Spin It! (A Talespin Retrospective)

[djnyr]

Spin It! Part 5--Episodes

IX. “The Idol Rich”

The Sultan of Kafoozalum offers a reward of thirty millions torbits for the recovery of a long-lost idol, and Baloo and Kit join the rush of treasure-hunters searching for it, with Baloo, as always, hoping to use the reward money to buy back the Sea Duck. That rush of treasure-hunters, unfortunately, includes Colonel Spigot of the Thembrian Air Force, who, backed by a military goon squad, is determined to claim the idol for the glory of Thembria. Baloo and Kit find the idol, but the Thembrians promptly seize it from them; our heroes fight back with a campaign of psychological warfare calculated to convince Spigot that the idol is cursed and that it will drive him mad.



The last of the seven preview episodes (in production order, not actual release), “The Idol Rich” provides us with our first look at Colonel Spigot of the Soviet Union equivalent Thembria, and his put-upon but amiable aide Sergeant Dunder, courtesy of writers Carter Crocker, Libby Hinson, and Bruce Talkington (who also served as editor). Spigot and Dunder’s basic personalities are already in place; Spigot’s high opinion of his intelligence and ferocity (“I, the irrepressible Spigot; have once again displayed inherent superiority and insurmountable will!”) which contrasts amusingly with his excitability and diminutiveness, is entertainingly demonstrated, as is Dunder’s deadpan, placid way of puncturing his boss’s pretensions (Baloo, disguised as a swami and apostrophizing the idol: “Oh, you horrible shrunken piece of supernatural nastiness!” Dunder: “Are you speaking of Colonel Spigot?”


Missing from this debut episode, however, is Spigot’s dread of his formidable superior, the High Marshal, which served to somewhat humanize the Colonel in the future; Dunder’s friendship with Baloo, which would develop in later episodes, is also not yet part of his character. The two characters' homeland, Thembria itself, is not seen, either. All subsequent Thembrian episodes would show Spigot in his official capacity as a military apparatchik, and most of them would also feature the totalitarian-absurdist Thembrian nation and the High Marshal as well. Here, Spigot is basically acting as an independent villain, and his official status is only really important to the plot in that it gives him the ability to out-muscle Baloo; with some tweaking, a one-shot gangster-type heavy could have filled his slot.

That said, Spigot’s personality—bullying and egotistical, but also insecure and panicky—is tailor-made for the episode’s plot, and it’s very funny to watch his comic arrogance turn to nervous denial and finally hysteria as Baloo and Kit systematically mess with his mind and reduce him to panicked terror of the “cursed” idol. The escalating mind games, and the somewhat cartoony physics of the culminating prank, call to mind several of the Looney Tunes starring Bugs Bunny or the mice Hubie and Bertie, but with the important difference that the character being bedeviled (Spigot) richly deserves it, which wasn’t always the case when it came to hapless Warner Brothers “foil” characters like Elmer Fudd or Claude Cat. Spigot’s continual blustering about how he is “the might that makes right”, not to mention his hijacking of the idol and his abandonment of Kit and Baloo to be nearly boiled in oil, makes him a prime and satisfying target for a comic takedown.

 
 

In introducing Spigot, the writers don’t forget to do justice to the regulars. We get a good character-appropriate glimpse of Baloo attempting to be parental but falling short of his own precepts; after Kit is roughed up in a brawl with some street toughs at the beginning of the episode, Baloo gives him some sound advice about how it’s better to use your brains than your fists when you’re out-muscled—only to forget this advice himself when his pride is stung by the Thembrians’ bullying, and ill-advisedly try to duke it out with them, until Kit reminds him of his own words and encourages him to use his wits instead. Rebecca has one good scene in which she quickly but good-naturedly sees through Baloo’s pretexts for needing time off and realizes he just wants to go treasure-hunting; Louie also has a couple of nice bits, warning the Thembrians not to start trouble in his establishment and later reacting wryly to Baloo’s efforts to battle them.


Although the Thembrian corner of the Talespin universe still remains to be fully fleshed out at this point, “Idol Rich” succeeds both as an introduction to our main Thembrian antagonist and as an entertaining episode, one that uses a well-executed but routine treasure hunt as a mere warm-up to an entertaining and more distinctive battle of wills.

Up next: Libby Hinson comes into her own with “Mommy for a Day”, the first of several excellent episodes in which she managed to tug on the heartstrings without sacrificing humor to sentimentality.

[aldwayne]

The episode is also the one time Spigot and Baloo are shown to be familiar with each-other. Later appearances repeatedly did the "no one outside of Thembria knows who Spigot is" joke.

[djnyr]

Spin It! Part 5--Episodes

X. “Mommy for a Day”

Swamped by work, Rebecca has to cancel her plans for spending a day with Molly, much to the little girl’s disappointment. The lonely Molly subsequently adopts a small animal that has escaped from a shipping crate at the Higher for Hire docks, appointing herself its mommy. The little creature, which Molly dubs “Henry,” is actually a legendary beast known as a Yenkara, which continually changes size—from tiny to huge—depending on whether it’s wet or dry. The Yenkara was being shipped by a nasty trapper named McNee, who’s bent on recovering his rare and valuable catch; the Yenkara, however, flees back towards its hidden valley, inadvertently taking Molly and Kit with it and sending Baloo, Rebecca, and the ruthless McNee in pursuit.

 

Written by Libby Hinson, with Karl Geurs as editor, “Mommy for a Day” is the first of several Talespin episodes in which Hinson would demonstrate her talent for being able to evoke sentiment without heavy-handedness or contrivance. The Yenkara plot device evokes any number of other films and TV shows where a cute child befriends and protects a cute critter from a mean adult; Original Ducktales periodically did this Webby and various animals, and it’s a favorite Spielberg ploy. However, Molly’s bonding with the Yenkara isn’t just a one-shot plot device to make us go “aww, how cute”; it’s used to showcase the personalities of Molly and Rebecca and their relationship.

Molly’s longing for more attention from Rebecca, and Rebecca’s frustration that her work prevents her from spending more time with her daughter, provides a simple but compelling dynamic that most adults and most children are likely to recognize and sympathize with. The dynamic is demonstrated both poignantly (Molly hugging her mother’s legs and pleading “Mom, I miss you”) and humorously (Molly wildly playing with Becky’s office equipment as her mom argues with cargo suppliers over the phone) in the early sequences of the episode. After the episode’s central emotional conflict has thus been established, the plot-propelling conflict begins, with Molly befriending the Yenkara; this plotline in turn is used to underscore the Molly-Becky relationship, with Molly telling “Henry” that, as his new mommy, “I won’t be too busy for ya.”


The two plot strands are then very effectively woven together in the climax of the episode, with Becky dangling out of the back of the Sea Duck and trying to retrieve Molly from a tiring Henry’s back during a rainstorm, while Molly balks at abandoning Henry (“Moms are supposed to take care of their kids!”), still obviously harboring a childish grudge against Becky for her inattention earlier in the episode and ironically unaware that Becky is trying desperately to take care of her own kid at that very moment (as evidenced by her simple response when Baloo tries to convince her that lowering herself out of the plane is too dangerous: “It doesn’t matter. She’s my daughter.”) This scene, Molly’s subsequent freefall, a rescue by Henry, and a payback rescue of Henry by Becky, weaves together the episode’s plot threads into an excellent scene that serves as the dramatic climax of the episode--though not the narrative climax; there’s a subsequent final confrontation with McNee which feels like a perfunctory anticlimax by comparison.

 
Serious though the central mother-and-child theme of the episode is, there’s a good deal of humor too, including Molly’s efforts to hide the inconveniently size-switching Henry from Rebecca, and the physical and verbal contortions of Baloo and Wildcat as they try to respond to Molly’s chattiness while struggling with McNee’s oversize crate. Molly’s interactions with Kit, as the two kids try to evade McNee in the jungle, also provide some humor in the vein of their interactions in “It Came from Beneath the Sea Duck”, with Kit alternating between being harried and cool-headed as he tries to control the situation and Molly’s fearless recklessness at the same time.

The Yenkara itself, a combination of a piglet and a teddy bear with a pair of wings, is obviously designed for maximum cuteness, but its appearance and movements are also comic and clumsy enough to make it lovable instead of cutesy to a nauseating degree. McNee (even with a good irascible voice by Jim Cummings), however, is a pretty blah and one-dimensional bad guy, unlikable without being funny and mean without being scary. Admittedly, he’s only really there as a plot device and doesn’t need to be a full-fledged character for purposes of the story, but Hinson in subsequent Talespin episodes was able to craft compelling stories without relying on stock types; knowing that she could do even better than this is the only reason why I don’t rank ”Mommy for a Day” quite as highly as some of her later Talespin efforts.



Still, “Mommy for a Day” is an excellent episode, and shows how you can effectively work a family-is-important theme into a cartoon show without either the forced sentimentality sometimes seen on Original Ducktales or the cynical desperation always seen on New Ducktales. Although I didn’t dislike Webby on Original Ducktales, I could never buy the periodic attempts in that show to wring sentiment out of her bond with Scrooge (which was taken to even more unconvincing extremes in the “Scrooge’s Quest” comics saga); there was no particular in-character reason for them to bond--other than Webby being a cute little girl and Scrooge a grumpy old man, meaning that ancient laws going back, at least, to Shirley Temple, decreed that they had to bond. At least the original Scrooge-Webby relationship was based on a time-honored cliché; the New Ducktales Scrooge-Webby superhero/stalker relationship (with its ultimate cloning “revelation”) was an ill-conceived, off-putting trainwreck, utterly removed from anything resembling normality, reality or likability. The same is true for the Della-Nephews relationship on New Ducktales—the contrived efforts to get us to invest emotionally in the relationship between a mother and kids who had never even seen each other before their separation (due to the mother’s abandonment of the kids) felt like the product of utter cluelessness as to what a family relationship is actually like.

The family relationship of Becky and Molly, on the other hand, requires no contrivance or over-the-top gimmickry to evoke sentiment; we know they’re mother and daughter, we understand that one of the reasons for Becky’s devotion to her business is because she wants to provide for Molly, and we also understand that Molly resents that more time isn’t devoted to her. That’s all that is needed to set up relatable family drama, without having to manufacture any ludicrous, unbelievable conflict along the lines of “We hate our uncle because our mom got lost on the moon after stealing a rocket that he built for her.” Instead, we get simple but universal motifs—“Moms are supposed to take care of their kids”; “It doesn’t matter. She’s my daughter.”—and the episode is all the more powerful for it.



Up Next: The Thembrians return, and writers Ken Koonce and David Weimers make their Talespin debut (bringing a reworked Ducktales script with them), in “The Time Bandit.”

[Matilda]

Mommy for a Day: I like Rebecca's physical courage in this--when she lowers herself out of the plane, as you mention, and also when she goes for the villain when he's about to fire his gun at the Yenkara (and Molly).

[aldwayne]

Part of the problem with the whole Della thing is that it was part of the show's wider attempt to weakly show Scrooge as "flawed" and perhaps represent Rosa's writing.

It's especially iffy since one can certainly blame Scrooge since regardless of Della stealing the rocket he still encouraged her and went along with building it. It's part of the wider trend where Scrooge awkwardly tries to get episodes showing him as "flawed" except it's always sitcom brand "wacky mistakes/misunderstandings" and "it was the mean bad villain's fault" in the case of Bradford.

Also, I can comment on the notion that parental (especially father) authority being now not legitimate if the parent actually maintains standards for the children to follow but that's another subject.

[djnyr]

Matilda: Yes, Rebecca's leaping on McNee to spoil his shot is a good example of how an "action" moment can also be a strong nonverbal character moment; Rebecca's business-minded determination to propitiate customers is a recurring aspect of her personality--we see it in this very episode, with Molly asking why Rebecca is being nice to the rude and angry McNee, and Rebecca snapping back "He's a customer--he's paying Mommy money." But she has her priorities straight nonetheless, and drops that businesslike caution in an instant, physically attacking the same customer, when it's a question of protecting Molly.

Aldwayne: I need to keep myself from beating the dead horse of New Ducktales too much in this thread, but your points are good ones. I'll just add that the New Ducktales showrunners' aversion to actually having Scrooge ever do anything genuinely "bad" and their refusal to assign any real blame to the criminally reckless Della was another example of how they were continually trying to have their cake and eat it too--present "flawed" characters, but absolve them of any actual blame; you saw more of it with their version of Louie, whose conniving nature was ultimately presented as more of an asset to the protagonists than a true flaw to be overcome.

[aldwayne]

I'd argue that there is plenty wrong in how Scrooge operates. The show just didn't acknowledge it since Scrooge was just written as a super billionaire who's a way to get the kids/other heroes stuff.

[djnyr]

Yes, I should have clarified that the writers were unwilling to let Scrooge do anything that they considered wrong--making the things he actually apologized for ridiculously trivial (like failing to help Murder-Magica rescue Poe) but not condemning him for worse things (like shoving the Beagles into the junkyard).  

Returning to Talespin:

Spin It! Part 5--Episodes

XI. “The Time Bandit”

Baloo needs five bucks to purchase admission to a special Friday night party at Louie’s, but it’s only Thursday and payday’s not till Saturday. With the assistance of a doctored newspaper and Cape Suzette disc jockey Broadcast Sally, along with some manipulation of Rebecca’s calendars Baloo is able to get his pay on Friday morning by making Becky think that it’s actually Saturday—but his plan quickly backfires, when Becky demands to know why his Friday cargoes haven’t been delivered yet. Assuming that Baloo is, as usual, behind with his deliveries, and refusing to believe his confession of his scam, Becky orders him to get caught up immediately and accompanies him on his flight, intending to apologize to clients for all the “late” arrivals. Unfortunately, one of the deliveries is a shipment of earmuffs to Thembria—where the High Marshal, after hearing Sally’s broadcast, has decided to adopt this apparent “plot by those capitalist swine in Cape Suzette” and skip ahead to Saturday as well, in order to avoid Friday, which in Thembria is the People’s Payday. Thus, the Sea Duck’s arrival in Thembria with an officially outdated Friday passport leads to the arrest of the Higher for Hire crew by Colonel Spigot. Becky, as “big cheese” of the group, is sentenced to the firing squad; the guilt-stricken Baloo, with Kit’s help, must now make a desperate attempt to prove that it really is Friday.

 
Ken Koonce and David Weimers, who were both the writers and story editors of this episode, were responsible for innumerable Original Ducktales episodes which ran the gamut from excellent to dreadful. Some consistent threads throughout their work are a facility for rapid-fire verbal gags, a fondness for pop-culture spoofs, and a tendency to prioritize jokes over character consistency. When they were on their game, they could be very funny—“Send in the Clones,” “Double-O Duck,” and “Uncrashable Hindentanic” being memorable examples—and they could even turn in some well-done character studies on occasion (“Hero for Hire”). However, when they were attempting to half-heartedly work in a hollow “moral” (“Down and Out in Duckburg”) or when they wrenched a regular character too far out of character (their handling of the future Nephews in “Duck to the Future” being one of the worst examples), they could be pretty dire. They weren’t as creative as Bill Walsh of the Mickey Mouse comic strip, but they resembled him in being more interested in concepts and jokes than in tonal consistency or plotting coherence.

The first of Koonce and Weimers’ four Talespin episodes, “Time Bandit” borrows its storyline directly from one of the team’s Ducktales episodes, “Allowance Day”—not just the basic gimmick of skipping a day for early pay, but also the idea of a totalitarian, execution-happy state as the menace, as well as the use of a natural phenomenon (an eclipse in Ducktales, a comet in Talespin) to reset the public’s mental calendar for the finale. However, though unoriginal, the repurposed version of this storyline actually feels more firmly rooted in Talespin’s established characters than the original Ducktales version did. Baloo’s cheerful bragging about his ability to cut corners and beat the system, as he plots his day-skipping scheme, rings much more true to his roguish and lazy character than does the Nephews’ decidedly out-of-character line in “Allowance Day” about how being “real sneaky” is what they do best. Also, while “Allowance Day” had to create a one-shot villain, General Chiquita of the Banana Republic, to provide a conflict, “Time Bandit” builds its conflict on the established character traits of a recurring antagonist, Colonel Spigot—further developing him and his fellow Thembrians in the process.

“Time Bandit” improves on “Allowance Day” in a couple of other noticeable ways; while it’s somewhat hard to believe that the “it’s really Saturday” charade could really fool either Becky or Scrooge for very long, Talespin gets extra plausibility points by having Baloo use a real broadcaster for his fake Saturday announcement, making the deception more credible than the Nephews’ improvisation of their own faked broadcast. It’s also somewhat believable, given Baloo’s track record of prevarication and Becky’s stubbornness, that Baloo’s confession that it’s really Friday would cement Becky’s conviction that it’s actually Saturday. More significantly, the plot of “Time Bandit” is more structurally sound than that of “Allowance Day”, in that the character (Baloo) who created the episode’s crisis through a lie has to resolve the same crisis by dramatically revealing the truth. This neat poetic irony was missing in “Allowance Day,” where the Nephews cause the problem but their efforts to save the day are largely ineffectual, and it’s Gizmoduck (the deus ex machina of so many later Ducktales episodes) who actually resolves everything.  The climactic action is a lot more dynamic in "Time Bandit", as well, with Baloo and Kit using an aerial snowplow and cloudsurfing to clear the thickly overcast Thembrian skies in anticipation of the comet, which then arrives in a vivid burst of red lighting; the attempted cloud-plowing of Launchpad and the Nephews, the arrival of the Gizmosuit, and the reveal of the eclipse in "Allowance Day" weren't staged, timed, or animated in nearly as striking a fashion.  

 

Although it improves on its source, “Time Bandit” has its own flaws; the basic premise can’t help but be far-fetched, and it’s particularly hard to believe that Baloo wouldn’t have seen the obvious flaw in his plan—the undelivered cargo—before putting the plan into operation. Furthermore, Koonce and Weimers are guilty of a touch of their characteristic haphazard moralizing, in the form of repeated lines in the second half about how Baloo has to stop trying to beat the system and do everything on the up-and-up—a moral which doesn’t quite fit, since Baloo still has to pull some sneaky tricks (sweet-talking a Thembrian housewife who has been assigned the confiscated Sea Duck as government-provided housing) on his way to his ultimate reveal of the truth; the writers themselves basically acknowledge that their moral rings a bit hollow, through Kit’s wry comments on the aforesaid tricks. The irony of Baloo’s progress from genial liar to desperate truthteller in the course of the episode was strong enough to speak for itself, without this unnecessary underlining.


Another Koonce and Weimers characteristic, macabre humor (“Uncrashable Hindentanic” and “Double O-Duck” both contain several examples), is prominent in “Time Bandit.” These macabre touches, as well as Koonce and Weimers’ fondness for absurdity, work well for the most part in fleshing out the comically dystopian state of Thembria--examples including Spigot’s marching orders to the populace (“Today is officially Saturday! Anyone who disagrees will be sent to prison; anyone who complains will do hard labor; anyone who sneers will be shot! Have a nice day!”), and Spigot’s jittery interchanges with the High Marshal, an imposing old boar voiced by Jack Angel with a growly Russian accent (“What is it, Faucet?” “Spigot, oh mighty mucky muck, Spigot.” “Are you contradicting the state?” “Oh, never, your potentness; I’ll change my name at once.”).



This type of humor recalls some of the Brutopian jokes in Barks’ stories; it’s complemented by the episodes’ visuals, which play up the snowy wastes, cloudy skies, and blocky architecture of Thembria. Some of the jokes introduced here, both verbal and visual, would recur in Thembrian-focused episodes for the remainder of the show’s run, including the gag about their chronic ammunition shortages (and their amusingly off-the-wall ammunition substitute), and (as Aldwayne previously noted), the running joke that no one, not even in Thembria itself, seems to remember Spigot, despite his constant pathetic self-praise.



That said, Koonce and Weimers take some of their dark humor a little too far, although not to the extent of the off-putting beak-transplant gag in the otherwise entertaining “Uncrashable Hindentanic”. The Thembrians’ literal show trials—i.e., radio broadcasts of court proceedings narrated by a hammy, grotesquely chipper announcer—are a funny idea, but the joke is dragged out a little too long at the finale, with Becky being forced to participate in a game-show spoof called “This Was Your Life” as she waits for the firing squad.  Some of her exasperated and disbelieving reactions to this bizarre proceeding are funny, but it's hard to laugh whole-heartedly at what is, despite the spoofery, a pretty grim threat to a character who, thanks to other episodes, feels real to us; this is a good example of Koonce and Weimers’ tendency to be more interested in concepts than characters.  Barks executed a similar gag, with the "Eraser Squad" in "Treasure of Marco Polo" with more brevity and hence more success.  Incidentally, the “This Was Your Life” segment contains an overlooked reference to Becky’s original discarded backstory for the show—the Thembrian announcer describes her as inheriting her business from her father, which was not the case in the final version of the series (as we’ll see when we come to the pilot); if you’re doing Rosa-style reconciliation of conflicting references, you could explain this away as a lie intended to make Becky sound more privileged, and hence more of an enemy of the people, to the Thembrian audience.


“Time Bandit” was the first Talespin episode animated entirely by the French unit; the characteristic showy lighting and manic movements that marked all of the French-animated episodes accentuate the macabre and absurdist aspects of Koonce and Weimers’ script, making the sojourn in Thembria feel rather surreal and almost nightmarish at times.  The emphasis on lighting also helps to make the climax, with the clouds and the comet, visually striking--as mentioned above.  There's also some good lively running background gags, like the antics of the High Marshal's barber; sometimes the animation is almost too busy, but it's extremely lively throughout. 

Overall, “Time Bandit” has a lot of entertaining moments, and does a very good job of developing the Thembrians as satirical comic villains.  The sheer contrivance factor of the central plot device and  Koonce and Weimers’ characteristic shortcomings keep it from being a top-notch episode, but it remains above the duo’s very uneven average.

Up Next: “Polly Wants a Treasure.”

[djnyr]

Spin It! Part 5--Episodes


XII. “Polly Wants a Treasure”

Baloo buys a cargo of battered “antiques” in hope of profitable resale, and inadvertently acquires Ignatius, or Ignatz—a sarcastic old parrot who once belonged to the pirate captain Juan Toomany. Baloo and the wisecracking bird take an immediate dislike to each other, but Kit hits it off with Ignatz and accepts the parrot’s claim that he knows the location of his old master’s hidden treasure. Kit and Ignatz set off in pursuit of the pirate loot, sending Baloo after them and pitting all three of them against Don Karnage and his crew, who are also after Toomany’s hoard.



Written by Disney television animation veterans Carter Crocker and Bruce Talkington (who also serves as story editor), “Polly Wants a Treasure” is a fast-paced, snappily dialogued, and well-animated episode, but it suffers from a major conceptual flaw: Ignatz’s weirdly ambiguous level of anthropomorphism. He’s a pet, a traditional pirate’s parrot, who can fly and lives in a cage--but he’s also a sentient being, capable of trading insults with Baloo, forming a friendship with Kit, and coming up with strategies for fighting the air pirates.

This mixed anthropomorphism and Ignatz’s smart-alecky and savvy personality strongly recall Bill Walsh’s Ellsworth--who, along with his nephew Ellroy, is a character I’ve never been able to accept as “real” within the Mouse universe; I have the same problem with Ignatz, here. To me, semi-humanized animal characters like Ellsworth, Ellroy, or Ignatz shatter the normal suspension of disbelief I am willing to entertain when watching funny-animal adventures. I accept characters like Donald, Mickey, and the Talespin Baloo as animals in appearance but fully human in other regards, and having a pet mynah bird or parrot chat with them as equals is as jarring to me as if, say, Long John Silver’s parrot “Cap’n Flint” suddenly started to carry on a conversation with Jim Hawkins. Admittedly, Barks got away with using sentient non-anthropomorphic birds in the “Joe from Singapore” and “Master Mover” ten-pagers, but both of those were comedies and the audience wasn’t being asked to regard the birds as anything other than humorous pests.



Here, though, Ignatz is not merely a comic antagonist but the center of the episode’s main character-driven subplot—i.e., the ongoing antagonism between Baloo and Ignatz, which is finally resolved when the two simultaneously realize that they actually have something in common (friendship with Kit) and team up to rescue Kit from the pirates. This arc might have been dramatically effective if Ignatz had been a full-fledged “human” character or even if he’d been a full-fledged pet (a lot of rewriting would have been needed in the latter case, though); instead, his betwixt-and-between status is so distracting that it’s hard to buy into his relationship with Kit or Baloo.

It’s a pity that the ambiguous Ignatz is so jarring, because “Polly Wants a Treasure” has many entertaining visual and verbal moments. Tucker Forest (ho ho) and Carlsbear Caverns, the backdrops of much of the treasure hunt, are visually well-realized; the aerial chase through the caverns is excitingly animated and scored; Scott Bullock delivers Ignatz’s one-liners and periodic vocal impersonations (of Jimmy Durante and Blanche DuBois, among others) with verve; Dump Truck’s pose as an ornithologist is quite amusing (“I love the little birdies, especially with French fries”).



The highlight of the episode, though, is Don Karnage, who has more to do here than in any episode since the shelved first version of “Bad Reflection on You.” He gets to be cunning, intimidating, and absurd all at once in his opening scene, where he’s rebuking Mad Dog and Dump Truck for their failure to snatch the parrot, and follows this up with a steady string of memorably funny lines, delightfully delivered by Jim Cummings: “What a lousy place for a wall” (after crashing into a cliff face); “You had better get that annoying bird back here if you ever want to see Sociable Insecurity”; “When I catch that bothersome Baloo, I tear him into itsy-pieces of ugly bear, and then I sew him back together with DULL NEEDLES!”



Karnage and the episode’s several other points of appeal, make “Polly Wants a Treasure” consistently fun to watch, but there’s no getting round the distractingly ill-conceived nature of the central guest character. Perhaps that distraction is something that not all viewers would feel; I’ve always been more of a Tolkien than a Lewis when it comes to the underlying postulates of imaginary worlds, and someone who’s less fussy about such things than me might not have a problem with Ignatz. The character, from what I can see, is quite popular in the Talespin fandom, and I know that the similar Ellsworth and Ellroy have had staying power in Italian comics. To me, however, he strikes too arbitrarily fanciful a note for the frequently weird and whacky but usually logical and quasi-realistic world of Cape Suzette.



Up Next: “From Here to Machinery”

[aldwayne]

If you have a problem with the parrot being so "human" you certainly will object to the twist for the reptile villain in the sound weapon episodes.

[djnyr]

I did find the bit you reference in "For Whom the Bell Klangs" a bit jarring, but it felt more in the vein of a quick, joking reminder of a funny-animal character's species (like early Mickey and Minnie going crazy for cheese or Louie making a crack about Baloo needing to hibernate), and in any case was a brief punchline/throwaway.  It's much more jarring to me (and, again, maybe I'm too rigid about this) when a character like Ignatz or Ellsworth continually blurs the line between "funny-animal human" and "funny-animal pet" throughout his entire time on stage.  

[djnyr]

Spin It! Part 5--Episodes

XIII. “From Here to Machinery”

A scientist named Professor Martin Torque rents the Sea Duck to test his invention, the Auto-Aviator—a robot pilot which represents the future of aviation, at least according to its inventor. Baloo winds up punching the professor when Torque smugly proclaims that human fliers like Baloo are “decaying, defective, and defunct,” but Torque strikes back by organizing a long-distance cargo transport race between Baloo and the Auto-Aviator, to demonstrate the superiority of the robot pilot. Baloo can’t keep pace with the tireless Auto-Aviator, and consequently loses the race. An impressed Shere Khan puts in an order for a thousand Auto-Aviators, throwing both freelance flyers and his own pilots out of work, and destroying Higher for Hire’s business. However, there are some situations an automated pilot can’t handle—as Don Karnage realizes, leading to unexpected results on the Auto-Aviator’s triumphant first flight for Khan Industries.



Written by Len Uhley and edited by Karl Geurs, “From Here to Machinery” was the first Talespin episode aired on the Disney Afternoon (as opposed to the seven preview episodes which aired on the Disney Channel, and the pilot, which first aired as a stand-alone TV movie). Whoever picked “Machinery” as the show’s Afternoon opener made the right call; it’s one of the series’ best entries, an excellent combination of humor, drama, action, and strong character moments, with a refreshingly non-clichéd take on a hoary trope (hero gets replaced by robot).

What distinguishes “Machinery” from Ducktales’ “Armstrong,” Star Trek’s “The Ultimate Computer,” and a zillion other “robots/computers will make you obsolete” stories is that it avoids the trap that GeoX noted in his review of “Armstrong.” I quote:

"...a problem with plots like this: they're philosophically incoherent. Say you're supposed to complete the following sentence: "Robots may sometimes seem more efficient than human beings, but they can never truly replace people, because_____________" You would probably fill in something like "they lack the intangible assets--creativity, tenacity, heart; the human spirit, in other words--that got us where we are today." If instead you put down "they'll take over our satellites and steal our money and try to kill us," you would probably get some odd looks. I mean, I approve of the humanistic impulse that leads writers to assert that mechanization cannot solve all our problems, but things like this present just the opposite message: I'm pretty sure there is no documented real-world case of a robot Turning Evil, so if that's the only potential problem, then I guess we're good to go! Right?"

“Machinery”, however, fills in GeoX’s blank differently—in effect, with the words “Because a robot cannot improvise and thus cannot respond to unexpected or developing situations in the way a human can, which can mean the difference between life and death.” The Auto-Aviator never tries to kill anyone, take over the world, or otherwise “turn evil”; it creates the climactic crisis simply by relentlessly adhering to its pre-programmed course, despite an attack by the Air Pirates--which necessitates a rescue by Baloo, whose improvisational flying then saves the day. This points a moral that has a lot more real-world relevance (I think of it every time I see some talking head arguing for self-driving tractor-trailers) than “Robots are going to turn sentient and try to kill us.” The episode’s other main point about automation—namely, that it can have a devastating effect on the labor market and is typically used by uber-capitalists to destroy small businesses—is equally, or even more, relevant today (if Khan were real, he’d be Jeff Bezos, albeit with a lot more class).

 

 
All the relevancy in the world, however, can’t make an episode compelling or entertaining if the characters don’t ring true—but “Machinery” is a success on this count, as well. Uhley manages to skillfully emphasize just how central aviation is to Baloo’s identity, without ever once having the character himself talk about how much it means to him. Baloo’s anger at Torque’s condescension, his dismissive wisecracks at the expense of the Auto-Aviator, his combination of cockiness and suppressed fear (epitomized by his rather frightening nightmare sequence) before and during the race, and his despair after losing the race--all these underline the point that Baloo, breezy and casual as he is, really takes pride in his flying accomplishments and even has some repressed awareness that, without those accomplishments, he’s simply an amiable loafer without much to show for his life (as witness his self-loathing query to Kit and Wildcat: “Why do you guys even hang out with a loser like me?”). His fall from glory thus feels much more like a genuine existential crisis than Launchpad’s similar arc in “Armstrong”; although I like that episode, and like Launchpad as a character, the cheerfully unreflective and catastrophically bumbling McQuack simply doesn’t have the same degree of emotional depth or genuine competency that the Talespin version of Baloo does, and his downfall thus feels less tragic than Baloo’s—particularly since, in “Armstrong,” Launchpad loses the race through a characteristic bit of comedic carelessness (flying into a billboard), while Baloo loses his race in “From Here to Machinery” not through any slapstick incompetence but simply through physical inability to fly at the same exhausting all-night pace as the sleepless Auto-Aviator; his elaborate devices for keeping himself awake are amusing, but his eventual loss of the race is not played humorously at all.



Baloo is the focus character in “Machinery,” but the other regulars get good moments too. There’s a very well-done scene in which Rebecca, preparing to shut down Higher for Hire after Khan’s mass-produced Auto-Aviators have strangled her business, awkwardly mentions to an alternately tearful and angry Molly that she’s made arrangements to sell the Sea Duck; Baloo is obviously saddened, but is so crushed that he fails to vocally object as he normally would, while Kit, on the other hand, is furious and reprimands Becky for not warning Baloo in advance. Becky’s embarrassed and regretful reaction in turn makes it clear that she simply didn’t have the heart to break the news directly to Baloo; however, when the purchaser shows up, she abruptly tosses Kit the plane’s keys so that Baloo can take a last spin in the Duck, and begins gracefully stalling off the unseen buyer. The sequence gives a great demonstration of Becky’s combination of business-minded pragmatism and genuine kindness, and Kit’s loyalty to and understanding of Baloo, as well as Molly’s affectionate but feisty personality.


Don Karnage, although he enters the scene late, has some choice moments of cunning, exasperation, and amusingly bizarre dialogue; Louie and Wildcat receive good bits as well. Aside from Baloo, however, the character who gets the most exposure in “Machinery” is Shere Khan, seen here for the first time since his introduction in the shelved first draft of “A Bad Reflection on You.” His reserved ruthlessness is highlighted very effectively throughout; he’s coolly indifferent to Torque until the inventor is able to demonstrate that his robot can beat a top-notch human pilot, after which he callously lays off his own pilots and coolly toasts the success of the Auto-Aviator with Torque. Then, when the shortcomings of the robot pilot are demonstrated during the Air Pirate attack, he becomes coolly contemptuous of Torque (“I am losing patience, Professor”) is coolly respectful towards Baloo after the bear saves the day (“That was more than adequate”), and coolly (but very forcefully) cancels his contract with Torque in a darkly humorous scene. Khan’s scenes in “Machinery” nicely demonstrate that Khan has no time for anything or anyone that is not (1) highly efficient and (2) useful to Khan from a business point of view. We also get to see that Khan, for all his selfish ruthlessness, does have considerable courage; while Torque becomes increasingly panicky in the face of the pirate attack, Khan remains utterly unperturbed by the prospect of being captured or shot down by Don Karnage, expressing more irritation with the failure of Torque and his robot than worry over his own situation.



Torque, the show’s primary guest character, is well-sketched too. He’s neither a lovable absent-minded professor nor an evil mad scientist, but rather a realistically intelligent-but-arrogant inventor whose egotistical overconfidence in his own undeniably impressive creation ultimately leads to his downfall. We can laugh at his final fate (being reduced to hawking his robots as labor-saving devices for Thembrian farmwives), but also feel a little sorry for him. Patrick Gorman, a veteran of stage, screen, and voice acting, gives the character an appropriately crisp but smug voice, and the inventor’s visual design (as a white-suited Doberman Pinscher) helps to strike a matching note of competent arrogance. His robot is also nicely designed, with a classic 1930s retro-futuristic look (his core looks something like an old-time radio).

The episode’s other visuals are strong as well. The race at the midpoint, and the climactic confrontation with the pirates, feature some beautifully drawn backgrounds and lively aircraft spins and swoops (particularly Baloo’s evasive maneuvers amid the mountain peaks in the finale). Baloo’s above-mentioned nightmare scene is animated in an effectively unnerving style, the black-and-white newsreel showing the commercial debut of the Auto-Aviator is a neat touch, and there’s an engaging range of species among the incidental characters, from the bison and housecat pilots seen hanging out at Louie’s to Becky’s flustered turkey client to the crow and parrot reporters.

 
Once again, I commend the acumen of the person or persons who selected “From Here to Machinery” to introduce Talespin to the Disney Afternoon audience; it not only gives us good snapshots of all the regular characters, but is an entertaining and satisfying story in its own right--one which takes a familiar plot, avoids the usual cliches associated with that plot, and firmly fastens said plot to the established personalities of the characters.

Up Next: Another trip to Thembria, accompanied by a "Spy in the Ointment"

[djnyr]

Spin It! Part 5--Episodes

I've been too under the weather to work on any of these reviews for a while, so this triple-decker post will hopefully make up for lost time.

XIV. “A Spy in the Ointment”

A trenchcoated, sternly authoritative stranger named Jack Case shows up at Higher for Hire one night, introducing himself as a secret agent. He demands to charter the Sea Duck for an important government mission, but refuses to reveal any details: “I’ve got to get this box to a certain place by a certain time or we’re talking certain disaster!” “You certain?” “Certainly!” Baloo is skeptical of Case’s bona fides, but is overruled by Rebecca, who is impressed by Case’s letter-perfect adherence to the popular image of a secret agent (“How do you explain his trenchcoat, huh? That’s a spy’s trenchcoat!”) The pair accompany Case to his destination—which, to their dismay, proves to be Thembria. Colonel Spigot, who’s been tasked by the High Marshal with ensuring that the Glorious Thembrian Slush Festival goes off without any disturbances, promptly concludes that the mystery box is a bomb, and Becky and Baloo soon find themselves trying to stay one step ahead of the Thembrian authorities, while Case pursues his mysterious goal.


Written and edited by Mark Zaslove, “Spy in the Ointment” is one of the most fast-paced and snappily-written of the Thembrian-focused episodes, with an almost non-stop string of funny dialogue, including Baloo’s wisecracking deflations of Case’s portentous statements, Spigot’s desperate flattery of the High Marshal and the Marshal’s sloppy but intimidating wife (who makes her first appearance here), Rebecca’s invocations of the canons of secret-agent fiction to justify her confidence in Case,  and Spigot’s wonderfully paranoid deduction as to the contents of the mystery box (“By refusing to say it wasn't a bomb when I asked you if it was, you thought you'd trick me into thinking you were lying. Thus, I’d presume it wasn't a bomb. Therefore the answer is as plain as the nose on my foot… That it is a bomb! Otherwise, you would have said it was!”)  “Ointment” has a lot of amusing physical comedy too—the High Marshal’s sudden and bizarre infatuation with Baloo (disguised as a gypsy dancing girl) and the vigorous reaction of the Marshal’s wife, Case’s manic searching of nooks and corners in the Higher for Hire offices, the Thembrian Air Force’s use of a piano to warn the Sea Duck out of their airspace, Case’s effort to drive a Thembrian jeep, and Becky’s violently peremptory treatment of Case when she finally learns the truth about his important mission.
 

Deftly executed and consistently funny though it is, “Ointment” strikes a rather sour note at the finale; although we want to see Case get his comeuppance, and although there’s poetic justice in the way Becky gets him to unwittingly use his “spy” image in order to allow her and Baloo to escape, his ultimate fate feels out of proportion to his misbehavior—given what we’ve seen of the Thembrian judicial system in “Time Bandit,” it seems logical to assume he’s slated for a starring role on “This Was Your Life” and then the firing squad. I don’t think that Zaslove intended this to be our takeaway, but I also don’t think he really stopped to think about the consequences of what was likely happen to Case after the episode’s fadeout. We have to take Becky’s word for it that “everything turned out fine”, but we’re still left uncomfortably wondering just what happened to Case.

Though a fast-paced farce with no real dramatic moments, “Ointment” does gives us an interesting additional look at our two lead characters’ personalities; it would have been easy to have the more careless Baloo be the one taken in by Case’s antics and have the more responsible Becky be skeptical, but Zaslove’s choice to go in the opposite direction makes both characters seem more complex. We see that Baloo, unthinking though he often is, has a healthy share of street smarts, and we also see that Becky, no-nonsense though she usually is, has a repressed romantic streak which makes her willing to buy into someone’s pose if it’s sufficiently picturesque (as we saw less humorously demonstrated in “Touch of Glass”).



We also get to see more of Spigot’s personality; his anxiousness to please the High Marshal was touched on in “Time Bandit,” but it’s a major plot thread here; we see the insecurity beneath his constant self-promotion, and can identify enough with his obsessive concern for making a success of the Slush Festival that, antagonistic though he is towards Baloo and Becky, it’s nice to see him (through multiple misunderstandings) win unexpected accolades from the High Marshal at the end.



Although it’s obvious from Case’s first appearance that the other shoe is going to drop at some point and shatter his super-spy mystique, his design and his voice do an amusing job of supporting that mystique: he’s a rabbit, traditionally a resourceful and heroic species in animation; he has a Humphrey Bogart-ish trenchcoat and a dogged Bogart-like demeanor; best of all, his terse, urgently serious voice evokes any number of animated and live-action tough-guy authority figures (said voice is provided by Brian Cummings, Doofus from Original Ducktales, who sounds absolutely nothing like that character here). All these heroic trappings provide a great humorous contrast to Case’s slippery and increasingly fumbling behavior, as when he accompanies his abandonment of Becky in the face of an attack by the Thembrian Air Force with dramatic poses and vocalizations that make it sound like a heroic farewell.



If its conclusion had been handled with the same deft touch as the rest of the episode, “Spy in the Ointment” would have a claim to rank as the funniest of the Thembrian episodes—but even with a misjudged finale, it’s a pretty entertaining effort on balance.

XV. “All’s Whale That Ends Well”

While fishing, Kit and Baloo encounter a very friendly whale, who turns out to be an escapee from Seymour’s Seaquarium, named Moby Dimple. They return the whale in exchange for a reward, which swells Baloo’s private fund for buying back the Sea Duck, but Kit is angered when he realizes how badly Seymour neglects and exploits Dimple and the other creatures in his aquarium. Kit convinces Baloo to help him rescue the whale, but Seymour refuses to let Baloo buy Dimple, and is able to outwit the government inspector whom our heroes enlist in an attempt to shut down the aquarium. This leaves Kit and Baloo with no alternative but to stage a whale heist, with the aid of the Sea Duck.


Written by Julia Lewald and edited by Bruce Talkington, “All’s Whale” is strongly reminiscent of several of Barks’s latter-day Junior Woodchuck stories; the central save-the-whale theme is the most obvious connection, but there is another echo of Barks in the pompous but well-meaning aquarium inspector and the amusing acronym of his agency, A.C.H.O.O. (Agency Concerned with the Happiness of Oceanic Oddities); both the inspector’s personality and the acronym call to mind Barks’ various Woodchuck leaders.

Like those Barks stories, “All’s Whale” is well-intentioned but somewhat heavy-handed, with a villain who (like the whalers in Barks’ “Wailing Whalers” or the big game hunter in “Be Leery of Lake Eerie”) is depicted as a one-dimensional compendium of nastiness (greedy, selfish, cruel, and even murderous), just to make sure you get the Message that what he is doing is Bad. The message, however, does not dominate the episode as heavy-handedly as it could have; Lewald gets it across without sacrificing the personalities of the regulars, as sometimes happens in “message episodes”—in fact, she rather neatly knits Kit and Baloo’s personalities into the plot. It feels very in-character for the adventurous and free-spirited Kit to empathize with Moby Dimple’s longing for the open sea, and there’s a (probably unintentional) but interesting callback to “Stormy Weather” when Kit is upset at seeing Dimple being forced to jump through a flaming hoop, as Kit himself was in that earlier episode. Likewise, it feels in character for Baloo to initially be somewhat oblivious to the whale’s plight in his euphoria over getting the reward money, only to become committed to rescuing Dimple at Kit’s prompting.

 

I would have liked, however, for the script to set up more of an emotional conflict in Baloo before he winds up offering his entire stash of Sea Duck repurchase money in an attempt to buy the whale’s freedom, a noble gesture that would have had more dramatic weight if we’d seen him wrestling with his own self-interest before making it. I suspect Lewald thought Baloo’s readiness to surrender the treasured funds would underline the goodness of the cause of freeing Dimple, but the message could have been just as effectively delivered by having Baloo show a little hesitancy or regret before committing to the sacrifice.



The episode has several other good points; the climactic aerial whale heist, although physically improbable, provides some nice action and visuals, and the preceding sequence, with Kit impersonating a seal to set up the heist, imparts some welcome slapstick humor to a largely sober-sided episode. Jim Cummings’ Eric-Blore-inspired voice for the A.C.H.O.O. Inspector (an otter, of course) provides additional humor, and Hamilton Camp—the voice of Fenton/Gizmoduck on Original Ducktales—makes the first of several appearances on Talespin as the villainous Seymour. His entertaining vocal performance—alternately fake-jovial, snidely sarcastic, and snarling, a sort of villainous riff on Paul Lynde--goes a long way towards decreasing the heavy-handedness of his character, making him more entertaining to watch than you would expect.

 

Like the Woodchuck stories it evokes, “All’s Whale” could stand to be a little less aggressively earnest about its message, but it doesn’t simply toss aside humor and characterization in the way many other message episodes of 1980s/1990s cartoon shows did, and remains enjoyable in spite of its self-conscious tendencies.

XVI. “Bearly Alive”

Rebecca sends Baloo in for a complete physical checkup. Kit, while playing pilot in the docked Sea Duck’s cockpit, accidentally breaks the plane’s gyrocompass and surreptitiously takes it to the eccentric Dr. Ohlmeyer to be repaired. When the doctor calls Higher for Hire to advise that the gyrocompass is not salvageable, his confusing conversation with an unwitting Becky leads her to the mistaken belief that Baloo is terminally ill. She breaks the bad news to Baloo himself, who decides that as long as he’s a “solid goner” he may as well go out in a blaze of glory by exploring the mysterious Bearmuda Trapezoid, a region where planes and pilots regularly disappear without a trace. After his departure, Becky learns of the miscommunication, and she, Kit, and Wildcat pursue Baloo into the Trapezoid—where all of them encounter the cause of the mysterious disappearances: the wealthy and insane aircraft designer Howard Huge, who was laughed off the aeronautical scene because of his nutty aircraft designs and who is now capturing and dismantling airplanes to obtain parts for his nuttiest aircraft project yet, the Titanium Turkey.

 
Ken Koonce and David Weimers return as writers and editors for this episode, with David Stefan also credited as writer. As with the previous Koonce and Weimers episode, “Time Bandit,” “Bearly Alive” kicks off its narrative with a direct steal from one of Koonce and Weimers’ Ducktales episodes; the cross-purposes conversation between Becky and the doctor which gives rise to the mistaken belief that Baloo is dying is lifted practically verbatim from “Scrooge’s Last Adventure.” The episodes’ plots then diverge much more than the storylines of “Time Bandit” and “Allowance Day,” however; the excursion into the computerized world in “Last Adventure” has nothing in common with the Bearmuda Triangle sequence that forms the basis of the action in “Bearly Alive.” Koonce and Weimers also keep the cross-purposes theme running throughout the episode instead of abandoning after the main adventure is underway, by having Baloo get the mistaken idea in the second half that Becky is terminally ill, leading to more humorous misunderstanding during the climactic escape from Huge’s island.


The rapid-fire, almost non-stop verbal humor—the central death misunderstandings, the running gag about the forgotten pilot Oscar Wiggerstomper, Wildcat’s literalistic responses to figures of speech (“He was laughed out of the airplane biz.” “He’s a comedian?” “No…his designs got weird and they gave him the axe.” “He’s a lumberjack?”)--is ultimately the thing that keeps “Bearly Alive” afloat; Koonce and Weimers, true to their usual form, don’t bother to extract any real pathos or suspense from their scenario, even though it has latent possibilities for both. Since, as in “Last Adventure,” we know from the start that the main character isn’t really dying, the scenario doesn’t lend itself to full-bore dramatics, but it could have been played a little more thoughtfully, by using the mistaken belief in Baloo’s impending death as an opportunity for both him and Becky to engage in a bit of self-reflection. Instead, Koonce and Weimers play things almost entirely for laughs; there’s a bit of pathos in Baloo’s goodbye to an uncomprehending Kit, but this is quickly undercut by Kit’s exasperation over Baloo’s sudden sentimental desire to play a game of horseshoes; Baloo’s takeoff from Higher for Hire on what he believes to be his last flight has its moving aspects (thanks mainly to the musical score), but the writers undercut emotion here as well with Rebecca’s protracted string of mock-Chandlerian similes for death (”The big goodbye. The last so-long. The final toodle-oo.”)


As for suspense, Koonce and Weimers eschew any attempt to extract mystery and menace from their imitation Bermuda Triangle; not only is the cause of the Triangle’s uncanny reputation a mundane human villain, but said villain is completely a figure of fun; Huge is a mincing white-suited hippo who talks like Truman Capote (voiced by Charlie Adler), and, though amusingly absurd, he’s utterly impossible to take seriously as a menace. Rather confusingly, his two henchmen are drawn just like Trader Moe’s Goons, but have no dialogue and don’t appear to be meant to be the same characters; it’s rather like seeing recurring supporting actors appear in roles other than their usual ones on a live-action TV series. At least the Titanium Turkey is impressive visually.

 
“Bearly Alive” isn’t entirely devoid of character moments, and does a bit better in this regard than “Scrooge’s Last Adventure,” where the Nephews were excessively bratty and Scrooge (courtesy of the weak running “_______is for wimps” gag) was made out to be more of a generic jerk than a miser. Baloo’s decision to make one last flight for lasting fame rings true to his passion for aviation that we’ve seen in other episodes. Becky’s hesitation between giving Baloo his last wish and protecting the valuable Sea Duck from being lost in the Bearmuda Trapezoid also rings true to her conflicting traits of businesslike pragmatism and kindness (although the insurance coverage gag that concludes this scene goes too far towards anything-for-a-laugh cynicism). Kit’s own passion for flying is nicely captured through his geeky but helpful explanations of the peculiar features of the make of airplane that the good guys are imprisoned in on Huge’s island. Wildcat, as already mentioned, is milked effectively for humor through his continual affable misunderstandings of what everyone else says to him.


Koonce and Weimers, even at their worst, are never quite as bad as the writers of New Ducktales, since even when their characterization and plotting is flimsy, their snappy, wordplay-heavy, vaudeville-style gag-filled humor can provide many more actual laughs than the more self-conscious, labored and self-referential “jokes” that permeated New Ducktales. However, they resemble the New Ducktales crew in their prioritization of jokes above drama or excitement. Unlike the work of top Talespin writers such as Libby Hinson, Jymn Magon, or Jan Strnad, you rarely get the feeling in a Koonce and Weimers episode that the writers have any real interest in the characters beyond using them as a vehicle for the joke of the moment. Their ubiquity in the later seasons of Original Ducktales was, to my mind, one major reason for that show’s terribly uneven quality, and it’s fortunate that their participation in Talespin was limited by comparison.

Up Next: “A Star is Torn.”

[aldwayne]

Jack's fate might seen harsh, but to be honest he did lead Rebecca into what could've been a really unpleasant place for her and Baloo on a lie. Plus, you can assume that he did manage to talk his way out once the High Marshall's staff checked the package and found no explosive or weapon or otherwise threat to him.

[djnyr]

Feb 10, 2022 4:56:52 GMT aldwayne said:

Jack's fate might seen harsh, but to be honest he did lead Rebecca into what could've been a really unpleasant place for her and Baloo on a lie. Plus, you can assume that he did manage to talk his way out once the High Marshall's staff checked the package and found no explosive or weapon or otherwise threat to him.

That's what you have to assume, I guess; I agree that Jack's punishment more or less fits the crime, since he abandoned Rebecca and Baloo to the Thembrian air force earlier in the episode and only sought them out later when he needed them as cat's-paws again, with no intention of actually helping them.  I just am ambivalent about the protagonists dispensing eye-for-eye retribution instead of demonstrating their superiority to their antagonists--but then, I also don't like the sledge-hammering of the "We can't do that, or we'd be no better than they are" cliché so prevalent in Saturday-morning animation, so maybe I'm being unreasonable. 

Spin It! Part 5--Episodes

XVII. “A Star is Torn”

On their way home from a dinner party, Baloo and Becky stumble onto a movie shoot, just in time for Baloo to save movie star Kitten Kaboodle from a falling klieg light (at the cost of getting clobbered himself). This rescue earns Baloo an offer from Tantamount Studios to perform an aerial stunt in Kitten’s latest picture; Baloo, who harbors a crush on Kitten, happily accepts, and brings Kit, Wildcat, and Becky with him to Starrywood, Cape Suzette’s motion picture capital, as his guests. Kit starts chasing movie roles, while Wildcat contents himself with stargazing, but Becky finds out that the movie Baloo will be working on has been plagued by mysterious “accidents,” and, fearing that Baloo’s impending stunt flight will become the next accident, she starts to investigate. Becky soon learns that someone at Tantamount is deliberately sabotaging the production, but the besotted Baloo is too captivated by the manipulative Kitten to pay attention to Becky’s warnings; she sets out to save him from himself, as well as from the mysterious saboteur.



“Star is Torn” was written by Dev Ross (with Mark Zaslove as editor). Ross did dozens of screenplays for Darkwing Duck and Chip ‘n’ Dale Rescue Rangers, but only worked on two Talespin episodes; her list of credits also includes voice direction on Rescue Rangers, working as writer/director/actress for a television/theatre troop (the Twelfth Night Repertory Company), producing a web series (“The Rocks”), and authoring several children’s books. Her script for “Star” is an excellent one which entertains on multiple levels.

“Star is Torn” is peppered with enjoyable references to 1920s/1930s Hollywood; there are verbal and visual allusions to, among others, King Kong, Adventures of Robin Hood, Buster Keaton’s Steamboat Bill, Clark Gable, the Marx Brothers, Laurel and Hardy, Mae West, Jimmy Cagney, Charlie Chaplin, and even as obscure a personality as Frank Nelson, a frequent foil for Jack Benny. As a film buff, I really appreciated all the in-jokes, but Ross doesn’t simply coast on goodwill from these references; the plot, action, and, especially, the character interactions are strong enough that they would have carried the episode even if all the Hollywood gags been omitted.  The Hollywood jokes aren't the only source of humor in the episode, either; in the spirit of the 1930s comedies it references, there are a lot of good visual and physical comedy bits, from Becky's efforts to sneak into a stars-only restaurant to the dramatically dismissive ways in which Kitten keeps trying to shove Becky off the scene.  Becky's chase of the saboteur through various movie soundstages, and up and down the darkened ramps above the stages, also contains a lot of visual gags--as well as some nice throwaway bits of character animation; I like the way Becky hesitates, gets her balance, then jumps from one ramp to another, a realistic touch that helps to balance out the wilder slapstick in other parts of the episode. The cloaked mystery saboteur, incidentally, does not appear to be an old-movie reference but does bear a startling resemblance to the Phantom Blot. The mystery itself has something of a paucity of serious suspects, but in spite of this the revelation of the culprit comes as something of a surprise.

 

The real meat of the episode, though, comes in the interactions of the characters—particularly Rebecca, who is the spotlight character here. Ross does an excellent job of making Becky’s investigation of the sabotage and her efforts to save Baloo involving and dramatic while also keeping things funny. We sympathize with Becky as she’s repeatedly snubbed and sidelined by the unpleasant Kitten and ignored by the starstruck Baloo; there’s a touch of real pathos in the intercutting between Becky standing a lonely nighttime vigil over Baloo’s stunt plane while the oblivious Baloo dines with Kitten. However, Ross avoids the common trap of making an ignored but in-the-right character seem pathetically long-suffering or sanctimoniously self-righteous; she allows Becky to remain characteristically excitable, irascible, and sarcastic as she pursues the mystery saboteur—eagerly confronting suspects who may or may not be guilty, reacting with violent exasperation to Baloo’s obtuseness (“You’re acting like a complete idiot, even for you!”) and making cutting remarks at Kitten’s expense (“You wouldn’t understand…it’s so terrible!” “So’s your acting.”) The combination of nobility and fallibility carries through to the finale, in which Becky heroically but rather frantically shoves Baloo aside and takes off in his stunt plane in order to save him from potential sabotage, only to realize she doesn’t really have a plan for saving herself when the plane starts to malfunction—which leads into a climactic aerial action scene that’s both comic and suspenseful, with Baloo flying another plane alongside the sabotaged aircraft and trying to effect a transfer, while Becky refuses to let him make the rescue until she obtains an apology for his prior refusal to believe her.
 

Although Baloo is a misguided patsy for most of the episode, his gullibility feels entirely in character. Ross believably, and amusingly, has Baloo display intelligent interest when Becky gets him alone and starts trying to warn him about the threat of sabotage, only to switch off his mind and forget about the threat when Kitten starts giving him the come-hither treatment again. Given Baloo’s genuine aviation experience and ability, it makes sense for him to take a sabotage risk seriously, but given his status as an average male, it also makes sense for him to quickly lose focus when a movie star is doing her best to captivate him. Unlike Ducktales’ “Till Nephews Do Us Part,” which sublimated any hint of sexual attraction between Scrooge and the designing Millie Vanderbucks into gags about their mutual passion for lucre, Ross’ screenplay for “Star”, in keeping with Talespin’s rather more mature tone, does not attempt to gloss over Baloo’s blatant infatuation with the seductive Kitten, and instead regularly plays it for laughs, albeit not to the extremes of, say, a Tex Avery cartoon.



Ross also goes farther than most of Talespin’s other writers in hinting at a romantic attachment between Baloo and Becky; although Becky repeatedly insists that she and Baloo are ”friends”, and Baloo emphasizes this again at the end, their interactions play very much like that of a quarrelling but mutually attracted couple, as in the climactic rescue/apology sequence or the earlier scene in which Baloo awkwardly denies to Kitten that Becky is his “girlfriend” and an eavesdropping Becky reacts with ire to Baloo’s insistence that “she’s just my boss.” This is an example of how the episode works on several levels; a child viewer is more likely to take the emphasis on “friendship” at face value, but an adult can recognize other emotions beneath the surface (and, perhaps, identify with them).


Tress MacNeile, who voiced the above-mentioned Vanderbucks and innumerable other female (and some male) animated characters, both on and off the Disney Afternoon, delivers an unsympathetic but very enjoyable guest performance as the manipulative Kitten, and gets to vocally oscillate between Lauren-Bacall-ish husky seductiveness, overdramatic distress, and aggressive harshness akin to her Circe voice from Ducktales. Of the other Starrywood guest characters, the most distinctive is the bombastic platypus director, voiced by Robert Ridgely (Launchpad’s dad Ripcord in Ducktales’ “Top Duck.”)

Wildcat and Kit are mainly utilized for comic punctuation throughout the episode—the former’s eccentric notions of star-gazing and the latter’s quest for a movie role providing amusing running gags; one Talespin reviewer (Gregory Weagle) has complained that Kit should have played a bigger part in the exposure of the sabotage, but throwing Kit deeper into the plotting mix would have unnecessarily complicated the Becky-Baloo dynamic which forms the heart of the episode, and, besides, his preoccupation with stardom seems very consistent with his pursuit of show-biz fame in “Stormy Weather.”


Funny and fast-paced, but with a solid emotional foundation, “Star is Torn” is the strongest episode in the Talespin production order since “From Here to Machinery;” it works so well overall that one regrets that Dev Ross didn’t make more contributions to the series.

Up Next: Libby Hinson returns with a masterpiece: “Her Chance to Dream.”