTales episodes, and I never got the impression of different personalities there, either.
In the comics, no, never really got the impression of different personalities.
Can you cite/link to some specific examples in the DuckTales series? Because I've watched quite a lot of 1987 DuckTales episodes, and I never got the impression of different personalities there, either.
Without going through and documenting, that would be a little difficult (and time consuming).
Generally speaking, the dialogue tends to favor Huey a little more as the leader and Louie as the youngest. But off the top of my head:
Dewey as the “middle” child fits with the Duck in the Iron Mask episode.
Louie in Much Ado About Scrooge and Ducky Horror Picture Show.
Whether this was intentional, or just following the Typical H, D and L naming order, is unknown. It wasn’t blatant, but I think it was at least subtle enough that apparently people picked up on it.
I just noticed something strange: SYFY's article on "The Oral History of the Disney Afternoon" is gone, and bizarrely enough, there isn't even ONE save of it on the Wayback Machine. So I was wondering, has anyone here made a backup of the article?
Generally speaking, the dialogue tends to favor Huey a little more as the leader and Louie as the youngest. But off the top of my head:
Dewey as the “middle” child fits with the Duck in the Iron Mask episode.
Louie in Much Ado About Scrooge and Ducky Horror Picture Show.
Whether this was intentional, or just following the Typical H, D and L naming order, is unknown. It wasn’t blatant, but I think it was at least subtle enough that apparently people picked up on it.
I definitely thought this way as a kid. Alvin wore red and was clearly in charge of the blue and green chipmunks, ipso facto therefore Huey must be the leader of the ducklings.
Generally speaking, the dialogue tends to favor Huey a little more as the leader and Louie as the youngest. But off the top of my head:
Dewey as the “middle” child fits with the Duck in the Iron Mask episode.
Louie in Much Ado About Scrooge and Ducky Horror Picture Show.
Whether this was intentional, or just following the Typical H, D and L naming order, is unknown. It wasn’t blatant, but I think it was at least subtle enough that apparently people picked up on it.
I definitely thought this way as a kid. Alvin wore red and was clearly in charge of the blue and green chipmunks, ipso facto therefore Huey must be the leader of the ducklings.
But Leonardo wore blue in the TV cartoons, and HE was the leader of the turtles. A better one than hot-headed, red-clothed Raphael would have been, too.
I just noticed something strange: SYFY's article on "The Oral History of the Disney Afternoon" is gone, and bizarrely enough, there isn't even ONE save of it on the Wayback Machine. So I was wondering, has anyone here made a backup of the article?
I swear that I read that article but one month ago.
I never heard the bit about Launchpad being the original focus of DuckTales, which is very surprising; I have no reason to doubt it, really, but I wonder if it hasn't gotten a little embellished or suffered from faulty memories in the recounting, since every other account we've ever heard suggests that Barks' Scrooge stories were the inspiration for the show, and the new characters flowed from there.
There are a few things in that article that are suffering from memories from memories of things that happened over thirty years ago, but the part about Launchpad being the star is true. I've seen the development bibles (and scanned the lot), and I talked to all the parties involved in developing the show.
The jumping off point was indeed Scrooge McDuck, and the earliest development in that direction happened while the first episode of Gummi Bears was in production. Ken Koonce and David Wiemers were asked to develop the show, and by the time the first Gummi Bears episode aired, the show was already named DuckTales. The first bible draft (dated September 24, 1985; written by Doug Hutchinson) mentions DuckTales as an hour long program. The first half hour would've consisted of two eleven minute comedic Launchpad shorts, the second half hour would've been a more adventurous Scrooge McDuck story. It also mentions that one of the eleven minute Launchpad stories could be swapped out for an adventure of one of the lesser known ducks from the Barks Duck universe. Later drafts were written by Bruce Talkington and Jymn Magon.
Launchpad was the comedic lead-in for the program, Scrooge the more adventurous follow-up. It took five more drafts and over half a year of work before the show was developed into the show that we would eventually see on television. For that "half a year" you need to bear in mind that everyone that worked on the development also worked on the other shows.