Slye MacDuich watches DuckTales (1987) for the first time

[Slye MacDuich]

Hi there,

I’m a Disney Comics fan who has never watched a full episode of either incarnation of DuckTales. That is, until yesterday, when I started watching the first season of the original DuckTales on Disney+. A few thoughts popped into my head and I wrote them down, which gave me the idea of writing a short review for every episode. I will post them in this thread if nobody minds.

When I wrote about the first episode, a paragraph spiralled out of control to the point that it doesn’t fit into the review anymore:

„There is something improbably symmetric about both ‚DuckTales‘ season 1 and ‚The Son of the Sun‘ being released in 1987. Forty years after the creation of Scrooge McDuck and twenty years after Carl Barks laid down his drawing pen, two very different artistic projects - both headed by a babyboomer born around 1950 - simultaneously embark on a journey to breathe new life into Duckburg. Both would be unthinkable without Barks, but the ways they continue his legacy stand in stark contrast to each other. Both will be remembered as being at the height of their cultural relevance in the 1990s: Don Rosa because he reaches his artistic peak in that decade, DuckTales because of its frequent reruns that make it a beloved memory for many 90s kids. Rosa’s main audience will be European, DuckTales will be watched mostly by Americans – or more to the point, it will be watched on both sides of the pond, but it will not change the fact that for Europeans, Duckburg is first and foremost located on the (drawn) page, not the screen. Whereas in the US, there are more people alive today who have been introduced to Scrooge and his money bin through their TV than people who have first laid eyes on them in a comicbook.“

It reads like it could be the beginning of an essay, but as of now, I have nothing interesting to follow it up with.

Anyway, my review of episode 1 will be posted here soon. Replies are always welcome.

[Slye MacDuich]

S1E1: Don't Give Up the Ship

So this is how it begins… HDL are given into Scrooge’s custody because Donald joins the Navy. Scrooge takes no interest in them at first, but they win over his heart during an adventure that involves the Beagle Boys, a candy factory and a treasure map hidden in a model ship.

I liked it. First off I want to say that the humour worked really well for me. Scrooge shamelessly taking all the free cheese & storing it in his top hat, then giving some of it to his cab driver instead of a tip and finally declaring to his nephews: „We’ll have a nutritious lunch of cheese!“ A delightful rule-of-three joke that establishes Scrooge’s stinginess. And then there were puns! „We missed ya, Uncle Scrooge!“ – „Missed me? What did you throw at me?“, and „I want to see the world!“-„So, I’ll buy you a globe.“ Although to be nitpicky, that last one works against the stinginess jokes. If Scrooge is supposed to be cartoonishly stingy, why would he offer to buy Donald a globe? It should be: „Buy (yourself) a globe, then.“

But this is a different Scrooge than the one we know from the comics, which segways nicely into the second thing I want to talk about: characterisation. This Scrooge is clearly softer than even his softest comicbook incarnations. I could never see even late Barksian Scrooge having such instant regret after being mean to his nephews, let alone admit to a random reporter that he feels lonely! But I don’t mind it. In fact, I found the cuddle in the end really heartwarming. It’s certainly a more sensible direction to go in for a TV show than to have the characters bicker so much that you can’t help but wonder why they spend any time together, which is a flaw of Rosa’s stories. And there are still moments in which Scrooge is his spikey old self, like when he berates his cab driver as a „mercenary“.

I’m happy with HDL’s characterisation as well. They are intelligent and at the same time clearly children with emotional needs. They don’t have distinct personalities, or if they do, I haven’t noticed so far. (I think the user Matilda hit the nail on the head in a different thread when she remarked that HDL can differ in which one of their traits is foregrounded, but it should always be a trait that the other two have as well. But if I have to choose between the two extremes of the triplets being identical and them being different, I will always take the first option.) The Beagle Boys, on the other hand, do have distinct personalities, and I agree with what has been said elsewhere, that this misses the point of them. But it’s not like this breaks the episode for me or anything.

When it comes to Donald’s absence, I feel surprisingly okay with it. Maybe it’s just that I’m not very attached to quacky-voiced Donald. But I also like that HDL moving in with Scrooge provides a diegetic starting point for the characters‘ relationship, such that the series begins at the same time as these characters‘ journey together, and that HDL become the audience surrogate through which we enter Scrooge’s world. I guess it would have been too much to expect the creators to rip off Lo$ Chapter 12 seven years before it was published…

Concerning the animation style: I’m mostly fine with how the Ducks are done. They don’t look as gracious as a Barks drawing, and they are clearly animated on a smaller budget than if this was a movie, but I mean, of course they are. When it comes to the backgrounds, I would prefer it if they looked less cartoony and more like Barks would have drawn them. But whatever my criticisms, I like this animation style better than that of the 2017 version, which comes across irritatingly flat as a result of trying to evoke a comicbook aesthetic.

Blimey, these really weren’t supposed to be this long. But this was the first episode, so a lot of ground had to be covered. At the end of every review, there will be a list of aspects of the episode that I think are possibly nicked from Barks or other Disney artists:

- Scrooge’s mansion & butler (by the way, isn’t it weird that a dognose is named „Duckworth“?) are from his early appearances in „Christmas on Bear Mountain“ and „The Old Castle’s Secret“
- The gags in the beginning about Scrooge’s cheapness are reminiscent of Barks‘ onepagers, as is the concept of him storing objects in his hat
- The pie fight is very brief, but it reminds me of the one in „Secret of Atlantis“
- The Beagle Boys balancing on small marble-like objects reminds me of Rosa’s „On Stolen Time“, but this must be a coincidence, because „On Stolen Time“ came out years after this episode

I will do separate bullet points in case there are things that remind me of other bits of pop culture.

- the treasure map hidden in a model ship reminds me of the Tintin books „Secret of the Unicorn/Red Rackham’s Treasure“, but it’s probably a pretty common trope

[whitewater]

Sept 30, 2024 17:30:51 GMT Slye MacDuich said:

S1E1: Don't Give Up the Ship

So this is how it begins… HDL are given into Scrooge’s custody because Donald joins the Navy. Scrooge takes no interest in them at first, but they win over his heart during an adventure that involves the Beagle Boys, a candy factory and a treasure map hidden in a model ship.

I liked it. First off I want to say that the humour worked really well for me. Scrooge shamelessly taking all the free cheese & storing it in his top hat, then giving some of it to his cab driver instead of a tip and finally declaring to his nephews: „We’ll have a nutritious lunch of cheese!“ A delightful rule-of-three joke that establishes Scrooge’s stinginess. And then there were puns! „We missed ya, Uncle Scrooge!“ – „Missed me? What did you throw at me?“, and „I want to see the world!“-„So, I’ll buy you a globe.“ Although to be nitpicky, that last one works against the stinginess jokes. If Scrooge is supposed to be cartoonishly stingy, why would he offer to buy Donald a globe? It should be: „Buy (yourself) a globe, then.“

But this is a different Scrooge than the one we know from the comics, which segways nicely into the second thing I want to talk about: characterisation. This Scrooge is clearly softer than even his softest comicbook incarnations. I could never see even late Barksian Scrooge having such instant regret after being mean to his nephews, let alone admitting to a random reporter that he feels lonely! But I don’t mind it. In fact, I found the cuddle in the end really heartwarming. It’s certainly a more sensible direction to go in for a TV show than to have the characters bicker so much that you can’t help but wonder why they spend any time together, which is a flaw of Rosa’s stories. And there are still moments in which Scrooge is his spikey old self, like when he berates his cab driver as a „mercenary“.

I’m happy with HDL’s characterisation as well. They are intelligent and at the same time clearly children with emotional needs. They don’t have distinct personalities, or if they do, I haven’t noticed so far. (I think the user Matilda hit the nail on the head in a different thread when she remarked that HDL can differ in which one of their traits is foregrounded, but it should always be a trait that the other two have as well. But if I have to choose between the two extremes of the triplets being identical and them being different, I will always take the first option.) The Beagle Boys, on the other hand, do have distinct personalities, and I agree with what has been said elsewhere, that this misses the point of them. But it’s not like this breaks the episode for me or anything.

When it comes to Donald’s absence, I feel surprisingly okay with it. Maybe it’s just that I’m not very attached to quacky-voiced Donald. But I also like that HDL moving in with Scrooge provides a diegetic starting point for the characters‘ relationship, such that the series begins at the same time as these characters‘ journey together, and that HDL become the audience surrogate through which we enter Scrooge’s world. I guess it would have been too much to expect the creators to rip off Lo$ Chapter 12 seven years before it was published…

Concerning the animation style: I’m mostly fine with how the Ducks are done. They don’t look as gracious as a Barks drawing, and they are clearly animated on a smaller budget than if this was a movie, but I mean, of course they are. When it comes to the backgrounds, I would prefer it if they looked less cartoony and more like Barks would have drawn them. But whatever my criticisms, I like this animation style better than that of the 2017 version, which comes across irritatingly flat as a result of trying to evoke a comicbook aesthetic.

Blimey, these really weren’t supposed to be this long. But this was the first episode, so a lot of ground had to be covered. At the end of every review, there will be a list of aspects of the episode that I think are possibly nicked from Barks or other Disney artists:

- Scrooge’s mansion & butler (by the way, isn’t it weird that a dognose is named „Duckworth“?) are from his early appearances in „Christmas on Bear Mountain“ and „The Old Castle’s Secret“
- The gags in the beginning about Scrooge’s cheapness are reminiscent of Barks‘ onepagers, as is the concept of him storing objects in his hat
- The pie fight is very brief, but it reminds me of the one in „Secret of Atlantis“
- The Beagle Boys balancing on small marble-like objects reminds me of Rosa’s „On Stolen Time“, but this must be a coincidence, because „On Stolen Time“ came out years after this episode

I will do separate bullet points in case there are things that remind me of other bits of pop culture.

- the treasure map hidden in a model ship reminds me of the Tintin books „Secret of the Unicorn/Red Rackham’s Treasure“, but it’s probably a pretty common trope

I've watched only a few episodes of the original, and all of the 2017 reboot. The original is better, in my opinion, I have also watched the Ducktales movie (1990), I would change Glomgold being from Duckburg, to South Africa, but it was probably for the best, as there was apartheid there at the time. But it still is a decent show. 

I believe Duckworth was a new character, but he might have been inspired by Scrooge's other butlers.

The voice acting was fine, I'm glad they gave HDL new voices, apart from Donald, while also giving Scrooge his Scottish accent. I just wish in this show they would have shown more of Donald, Gladstone, and the original Duck family characters, Grandma only appears in a cameo, and Daisy and Gus Goose are never even seen. 

[Slye MacDuich]

S1E2: Wronguay in Ronguay

HDL work out the location of the treasure and reveal it to Scrooge under the condition that he takes them along on the search. This week’s villains are Flintheart Glomgold (who has a bet with Scrooge) and the shifty foreigner in a trenchcoat who was in league with the Beagle Boys in the previous episode. In the end, nobody gets the treasure, but Scrooge still wins the bet.

So far I’m onboard with most creative decisions made on this series. It’s perfectly sensible to send Scrooge and the nephews on a run-of-the-mill treasure hunt in a foreign country after having introduced Duckburg and its main elements in the first episode. I assume this is the show demonstrating what will be broadly its two standard modes of operation: stories set in Duckburg that are about Scrooge defending his fortune, and stories set in other parts of the world about him expanding it.

I enjoyed the episode, I think it was a well-told adventurous tale. I can tolerate bald Scottish Glomgold. His character design is a bigger issue for me than his nationality - as Whitewater has said, it’s a good decision that they didn’t make him the citizen of an Apartheid state. I‘m a bit uncomfortable with what I described above as the „shifty foreigner“ character. The depiction of the Ronguayans isn’t very sensitive either.

I have remarked earlier on the symmetry of both „DuckTales“ and „The Son of the Sun“ coming out in the same year. But I couldn’t have foreseen that in its second episode, „DuckTales“ would have Scrooge and Glomgold compete on a treasure hunt in South America!! It’s not just the basic idea that is similar, but also some setpieces, like Scrooge taking over the controls of an airplane and the treasure eventually ending up on the ground of a huge body of water. The episode came out a few months after „Son of the Sun“, but it was produced so far in advance that I doubt it could have been inspired by Rosa’s story. I guess there is only so much you can do with these characters, but it’s still fascinating that basically the same idea came to two people simultaneously.

Bits possibly nicked from the comics:

- the story seems to be loosely based on „Prize of Pizarro“: shared elements are the South American setting, the deserting llama, the Spanish ship, Scrooge wearing a morion helmet and the story ending with water coming down from the mountains and flooding a settlement
- the South American setting and the deserting llama also appear in „Lost in the Andes“
- the character of Glomgold and his rivalry with Scrooge originated in „Second-richest Duck“; the loser of their bet having to eat a hat is from Glomgold’s second appearance „The Money Champ“
- a Spanish sailing ship riding a wave in what is normally a desert reminds me of „Seven Cities of Cibola“
- Scrooge firing a canon is a common image in Barks stories, but it rarely happens outside his money bin
- The screenwriters go out of their way to use the word „Golden Helmet“ at one point to descibe the morion, so I wonder if this is a reference

Possible other inspirations/references:

- the protagonists sharing a cheap airplane with farm animals, specifically chicken, which then turns out to be unpiloted reminds me of the second Indiana Jones movie „Temple of Doom“

[whitewater]

Oct 2, 2024 14:08:09 GMT Slye MacDuich said:

S1E2: Wronguay in Ronguay

HDL work out the location of the treasure and reveal it to Scrooge under the condition that he takes them along on the search. This week’s villains are Flintheart Glomgold (who has a bet with Scrooge) and the shifty foreigner in a trenchcoat who was in league with the Beagle Boys in the previous episode. In the end, nobody gets the treasure, but Scrooge still wins the bet.

So far I’m onboard with most creative decisions made on this series. It’s perfectly sensible to send Scrooge and the nephews on a run-of-the-mill treasure hunt in a foreign country after having introduced Duckburg and its main elements in the first episode. I assume this is the show demonstrating what will be broadly its two standard modes of operation: stories set in Duckburg that are about Scrooge defending his fortune, and stories set in other parts of the world about him expanding it.

I enjoyed the episode, I think it was a well-told adventurous tale. I can tolerate bald Scottish Glomgold. His character design is a bigger issue for me than his nationality - as Whitewater has said, it’s a good decision that they didn’t make him the citizen of an Apartheid state. I‘m a bit uncomfortable with what I described above as the „shifty foreigner“ character. The depiction of the Ronguayans isn’t very sensitive either.

I have remarked earlier on the symmetry of both „DuckTales“ and „The Son of the Sun“ coming out in the same year. But I couldn’t have foreseen that in its second episode, „DuckTales“ would have Scrooge and Glomgold compete on a treasure hunt in South America!! It’s not just the basic idea that is similar, but also some setpieces, like Scrooge taking over the controls of an airplane and the treasure eventually ending up on the ground of a huge body of water. The episode came out a few months after „Son of the Sun“, but it was produced so far in advance that I doubt it could have been inspired by Rosa’s story. I guess there is only so much you can do with these characters, but it’s still fascinating that basically the same idea came to two people simultaneously.

Bits possibly nicked from the comics:

- the story seems to be loosely based on „Prize of Pizarro“: shared elements are the South American setting, the deserting llama, the Spanish ship, Scrooge wearing a morion helmet and the story ending with water coming down from the mountains and flooding a settlement
- the South American setting and the deserting llama also appear in „Lost in the Andes“
- the character of Glomgold and his rivalry with Scrooge originated in „Second-richest Duck“; the loser of their bet having to eat a hat is from Glomgold’s second appearance „The Money Champ“
- a Spanish sailing ship riding a wave in what is normally a desert reminds me of „Seven Cities of Cibola“
- Scrooge firing a canon is a common image in Barks stories, but it rarely happens outside his money bin
- The screenwriters go out of their way to use the word „Golden Helmet“ at one point to descibe the morion, so I wonder if this is a reference

Possible other inspirations/references:

- the protagonists sharing a cheap airplane with farm animals, specifically chicken, which then turns out to be unpiloted reminds me of the second Indiana Jones movie „Temple of Doom“

I thought this was a pretty decent episode as well, again there was my problem with Glomgold's appearance, it felt he was just to Scottish. I liked the reference to Glomgold eating his hat, which was from a Bark's comic.

Otherwise the episode's plotline, and the references from the original comics, were great to see. 

[Slye MacDuich]

S1E3: Three Ducks of the Condor 

Scrooge kept a golden coin from the previous episode, which he learns is part of a bigger treasure hidden somewhere in the Andes Mountains. He goes looking for the treasure, but without HDL. He is accompanied instead by the newly introduced incompetent pilot Launchpad McQuack as well as Donald, who is on shore-leave. The three discover a community of natives who are ruled over by the descendant of a Spanish conqueror, and get up to a lot of slapsticky shenanigans. Scrooge gets his hands on a treasure map and inadvertently overthrows the Spaniard’s regime. Launchpad helps Donald to get back to his naval base just in time, and Scrooge is left floating on a rubber boat to the Antarctic. Meanwhile in Duckburg, we are introduced to HDL’s new nanny Bentina Beakley and her granddaughter, Webby Vanderquack.

This episode didn’t do much for me. I missed HDL, whose relationship with Scrooge is the main thing that kept me watching so far. It’s not that I am necessarily opposed to them taking the backseat for an episode, but the space provided by their absence wasn’t used to do anything particularly interesting. The plot is just a vehicle for the slapstick and has nothing new to say about the characters. Launchpad and Donald fulfil similar roles, so it seems a bit redundant to have them both accompany Scrooge (We also meet Gyro for the first time, and he too seems to be more of a buffoonish figure than in the comics). But I know that I would have enjoyed the slapstick as a child, and this is after all a childrens‘ show, so I guess it’s doing its job.

This episode is also the worst offender in terms of cultural sensitivity so far. It’s both disrespectful and ahistorical to portray the descendants of an Inca-like civilisation as superstitious fools who let a succession of colonizers – which they outnumber vastly – rule over them for generations just because their overlords are in the possession of a single golden coin.

Anyway, I didn’t like this one, but the show’s hit and miss ratio is still pretty good so far, so I’m gonna keep watching.

Bits nicked from the comics:

- As with the previous episode, the biggest influence seems to have been „Prize of Pizarro“, which also features a community of Inca descendants who have been hiding out in the Andes for centuries (but aren’t stupid enough to have one European with a golden coin rule over them)
- The giant birds look similar to the ones in Barks‘ „Cave of Ali Baba“ and „Rug Riders in the Sky“
- Launchpad being required by natives to prove himself in a task involving a giant animal reminds me of Donald’s similar ordeal in „Land of the Pygmy Indians“

Bits that remind me of other pieces of pop culture:

- Scrooge jumps from a plane with a rubber boat that inflates in the air, just like Indiana Jones in „Temple of Doom“
- The Tintin album „Prisoners of the Sun“ also features a surviving outpost of the Inca civilisation, and they are portrayed in an equally insulting way – it has them fall for the old „Convenient Solar Eclipse“ trick, even though the real Incas were very knowledgeable about astronomy
- Man, so far my cultural horizon beyond Disney Comics seems to consist solely of Indiana Jones and Tintin, doesn’t it?

[duckman87]

This episode is probably made a little better to me thanks to being part of the generally terrific "Treasure of the Golden Suns" arc. That, and another thing that I really like is Donald's presence and dynamic with Launchpad. This is probably the only time I ever saw them interact with each other throughout a whole episode, with Donald's other appearances more focused on his interactions with the nephews and Launchpad either absent or in another subplot (in "All Ducks on Deck", where Donald is with the triplets in the ship and Launchpad and Scrooge are captured and trying to escape the villain lair in a parallel subplot). Here, they have plenty of moments and their dynamic rocks, particularly the notion that they grew on each other. I think the only time I ever saw that again was in the comic story "The Arcadian Urn", where Donald joins them in a quest to the title land of Arcadia and he and Launchpad have to face a dragon, leaving to plenty of snark from Donald at Launchpad's costs, which he takes in stride with good-natured comebacks. It gives me the feeling that they developed a "Vitriolic Best Buds" dynamic, as while Donald is not above snarking about LP's ditziness, they're still shown to be in good terms and I wish we'd seen more of these two together in the show, even if I understand that they had to focus on his relationship with the triplets in the few times they could bring Donald to the spotlight.

[whitewater]

Sept 30, 2024 13:43:34 GMT Slye MacDuich said:

Hi there,

I’m a Disney Comics fan who has never watched a full episode of either incarnation of DuckTales. That is, until yesterday, when I started watching the first season of the original DuckTales on Disney+. A few thoughts popped into my head and I wrote them down, which gave me the idea of writing a short review for every episode. I will post them in this thread if nobody minds.

When I wrote about the first episode, a paragraph spiralled out of control to the point that it doesn’t fit into the review anymore:

„There is something improbably symmetric about both ‚DuckTales‘ season 1 and ‚The Son of the Sun‘ being released in 1987. Forty years after the creation of Scrooge McDuck and twenty years after Carl Barks laid down his drawing pen, two very different artistic projects - both headed by a babyboomer born around 1950 - simultaneously embark on a journey to breathe new life into Duckburg. Both would be unthinkable without Barks, but the ways they continue his legacy stand in stark contrast to each other. Both will be remembered as being at the height of their cultural relevance in the 1990s: Don Rosa because he reaches his artistic peak in that decade, DuckTales because of its frequent reruns that make it a beloved memory for many 90s kids. Rosa’s main audience will be European, DuckTales will be watched mostly by Americans – or more to the point, it will be watched on both sides of the pond, but it will not change the fact that for Europeans, Duckburg is first and foremost located on the (drawn) page, not the screen. Whereas in the US, there are more people alive today who have been introduced to Scrooge and his money bin through their TV than people who have first laid eyes on them in a comicbook.“

It reads like it could be the beginning of an essay, but as of now, I have nothing interesting to follow it up with.

Anyway, my review of episode 1 will be posted here soon. Replies are always welcome.

Will you still be updating the thread? I like hearing your thoughts on the series, I have watched about 34 episodes now. 

[Slye MacDuich]

Nov 11, 2024 19:53:07 GMT whitewater said:

Sept 30, 2024 13:43:34 GMT Slye MacDuich said:

Hi there,

I’m a Disney Comics fan who has never watched a full episode of either incarnation of DuckTales. That is, until yesterday, when I started watching the first season of the original DuckTales on Disney+. A few thoughts popped into my head and I wrote them down, which gave me the idea of writing a short review for every episode. I will post them in this thread if nobody minds.

When I wrote about the first episode, a paragraph spiralled out of control to the point that it doesn’t fit into the review anymore:

„There is something improbably symmetric about both ‚DuckTales‘ season 1 and ‚The Son of the Sun‘ being released in 1987. Forty years after the creation of Scrooge McDuck and twenty years after Carl Barks laid down his drawing pen, two very different artistic projects - both headed by a babyboomer born around 1950 - simultaneously embark on a journey to breathe new life into Duckburg. Both would be unthinkable without Barks, but the ways they continue his legacy stand in stark contrast to each other. Both will be remembered as being at the height of their cultural relevance in the 1990s: Don Rosa because he reaches his artistic peak in that decade, DuckTales because of its frequent reruns that make it a beloved memory for many 90s kids. Rosa’s main audience will be European, DuckTales will be watched mostly by Americans – or more to the point, it will be watched on both sides of the pond, but it will not change the fact that for Europeans, Duckburg is first and foremost located on the (drawn) page, not the screen. Whereas in the US, there are more people alive today who have been introduced to Scrooge and his money bin through their TV than people who have first laid eyes on them in a comicbook.“

It reads like it could be the beginning of an essay, but as of now, I have nothing interesting to follow it up with.

Anyway, my review of episode 1 will be posted here soon. Replies are always welcome.

Will you still be updating the thread? I like hearing your thoughts on the series, I have watched about 34 episodes now. 

It's very nice to know that my musings are appreciated. Sadly I'm currently very busy with my studies and will be for some time, so I'm afraid it's gonna take a while until I find time for these reviews again - but in principle, I intend to continue them.