#also happy birthday launchpad!!! we love you launchpad!!!

[quiverwingquack]

our lives are made in these small hours(these little wonders)

Drake is a hero. St Canard's brave protector, the strongest superhero this side of Audubon Bay, the scourge of the city's criminal scum. He should be totally fine until Launchpad gets back from his latest adventure, and yet... he finds himself too anxious to sleep. Too worried about not being enough to protect his family.

And he's not the only one.

“Just try and get some rest, okay?” Launchpad’s voice crackles through the phone, weak with static and poor signal. “We’re flying out in a few minutes, and I’ll be home before you know it!”

“I know,” Drake replies. He’s clutching the landline to his ear, the white cord spiraling off into the darkness of the empty tower. His cell phone never seems to connect right when he calls LP long-distance, and he finds himself sitting on the kitchen floor far too often. “I’ll see you soon, just like always. It’s gonna be fine.”

Far, far too often.

Launchpad loves adventures just as much as he loves hero work, and Drake would never stop him from going. He loves the light in LP’s eyes when he talks about the latest treasure they’ve found, or the newest friends he’s made, and they spend plenty of time doing things together when he is in St. Canard. But that doesn’t stop Drake’s heart from aching when they’re apart, from feeling lonely even though he’s not alone.

“I love you,” Launchpad’s voice softens, and Drake knows his dark, beautiful eyes are getting that anxious look that he knows too well. “I just worry about you. You can take care of yourself, I know, it’s just… I wanna make sure you’re okay.”

“I know, LP. I love you too,” Drake sighs, leaning back against the cabinets. He doesn’t mean to sound upset or to worry his partner. Logically, he knows they’ll be fine, and they’ve always been fine before, but the anxiety doesn’t seem to know that. Or care, really. His hands are still shaking a little and he has to call upon his acting skills to still them. “We’ll be fine, and I’ll see you tomorrow when you get here. I’m just… it—I always sleep better when you’re next to me. That’s all.”

“Aww, Drake.” LP says, his voice melting into a softer, gentler tone. “I promise I’ll be there soon. And I’ll stay with you as long as you want.”

Drake can’t stop himself from smiling, despite the heartache. “Yeah? I—I’d really like that. I’ll do my best to get some sleep, I promise. G’night, LP.”

“G’night, Deedubya. I love ya!”

The line cuts out, static giving way to silence, and Drake is left alone in the moonlit kitchen. For a moment, he just clings to the receiver, eyes following the pale, spiraling cord until it disappears into the shadows. Launchpad always makes him feel better, whether they’re holding hands or a million miles apart. Everything will be better in the morning.

He looks around the room for a moment, taking a deep breath to ground himself. WANDA’s monitor has been quiet for hours, and they’ve barely had any alerts this week. And though it feels as though something is lurking in every shadowy corner, the tower is quiet tonight. Drake can rest for a few hours, and get some proper sleep when Launchpad is beside him again.

It’s not that he can’t sleep without Launchpad, because there are plenty of nights where LP finds himself crashing in Duckburg, whether for family game night or Woodchuck troop events or just plain post-adventure exhaustion. And on those nights, Drake can at least sleep well enough, because he knows LP’s safe. On nights when LP is an ocean away, it’s harder to reassure himself, and he ends up tossing and turning thinking about what if something’s gone wrong or he’s going to get hurt or—

He should probably get to bed now, or he’ll overthink himself into a spiral again.

Drake hauls himself to his feet, stifling a yawn, and reluctantly returns the phone to its cradle. If he’s lucky, he’ll fall asleep soon, and his anxiety will finally give it a rest. And if nothing else, he can distract himself better in the morning. Maybe he’ll bake a welcome-home cake or something, if Gosalyn will help him remember to add the milk.

He heads down the hall quietly, stepping around the creaky spots on the floor, and quietly makes his way to Gosalyn’s door. It’s half-open, pouring the soft gold light from one of Drake’s vintage Darkwing night lights onto the hallway floor, and as he peers inside, he realizes she’s not asleep either.

She’s all but buried herself in her blankets, sitting up in bed and staring blankly at the bare sheets in front of her. Even in the soft light, he can see that she’s shaking, and he forgets instantly he was doing something. Instead, he raises his hand and taps his knuckles against the door, catching her attention with a soft knock.

“Dad?” She murmurs, sitting up a little straighter. One of her blankets slips from her shoulders, falling to the floor as she pretends she’s perfectly fine. “Hey. Sup.”

“I just wanted to check on you,” he explains, then gestures to her hair, tangled from tossing and turning. “Nightmare?”

“Yeah….” She admits, rubbing her eyes as if to shake off the memories. “M’fine though. Jus’ the Ramrod thing again.”

“You know, it’s okay if you’re still worried about it,” he steps into the room, and she wiggles free from her blanket cocoon, making room for him to sit beside her. “I still have nightmares about that fight sometimes, and I’m not the one that had to blow it all up.”

“It feels dumb,” she mutters, looking away. “Like… I know I’m safe. Bulba’s in prison and you’re here and the tower’s really secure, so nobody can hurt me, but—I don’t know! It’s just—it’s like all the shadows are gonna want to fight me and take everything away again. And I just—I just don’t wanna….”

“Aw, Gos.”

As she trails off, he sets a comforting hand on her shoulder. He never knows what to do when his daughter mourns the family she couldn’t save—sometimes, there’s nothing he can do—but then she says things like you’re here and it feels like maybe, it’s enough to just be here with her.

“You’re okay, I promise. Nobody’s going to hurt you or take anything away.”

Her usually-bright green eyes turn to look at him, wide with worry. “Even—even you? I… I don’t wanna lose you too.”

“Gos,” he says, trying to ignore how much that sounds like his own anxiety. Instead, he opens his arms to offer a hug, and she quickly takes it, wrapping her arms around Drake tightly. “I promise it’ll be okay, kiddo. I’ll be right here, and you’ll be okay. We’re safe.”

“Okay,” she murmurs, voice muffled as she clings to him. “I’m—I’m okay. Um, but can��can you stay? Just until I fall asleep?”

“Of course. I’ve got you.” he strokes her hair soothingly. “Just take a deep breath, okay?”

“Thanks, Dad,” her voice sounds so small, as if she’s three instead of thirteen. He loves his daughter, and he knows she’s strong and capable. But sometimes there are moments, little and quiet ones, where he remembers she’s still just a kid who’s lost so much. He gives her a moment to breathe, and then, in the softest voice he can, he begins to sing.

“Rest your head, little girl blue, come paint your dreams on your pillow….”

He sings her lullaby for a while, improvising gentle verses until she finally falls asleep and he can tuck her in. He makes sure she’s cozy in her blankets, safe and sound like he promised her, and for a moment, just watches over her. She’s more peaceful now, and he sends a silent plea to the nightmares. Please, just leave her alone and let her sleep well tonight.

Eventually, though, his own exhaustion catches up to him. He drags himself to his feet again, finally making his way to his own bedroom and empty bed. The lonely ache in his chest rushes back full-force when he steps inside, the familiar smell of motor oil and smoke clinging to their whole bedroom. He reaches for one of his partner’s forgotten T-shirts as pajamas for the night, and tries to ignore the vacant half of the mattress when he lies down.

Launchpad will be fine, he insists to himself. He’ll be home before dinner tomorrow, and they’ll go out to get takeout and hold hands while waiting in line. Drake will hug him so tight it feels like his missing piece pops back in place, and everything will be alright. It always is!

It always is.

But… what if it isn’t?

The nagging doubt has crept back in, and now there’s truly nothing left to distract him from the spiral. What if LP just never comes home? What if he’s left for good, and Drake has to go on alone? He couldn’t do it, he can’t be a hero or a dad or even an actor on his own! Every time something’s gone well for him, LP’s been there to share it, if he never comes home Drake’s life is going to fall apart!

Or what if something happens? What if he’s hurt or trapped right now and he needs Drake but Drake can’t get to him because he doesn’t know? What if they’ve crashed the plane and gotten lost on some uncharted island and Drake never gets to say goodbye? What if—what—

Hey, it’s okay, Launchpad’s voice rings out in Drake’s mind, a well-loved memory. I’ve got you. Just take a deep breath, okay?

In… hold… out…

You’re okay, I promise.

In… he’s okay. Out… in… he’s safe. He’s… he’s going to be okay.

He’s always going to be okay.

Launchpad will come home tomorrow. He always does. Nothing bad has happened, and nothing’s going to. LP is brave, braver than Drake’s ever been, he’s the strongest person Drake knows—except maybe Gizmoduck, but he doesn’t count—and he’s smart enough to rebuild airplanes in his sleep, probably.

Plus, Gos is clever and quick, she can find a way out of any situation. She’s twice as confident as Drake is, and could face any foe even if he wasn’t ready himself. She already has before! She can take care of herself—they can both take care of themselves—if they need to. And with their help Drake’s the hero of St Canard. He’s Darkwing Duck, and he always gets back up!

They’re going to be just fine. They’ll get each other through whatever they need to.

He starts thinking about what-ifs again, tossing and turning, but none of the new worries stick around long. What if someone attacks the tower? He and Gos can… outsmart them. Or—if LP gets hurt out there, he’ll just… get back up again. They all do, don't they? They… always get… get back up again….

Drake wakes with his face squished into one of LP’s pillows. He doesn’t remember falling asleep, but must have at some point, because dawn light is beginning to creep in between the curtains. The dull gray light tickles his feathers, poking at his eyes painfully, and he rubs them as he wakes. It’s barely past sunrise, what could have—

“Good morning,” a wonderfully familiar voice murmurs. He tilts his head, and sure enough, Launchpad is sitting beside him, kicking off his boots. “Sleepyhead.”

“G’morning,” he murmurs with a grin. He’s probably a mess right now, all ruffled feathers and morning breath, and he doesn’t care at all. “What’re… you’re back early, huh? What’s that about?”

“Oh, I, uh,” LP rubs the back of his neck sheepishly, pulling off his cap. “I got worried about you, and I wanted to hurry home. I know you guys can handle yourselves! I just… wanted to be here.”

“Aww, LP,” he yawns. “Me too. It’s like… you’re okay on your own, but I’d rather be together.”

“Exactly,” LP grins, and it feels like he lights up the room more than the early sunshine does. He leans in for a kiss, and it tastes sweeter than sugar. “I love you so much.”

“I love you too,” Drake blushes, almost overwhelmed with feeling loved, as if yesterday’s heartache never happened at all. “‘M glad you’re here.”

“I’m glad I’m here too,” LP replies, reaching for something comfier to change into. His now-discarded jacket reeks of gasoline, splotched and dirty on one side, and Drake already knows there was a plane crash involved. But he can only handle so many sleepy worries, and decides to hold off on asking about it until later.

Besides, his partner is getting into bed with him now, and he can finally rest. He lays his head over LP’s heart, and LP puts an arm around his waist, and everything feels… perfect. He still reeks of smoke and oil, of chaos and adventure and home. It feels so safe, so peaceful and loving, that Drake forgets he was ever worried about anything at all.

[writebackatya]

FUTURE DuckTales (2017) Headcanons:

Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

Also don’t think that I’m picturing the boys’ future designs like their future designs from the ‘87 show. This is just to illustrate that I’m talking about them as adults

As I am posting this post, it is April 15th, the birthday of Huey, Dewey, and Louie! Happy Birthday boys!

To celebrate the occasion, I thought I’d share some of my headcanons of what I think the future would look like each for each of the boys. This won’t be too in-depth, just some ideas I had. Let’s starts with the “oldest” triplet:

Huey:

When I think about Huey Duck there are two things that come to mind: Junior Woodchuck and Science. Obviously we know that Huey will someday become a Senior Woodchuck (we believe in you buddy!) and I think he will be a Woodchuck for life. I can see him being a great Woodchuck leader

And out of the triplets, I honestly think Huey would be the one who does the most world traveling in his future. He has such a thirst for knowledge I can see him also being somewhat of an archeologist

As for the science part, I always love seeing Huey included in Team Science fanart so I can see him working alongside Fenton and Gyro in the lab whenever he’s not out adventuring

Dewey:

Personally, I don’t see Dewey staying in Duckburg for his adult life. Like Launchpad, I like to think Dewey eventually moves to St. Canard where he joins Darkwing, LP, and Gosalyn on their adventures

Fans of Darkwing Duck are probably familiar with Gosalyn’s superhero persona, Quiverwing Quack, well I like to think in the DT17 universe Gosalyn eventually does become Quiverwing and Dewey is basically her sidekick like how Launchpad is Darkwing’s sidekick

As for his career, I like to think that Dewey starts his own entertainment and mass media company where he works on and funds projects ranging from movies, television, and whatever catches his fancy. (Think Disney, but not evil). Gosalyn also assists Dewey in his career and the two eventually get married (like Launchpad and Drake!)

Louie:

There’s no doubt in my mind that Louie will someday become the richest duck in the world and I think he will get that title by a bunch of smart (and ethical) business decisions and help from his family. I never really was a fan of “Louie becomes Scrooge’s heir” because I don’t like the idea of Louie just inheriting a bunch of money to become rich

Like Scrooge, I can see Louie owning a bunch of different companies, but his most well-known company would be Louie’s Kids™️ which would be a for-real charity that helps needy kids

Louie may not do much adventuring compared to his two brothers but I still like to think he helps fund things for his family’s adventuring needs (especially when if it will help give his companies a profit). Also I like to think Della Duck becomes his personal pilot/driver/body guard in case an unexpected adventure pops up on him

You know part of me is sad that I’m separating the boys for their futures, but sometimes life has different plans for each of us. Obviously they still keep in touch with one another, visit one another, and sometimes cross paths while on their own adventures

[popculturebuffet]

The Not-So Secret Origins of Darkwing Duck Finale: The Duck Knight Returns!: Keep, Getting, Up.

Hello all you happy people and welcome to the finale of “The Secret Origins of Darkwing Duck”, my look at the many origins of Darkwing Duck for his 30th birthday. And fittingly I saved the best for last.. and also the last for last but that isn’t quite as catchy. Yes it’s time to finally tackle the Ducktales origin story for our hero, the finest one and frankly one of the finest superhero origins in superhero history “The Duck Knight Returns”. 

To get here though, the creators, specifically Frank Angones, had to take a massive gamble. Frank had a plan we all know now, a brilliant one that would give the hero a proper origin for season 2.. but require both waiting that long and waiting out fan outrage at what the plan was on the surface: To take this legendary hero many people loved and wanted to see as a full part of this unvierse.. and make him into a tv show that happened in universe.  It’d lead to this brilliant origin story.. but he coudln’t tell them that, the most he could tell them was “Wait for it, I got something” and give a hint with him in a tiny costume. Tell them “This was just leading to the main event”, but couldn’t tell them what, leaving a lot of fans pissed for a good two years. And pissing off a large portion of your nostalgic, and modern, fanbase for that long, and KNOWING you will takes guts, and Frank had em.. and frank’s instincts were right. 

See once the episode aired the clouds parted, the outrage stopped, and fans stood up and cheered. Frank had played them, he played them good and they liked it. 

So what’ dhe do? Why is this origin story the best of the best? and why.. is this episode a bit lacking despite that? Well the answers are inside.. except the last one it’s very obviously the whole subplot with Scrooge, Boorswan and Dewey, but i’ll get into WHY exactly ti’s a problem under the cut. So lets, get, DANGEROUS shall we?

We open with the final episode of Darkwing Duck. It was previously set up this very season in the previously reviewed “Friendship Hates Magic!” that Darkwing Duck ended on a cliffhanger after an abrupt cancelation. Which.. honestly is something that kinda stings to think about given not two days ago Final Space was canceled, hopes of a finale movie or fourth season are dim, and this is close to a year after Adult Swim also canceled the venture brothers (Though at least since then we’ve got a movie announnced). Point is I get why Launchpad maybe needed to write and film a fanscript with a middle aged housekeeper. 

Said episode is in line with the original real world series in tone, with darkwing fighting a masked figure trying to blow up an orphanage, getting blown up slaspstick and unmasks his foe only to find .. himself!

We then cut to where the episodes being screned Ceaser’s Parking lot.. well more like a furniture store parking lot where Jim Starling, the actor who played Darkwing Duck is doing a ribbon cutting... and a nice sight gag later shows this was SUPPOSED to be Johnny as part of the ongoing ottoman empire drama... seriously this comedy subplot about two characters who are functionally identical having a falling out.. which somehow still sticks the landing better than the actual major Louie story arc... AS A RESULT OF SAID STORY ARC. 

Yeah i’m going to let that one marinate as we move on to the actual focus: two fans and one boy sidekick in line for autographs: Launchpad, Dewey, who apparently takes launchpad to a lot of these because Launchpad only has one adult friend and as this season already established Fenton dosen’t have a lot of free time, and Drake, who the episode dosen’t identify till the end but i’m going ahead with because it’d be awkard to dance around something all of you already know for dramtatic effect. 

Turns out Launchpads been to a LOT of signings with jim, offering Drake with advice, and already having chemistry with the guy before passing out at seeing his hero. Let’s be fair here i’d do the same if I saw Al Ewing at a signing. 

Turns out though Jim.. is a pretty massive bag of dicks atop a cascading mountain of dicks. He moans to his agent about not getting any parts despite having an actually earned reputation of being a difficult asshole on set, is openly ungreatful of his fans , brushing drake off, taking an itnresting in dewey only because he’s young and thus a new fanbase and being audiably disapointed when it turns out the autograph is for launchpad. He’s completely and totally up his own ass so far you can see his head when he talks. 

So naturally the only thing that gets the egotistical old bastard to perk up is finding out Darkwing Duck is trending, their making a new movie and enlisting Launchpad to take him there. I”ll get more into Jim’s character as a whole in a bit, for now our heroes make their way to McDuck Studios!

It’s here though the episode also gas guns itself in the foot with a bowling ball.  There’s a lot to unpack with this scene so i’m going to contain my rage for a second and give it to you straight up: Scrooge, who hasn’t seen a movie since 1920, is concerned with the films budget, having only agreed to this film because Boreswan assured him it’d be a crowdpleasingwithin budget blockbuster, while Boreswan is “but the ARTTTTT”. Our heroes come in, Scrooge rightly points out he never told Dewey he owned a stuido for this reason, and Boreswan shows them the trailer, with Launchpad not liking it because it’s “not darkwing duck”, jim hating it because h’es not in it and Dewey hating it because i’ts not for kid. Said trailer is a parody of grim and gritty reboots in the veign of the dark knight trilogy and zack snyder. Scrooge gives creative control to Dewey because he’s the youth, Drake arrives as the new darkwing, Jim tries to kill him, he and launchpad get thrown out, we’ll get back to the good part in a moment. So your all refreshed on what happened? Good.. then....

You being the plot, you readers terrific. Okay

1) Scrooge... just... just Scrooge. There’s so much wrong with this scenario. For starter shi mnot having seen any movies since 1930, nor having invested in the movie buisness outside of his own low budget saftey films for alllll tha ttime. I call the bullest of all bullshit on this one. For starters there is no feasable way that Scrooge would sit on making money off one of the most lucrative industries in existance. Educational films are a decent market as are saftey films: he could easily make them for other companies extra cheap using donald as he clearly already tended to since he works cheap. But beyond that the film industry is a global juggernaught of money with TONS of ways to profit off it from making film: Making cheap equipment, renting equipment to filmakers, leasing mcduck properties for shoting, setting up stuidos for shooting they could both rent out AND use for their own productions, selling old props, video stores back when that was a thing, stremaing now.. there’s SO many ways Scrooge could make a decent profit off this over the decades he’s been at this ther’es no way he woudln’t have a deaprtment. I could buy him not getting how to make a blockbuster and thus meddling where he dosen’t get it, but the way it’s framed is tha the knows nothing about film and never tried despite being someone all about risk, reward and profit. And ther’es so much in film and so many peopl ehe coudl trust to basically run it for him, that it’s damn near impossible he sat on it and even more so he didn’t step in till they asked for more money. If the film was going overbudget he woudl’ve sent one of the buzzards over to penny pinch ages ago and they would’ve gladly done so as they need to embezzel theat money for more fowl jetskis. 

2) For an episode about accepting reboots, about both chershing an original work and letting others enjoy a new version of it.. they decided to also poke fun at gritty divisive reboots of popular stuff. The message of the ep isn’t bad, lettting someone enjoy their versoin of something even if you don’t and letting it inspire a new generation.. but it kinda sidesteps the fact that Allistor’s reboot is genuinely bad, he cares nothing about the property, and he learns nothing. You can’t have a reboot that’s genuinely terrible and NEEDS to be stopped at the cente rof your disertation on why reboots aren’t a bad thing> They arne’t, this show, she ra and jellystone are proof, but then don’t use something BLATNATLY evolcative of the zack snyder films, films that also used heroes more as symbols, were annoyingly pretinous and sucked gas while misunderstanding what they were remaking, is not how you do it. It’d of worked better if Boreswan’s reboot genuinely wasn’t bad, just very diffrent from the original,and he had genuine respect for the original. Instead he just comes off as, much like Snyder, a pretenious ass who dosen’t get the character. They also weirdly dip some Christopher nolan in there.. when he only made ONE bad batman film and one that’s bad nhot for how nolan’s usual batman tropes, but beacuse it was long, overly padded and not very satisfying as a conclusion to this epic trilogy. 

3) Why in the 39 flavors is Scrooge basing his opinion SOLEY on Dewey. See I get that their trying to spoof network execs foistering changes on movies in order to be more profitable at the sake of merit which again, I get it. He works for Disney aka 50 first gay characters, I GET IT. It just dosen’t work here because of the characters at play. Scrooge isn’t THIS stupid on a good day, and has three other kids at home he can call on for a focus group. As is it’s Scrooge letting his dumbest nephew actively ruin his big budget film because he dosen’t understand how films work. Which granted probably is why half of studio disasters happened and why we need an Ayer Cut, but dosen’t work for SCROOGE. He’s not this dumb and no one calls him out on it. It again would’ve worked better with Scrooge bringing in the others and letting them run wild, having it play out character wise, and have Huey be the ignored voice of reason. And i’ts not because he’s my tiny red son, he’s the logical choice: Della or Beakley would also butt in in their own ways as a reckles doofus and darkwing fangirl respectively. With Donald in space Huey is the only one who’d see the mess they were making. Louie would try and sequeeze stuff in for box office and Webby like Dewey would just go kind of insane. I will grant that Dewey’s changes are objectively hilaroius, but plot wise i’ts just UTTERLY agrivating. 

So yeah this part of the plot sucks and it sucks energy out of the episode when we have to go back to it. The only bright side to it is Dewey’s insane changes, including a mascot of himself, the darkwing dance crew, and megavolt as bane. 

So back at the plot people care about, Jim formally adopts Launchpad as his sidekick, hatching a scheme to get himself back in the roll: Jim will sneak on set and take the part while Launchpad will do the same, beating up and kidnapping Drake so Jim can do said part-taking. Even with a brain that’s just a bear riding a motorcycle in a circle with a darkwing duck hat, Launchpad can tell something’s wrong here and only goes along with it because his hero tells him to. Which again let’s be fair if Al Ewing asked me to rob a bank i’d probably at least consider it. 

Jim tries faking being a package guy and runs into Tad, played by DW creator Tad Stones, who has never heard of the show which sets Jim off into a homicidal rage again.. but at least it creates a distractoin for Launchpad. 

This being Launchpad the plan lasts all of two minutes before he gets trapped in the trailer he just broke into. Drake shows his heroic instincts by rescuing launchpad only to quickly find out “Oh shit this guy’s broken into my trailer and wants to kidnap me”> A fight ensues which shows off two things: Drake is an expert martial artist in this continuity. While he COULD fight in the original and does have an old martial arts teacher, he mostly used his wits and his gas gun, usually both together, to best his foes, like spiderman but with more gas.  This Drake’s no less scrappy or clever mind, he’s just better at hand to hand and it’s how he prefers to deal with things. 

The other is that Launchapd dosen’t want to do this, purely playing defensive. It’s clear he KNOWS this has to be wrong deep down but his brain simply can’t reconcile jim’s actions being as bad and selfish as they are with jim also being his hero and inspiration. 

Hilariously though Drake can’t help but call out to Launchpad not to destroy various merch duing their fight, something launchpad respects... and gets him to notice Drake’s trailer, a mini-musuem to darkwing duck with all kinds of merch even Launchpad, me sized nerd that he is, dosen’t have including a banned action figure.. which naturally he asks to play with and just as naturally, Drake obliges

So after more deep hurting, we cut back to these two who are having the time of their life, playing with action figures and holding them over Drake’s iron... which he has in his trailer that has no room for an ironing board ...

So the two get talking because the only way to start, is heart to heart and we get Drake’s backstory: He was a bullied, shy little kid who wasn’t very happy.. until he caught this tv show with a guy that no matter how much he got beaten, or mocked or blown up or crashed (that one was launchapd’s addition).. he got back up. This inspired drake to not only start cosplaying as the daring duck of mystery, but also get a cool lunchbox.. neither of which impressed his bullies to Launchpad’s suprise.. but which simply lead to Drake now fighting back, getting up and taking them out. He wants to star in the film because while he knows it’s not good and not relaly true to the source material he wants to inspire some other kid with a lunch box, touching Launchpad into deciding to try to talk jim into letting Drake do the part. 

There’s a lot to unpack with this new version. The first is that it takes almost entirely from Paraducks: Drake was bullied and shy, got inspiration from darkwing duck (a tv show instead of his future self this time), and then fought back and became his best self. 

The other part is just how utterly brillliant, heartfelt, well crafted and personal this feel. It’s VERY obvious how much Darkwing Duck means to frank, and in crafting a version of darkwing that had the same inspiration he does, i.e. the tv show, he gets to lovingly show it. To show how a cartoon can really impact someone and make their life better and be an important part of their life, to show kids i’ts okay to let that happen and to let the adults watching this show, those who watched the original and realitive newcomers like me, that you are seen. 

It also cleverly defines this version of Drake: the orignal was your classic Jerk with a Heart of Gold: doing the superheroing mostly for his own ego, being short and assholish with his best friend and daughter, not wanting to share his spotlight. But underneath it as a true hero who genuinely loved those people and lets them make him better. 

This drake still has flecks of the old darkwing ego, especailly in Moonvasion which again i’ve already covered, but he’s mostly just an earnest guy who wants to be someone for kids to look up to. He wants fame, respect and to live out his dreams being a superhero, sure, but he wants to do so at it’s core to help the helpless and inspire kids like him. He wants to be a hero for all the best reasons that define a superhero: to make lives better using whatever skills he has, to be hope for the hopeless. It’s a key part of what makes this origin work so well: the heart of it. Part of this reboot’s strength is adding depth to things, to give character motivation for why they do stuff.. and they gave drake a perfect one. 

They also cleverly found a use for who darkwing used to be.. by showing what he could’ve been. See Jim , whose been sneaking around, is another key peice of this.... and when he finds Drake, who despite Jim’s earlier assault is geninely kind and tells him how much he means.. Jim beats him up, locks him away and plans to take the roll, his eyes going a familiar shade of crazy as they do. 

Jim is a dark mirror of what Drake Classic COULD have been: Without a higher goal of helping people (If not as high as his reboot counterpart but darkwing still cares abou this job), or two people who truly love him and get him to see past himslef. What’s left is an egocentric, selfish, hot dogging, grandstanding, violet, petty, shell of a man with no great goal in life other than making himself look good and being validated by the world. He’s darkwing’s egocentric need to be noticed and adored turned psycotic. He’ll do ANYTHING to get HIS spotlight back no matter how much he dosen’t desrve it, how much he lost it due to his own behavior and how much someone else badly needs it more for better reasons. He dosen’t need anyone else except to serve or praise him. 

Unsuprsingly Jim Cummings plays this perfectly, and I applaud him: he was asked not only to NOT play darkwing, but to instead play an evil mirror of the character that shares Jim’s own name.. and being Jim Fucking Cummings said “of course” and gave one hell of a perforamnce. The episode is already good just iwth drake.. but giving him Jim to contrast with puts it over the top. 

This thus leads to our climax and one of the show’s finest scenes and probably my faviorite: Jim takes up the roll, refusing to give up to Megavolt as boreswan wants because symbolisim!, and ends up taking the villians gun which is an actual HIGH POWERED LIGHTNING GUN .... and I really don’t know why i’m shocked. Dewey probably just stole it from Gyro. He has to make them all pay SOMEHOW. That or scrooge just keeps a storage bin on the set of all of Gyro’s invetnions he took away from the guy before he made the mall pay. Either way I buy it. 

As a fire breaks out, Jim REFUSES to let anyone leave, not caring who dies as long as he gets his moment. Finally seeing his hero for what he is, Launchpad shields boreswan.. when we hear a familiar catchphrase...

                   I am the terror that flaps in the night,  I am the overstuffed burrito that spills in the lap of crime!                                   I am DARKWING DUCK!

With those word, a legend is reborn. Props to Chris for absolutely nailing his first terror that flaps in the night speech and for the writers for absolutely nailing what made them work. 

So a battle natrually ensues, as Drake shows off just how “scrappy and resilient” he is, having shrugged off the door earlier and walking off explosions and getting a piano knocked on him.. all to keep getting up. it dosen’t matter if the person who taught him that is the person knocking him down...he won’t stop getting up.

This leads to a BEAUTIFUL fight sequence as both darkwings fight hand to hand. Scrooge dosen’t interfere.. because he can’t tell them apart. Despite wearing diffrent costumes and him being you know mr.see all the angles. 

Oh and he also brings up “If only one of them had a moustache”, as there’s been a whole runner about him thinking film villians need Dick Dastardly mustaches

Back to the fight it’s utterly spectacular, with Launchpad running to turn the sprinklers on... after giving out a let’s get dangerous with his future boyfriend and both geeking out over it. This might be the most relatable episdoe of the entire show. 

Eventually just as Jim is about to decaptiate Drake with a chainsaw, Launchpad begs him to stop giving a heartfelt speech, which actually gets Jim to drop it. We also get the iconic line of “He knows a lot about this one thing”. Just thought i’d mention it. 

Sadly Jim’s story does not end happily as he once again lets his own ego get int he way, shoving Drake out of the way to save Launchpad when the last pylon overloads, seemingly dying doing something GOOD for once.

The film is shut down.. not because of the tragic death of a douchebag.. but because they didn’t get any of that and Scrooge is VERY stupid and dosen’t get he’s not getting ANY money back not continuing production or just you know HIRING A BETTER DIRECTOR. 

Whatever, back to our boys. Drake is not in a great place: his hero is dead after trying to kill him, his film is gone, his career is gone.. but Launchpad has a suggestion: be Darkwing for real. He has the talent, he looks good in a cape, and gizmoduck does it. (”And I am better than gizmoduck” proving some things never really change). With that Drake decides to take his soulmate’s advice to heart, signs the poster and reveals his name, becoming who he was born to be... a hero. 

And as a hero rises.. so does a villian as we catch up with Jim whose still alive.. but his mind is now throughly gone.. and his costume now a VERY familiar shade of yellow. 

It was all a setup! That hack put my fan in danger to steal                                           the glory and humiliate me! 

                         They want “grim and gritty”, huh? 

                                        Happy to play the part... 

And with that.... Negaduck.. is also reborn.  He WAS supposed to show up in let’s get dangeorus, but the crew felt it’d be a bit too crowded so they save dhim for season four

So yeah unless Frank rightfully gets to reboot the show, which given he gave them TWO backdoor pilots for it, they better, this will never be resolved and I can’t blame the crew. They had SO MUCH ELSE to unpack in season 3 before the finale in case they didn’t get renewed, that some things just wren’t going to.Still a damn fine villian origin

Final Thoughts:

This episode is pretty good: amazing acting with Chris Dimatopouls perfectly stepping into the role and Jim perfectly stepping back into an old roll of his.. if not the one people expected, a jaw dropping finale, great chemistry with drake and launchpad. It took a VERY risky narrative idea and paid it off brilliantly. 

As i’ve said it’s only real weakness is the scrooge part of things where he’s made to look like this...

For the entire episode. Boorswan likewise isn’t likeable, coming off as a pretenious twit who dosen’t care about the franchise he’s actively ruining.  Dewey is the only bright spart of that whole messy part of the episode and it drags would WOULD be one of the series best episodes down as a result.  Still ther’es WAY too much good here for this to be a bad one, just not one of the best like it coul’dve been. Still worth checking out. 

If you enjoyed this review, consider joining my patreon to help keep this blog afloat HERE which also helps me hit various stretch goals to do even more reviews. See you real soon!

[smilesthroughfandoms]

Every single episode of Ducktales (2017) Summarized in Roughly in One Sentence or Less!

Thank you Frank and team so much for introducing this family to a new generation of kids while remaining faithful to your source material. I hope you all enjoy my attempts at humor!

Woo-oo!: We don’t really know what’s going on yet but let’s do this!

Escape To/From Atlantis!: “Well I’m wearing a kilt McDuck! A kiiiilt!”

Daytrip of Doom!: They’re all siblings now and I love them all.

The Great Dime Chase!: “Shut up, everyone! I’ve done something brilliant!” (Also: Guess’s who my favorite character is?)

The Beagle Birthday Breakout!: Lena and Webby are best girls, fight me on this

Terror of the Terra-firmians!: This is the Spoopiest episode and also the most heartwarming.

The House of the Lucky Gander!: He’s an asshole but I love him.

The Infernal Internship of Mark Beaks!: He’s an even bigger asshole but I love him.

The Living Mummies of Toth-Ra!: I too would do anything for a good burrito.

The Impossible Summit of Mt. Neverrest!: “If I had a nickel for every person who cursed me with their dying breath, I’d be twice as rich as I already am.”

The Spear of Selene!: Of course Scrooge showed up freaking Zeus.

Beware the B.U.D.D.Y System!: The fusion of Iron Man and Sailor Moon I never knew I always wanted.

The Missing Links of Moorshire!: I always knew My Little Pony had a deadly fandom but this is ridiculous…

Mystery at McDuck Manor!: Took you long enough, Duckworth, welcome back.

Jaw$!: In this house, we love and respect Tiffany. (Also: Whoever came up with this episode title is the coolest person ever)

The Golden Lagoon of White Agony Plains!: Scrooge and Glomgold are in love with Allison Janney, and honestly, same.

Day of the Only Child!: Doofus is even creepier than Lil’ Gideon, and that is saying something.

From the Confidential Casefiles of Agent 22!: *hums James Bond theme intensely to myself*

Who is Gizmoduck?!: He’s not throwing away his shot! (I’m sorry, I had to)

The Other Bin of Scrooge McDuck!: I love Louie in this episode, he’s such a mood.

Sky Pirates… in the Sky!: The Pirates of the Caribbean meets High School Music crossover starring evil Panchito I never knew I needed.

The Secret(s) of Castle McDuck!: We’re all Webby in this episode.

The Last Crash of the Sunchaser!: *ugly sobbing*

The Shadow War, Part 1: Night of De Spell!: Donald finally gets the love he deserves.

The Shadow War Part 2: Day of the Ducks!: *spoiler warning* How is she still alive?!?!?!

The Most Dangerous Game… Night!: David screaming “GAME NIGHT!” is the best damn thing I’ve ever seen.

The Depths of Cousin Fethry!: I love Cousin Spongebob!

The Ballad of Duke Baloney!: Dammit, Frank.

The Town Where Everyone Was Nice!: They’re boyfriends mates, sorry I don’t make the rules.

Storkules in Duckburg!: Storkules is the ultimate Donald Duck fan, we cannot comepete.

Last Christmas!: Somehow the Ghost of Christmas McBrayer is the least surprising thing I’ve ever seen in this show.

Whatever Happened to Della Duck?!: Oh, so that’s how she survived.

Treasure of the Found Lamp!: Dijin is the best character.

The Outlaw Scrooge McDuck!: Yee–and I cannot stress this enough–haw.

The 87 Cent Solution!: *wheezing* Dammit, Frank…

The Golden Spear!: Oh my god, they were roommates!

Nothing Can Stop Della Duck!: Dammit, Frank!

Raiders of the Doomsday Vault!: “So stand out, above the crowd! Even if I gotta shout it out loud!”

Friendship Hates Magic!: Webby gets two friends for the price of one seance!

The Dangerous Chemistry of Gandra Dee!: BEAKS SMASH… THAT LIKE BUTTON! (I’m so sorry)

The Duck Knight Returns!: *spoilers* The single best superhero, origin story-based episode ever! 

Whatever Happened To Donald Duck?!: *sobbing* He’s a good dad!

Happy Birthday, Doofus Drake!: This entire episode is creepier than most indie horror games.

A Nightmare on Killmotor Hill!: All the kids’ dreams are moods… except Huey’s, his dream can go jump off a microwave.

The Golden Army of Cornelius Coot!: Della is just pulling a Donald and adopting any and all kids within arms reach at this point.

Timephoon!: “I’m on it!” *gets struck by lightning* “I’ve immediately failed you!”

Glomtales!: I don’t know what’s more surprising, the fact that Louie won the bet or that they used Glomgold’s theme song takeover as the intro.

The Richest Duck in the World!: Drag them, Owlson. Drag them all…

Moonvasion! Part 1: *deep inhale* D A M M I T F R A N K!

Moonvasion! Part 2: Glomgold is my new favorite villain character.

Challenge of the Senior Junior Woodchuck!: Huey and Violet fight for the right to be crowned the squarest of squares.

Quack Pack!: Radical dude! *insert cheesy 90s riff here*

Double-O Duck in You Only Crash Twice!: We were all simping SO HARD this episode don’t think I forgot!!!

The Lost Harp of Mervana!: Scrooge fails a vibe check.

Louie’s Eleven!:  Is it really a heist movie if something doesn’t go completely wrong?

Astro B.O.Y.D.!: So much ANIME!!!!!!

The Rumble for Ragnarok!: Eh, the MCU did it better

The Phantom and the Sorceress!: Seeing Gladstone suffer brings me an odd amount of joy

They Put a Moonlander on Earth!: They’re lesbians, Harold!

The Trickening!: Did… did no one really tell Launchpad how Halloween works?

The Forbidden Fountain of the Foreverglades!: If I had a nickel for every time a cartoon version of Ponce de Leon died a gruesome death on screen, I’d have two nickels, which isn’t a lot but it’s weird that it happened twice, right?

Let’s Get Dangerous!: *spoilers* THEY ARE A SUPERHERO FAMILY!!!!

Escape from the ImpossiBin!: Scrooge and Beakley are a little too excited to traumatize their family because of their trauma.

The Split Sword of Swanstantine!: Dewey and Webby literally walk in blind, Violet spices things up, and Huey unleashes the Rage™

New Gods on the Block!: The most accurate representation of Zeus ever.

The First Adventure!: Young Donald is one heck of a mood.

The Fight for Castle McDuck!: The sibling culture episode.

How Santa Stole Christmas!: Charles Dickens would approve, probably.

Beaks in the Shell!: Huey ships Fendra and Gyro needs to stop hiding in the closet.

The Lost Cargo of Kit Cloudkicker!: The Battle of Theatre Kids... in the Sky!

The Life and Crimes of Scrooge McDuck!: All the emotional weight was nearly overshadowed by One (1) attractive goth twink.

The Last Adventure Part 1; A Tale of Three Webbys!: They’re so cute! I love them!

The Last Adventure Part 2; The Lost Library of Isabella Finch!: Letting the kids on the plane is the single smartest decision Scrooge has ever made in his life.

The Last Adventure Part 3; Tale’s End!: *ugly, happy, heartbreaking sobbing* Woo-oo!

[gravityfallsweirdgirl]

Ducktales 17 Darkwing Headcanon idea 5: Gosalyn gets kidnapped by the beagle boys

KID-NAPPED 2

This is my version on the beagle birthday massacre.

At was another day at the mcduck mansion, Gosalyn was playing with the other kids.

While Scrooge was having tea with drake and having a chat.

"You see, I think it's best if Launchpad comes back working for me" Scrooge says.

"I don't know about that, I don't like the way you treat him" drake says as he gets up.

"And I'm starting to think that coming here was a bad idea" he was about to leave when.

"Hey dad" gosalyn ran in front of him.

"Webby asked if I could join her and the others to funso, I can go"

"Oh I don't know if that's a good idea"

Please dad, I promise everything will be ok"

"Yeah come on drake I'm sure she'll be okay" Launchpad added as drake sees gosalyn's eyes.

"Ok as long as you swear you don't get into any trouble"

"Thanks dad" gosalyn runs to join the others when.

"Ahem, aren't you forgetting something"

She bends her head down in embarrassment and turns around.

"Serious now,, in front of everyone"

"Come over here" he bends his finger to come.

"Ugh" she whined, then she walks over to them, Della and Ms. beakley observed.

Then drake and gosalyn nuzzled their beaks together, he rubbed his on top of hers then on the bottom, then side to side and finally pressing the bride of their beaks together.

"Be careful" he rest a hand on her cheek.

"Love you too dad" she said as she went off.

Moments later Scrooge and drake were close to a break through when...

"Look webby likes having gosalyn around, you take that away and she'll never forgive you" Scrooge said.

Drake didn't like the way Scrooge treated Launchpad but he also wanted gosalyn to be happy.

And if being friends with the daughter of Scrooge mcduck makes her happy, then he'll just have to go through it.

"Ugh alright mr. Mcduck, Launchpad can come back but only if you get to treat him right"

"Yes yes firm whatever" Scrooge says as he puts his hand out, "so do we come to a agreement"

Drake sighed as he looks at the hand unsure to trust him but he was doing this for his daughter.

"We're doing this For the kids"

"Yes for the kids"

They were about to shake to make the agreement illegal when...

Webby and the girls came back but without gosalyn.

"How could you do this to her, Lena" webby yelled.

"Hey you know it was part of the deal" Lena said.

"But she's our friend"

"She was never our friend webby, she was just remember we were supposed to use her get Launchpad back isn't that what the arrangement you're dad wanted"

Drake and Launchpad looked at Scrooge who was smiling nervously.

"Webby likes gosalyn, huh Scrooge"

"Launchpad I-" Scrooge tried to extras drake takes his hand back.

"Scrooge how could you do this"

"Launchpad you don't understand I had to do it, they don't belong here, how can you stay with a man who can't even protect his own daughter"

"Webby how could you do that to gosalyn" Ms. beakley asked, "you are in a lot of trouble young lady"

"I know granny and I'm sorry"

"Where's gosalyn!!" Drake asked as he was mad and furious.

"The beagle boys got her" violet answered then drake storms outside.

"Launchpad lad please try to understand"

Scrooge tried to talk to Launchpad was he was going after drake.

"After we rescue gosalyn, I'm leaving, and besides it's not like you actually care about me"

After Launchpad left, everyone glares at Scrooge and he couldn't help but feel bad.

Meanwhile somewhere in a junkyard, the beagle boys were holding a birthday party for ma beagle.

"MY BOYS!! Look around, you can see the future of Duckberg is ours, It warms my heart to see all of you here together as a family, The original classics, the Glam Yankees, the Deja Vus, the Sixth Avenue Meanies, the Sixth Avenue Friendlies, the Long Board Taquitos, the Deja Vus, the Tumblebums, the Ugly Failures, and the Deja Vus. What do you all have in common? You love your Ma!"

Everyone sings happy birthday to Ma Beagle and when she blows out the candles.

"HEY" someone yelled over in the crowd, they all turned around to see drake glaring at them, his arms were crossed.

"Huh" everyone gasped.

"Listen this is a great party and all-well actually that would be lie, this party is the worst, you guys are villains can't you do better"

His insults angered them as they began to come in closer on him but he holds his hands out in defense.

"But anyway, I hate to interrupt the celebration and I love a good birthday party as much as the next guy but I believe you all have something that doesn't belongs to you"

Ma beagle moves out of the way to reveal gosalyn tied to a rocket.

"Yes her, if you would just please hand her back to me, we'll just be on our way and you don't have to see us again-"

"Oh no, she needs to be taught a lesson for not entering into our territory" ma says.

"Look I didn't mean to, I was set up, I was tricked into going here, I'll never come here again" gosalyn panicked.

"she's going to a beautiful stain on the streets once we light up this rocket," ma laughed and her boys joined in, ticking drake off.

"Hey hey hey, she didn't do anything, now give her back or else"

But his threat just made everyone laugh.

"Ya hear that boys, we got a party crashed, ya know what to do with party crashes" she snaps her fingers.

And immediately drake finds himself surrounded by beagle boys.

"Wait, wait wait, hold up a second" everyone immediately pauses and drake counts them.

"Ok 12356,121719, huh so there's a whole a lot of you and only one of me"

The rest of the boys smiled sinisterly but drake just smiles.

"Wow I have to say you got the advantage of me"

Ma beagle smiles btu then drake frowns.

"But I'm a actor, a superhero and A DAD"

he jumps and kicks big time in the face.

"Get him"ma says.

Burger tried to hit him with a club but drake ducks and kicks him in the face.

He then punches one of the gam yankes with the club, punches the six avenues meanies.

the Long Board Taquitos came charging at him on their skateboards, he takes a club and knocks them off their skateboard causing them to fall on the Sixth Avenue Meanies.

He ducks when the classics ran towards him and they ended up hitting their heads.

The tumblers swing a fist at him, he jumps and pokes them in the eye, they feel back against the Sixth Avenue Friendlies.

the Ugly Failures ran at him but he puts his leg out causing them to trip into the the Deja Vus.

Which just left to ma beagle, when she saw how all her boys were taking down.

She backed away terrified next to gosalyn as she light up the rocket.

Then she ran away when drake made her flinch, then he tries to untie gosalyn before the rocket took off.

"Hurry dad, I like to see fireworks but I don't want to become one"

"It's going to be okay gosalyn"

He had a difficult time trying to untie her when.

"BEHIND YOU" gosalyn yelled.

He turns around and sees bouncer trying to punch him.

He ducks and tries to get away from him but then when they were running in circles, drake finally unties gosalyn and bouncer gets his hand tied and stuck on the rocket.

"Huh" bouncer tries to pull himself away.

"Have a nice flight" drake says as he Carries gosalyn, he jumps off the stage and buries gosalyn's head in his neck when the rocket took off.

After the rocket took off, drakexnad gosalyn look at each other.

"Are you okay, are you hurt do you need a doctor, I'll go get Louie" drake asked as he was aware of her safety then his.

"No dad, it's okay I'm fine" but gosalyn assured him, she was okay.

"Come on" he kisses her forehead and carries her in his arms, "let's go home"

"But we're going to miss the fireworks" gosalyn said.

"What fireworks" drake asked.

Gosalyn pointed out in the air to see the fireworks.

Then they both looked at each other and smiled then continued to watch the fireworks.

"Well this is a beautiful site but I seen better things" drake says as he looks at gosalyn.

Meanwhile somewhere in a dumpster, bouncer landed, dizzy from the crash.

[mochuelovelli]

Fix-It AU for the Moonvasion Arc!

I would like to preface this by saying that this is gonna seem real fanfic-y and for that I am sorry. I want to bullet point some ways to change some aspects of S2 from Whatever Happened to Donald Duck?! onwards.

Whatever Happened to Donald Duck?!:

The segment that shows the McDuck/Duck family tree has Donald Crossed out not because he is captured but Lunaris PLANNED to kill him before going to Earth once he would basically tortured him for information

Donald is tripped by Lunaris which makes him land on Penumbra, allowing him to sneak the device under his hat as it falls off without Lunaris noticing. After Lunaris explains his plan he throws Donald and the scene transpires as normal, save for Don attaching the clamp to Lunaris and finding the remote. 

Lunaris still ends up getting the upper hand and punching Don away but he reveals the remote and presses it. Only for it to, of course, get broken on impact and the rest of the scene transpires normally.

[Here is the biggest change]The rocket DOES end up exploding. It makes it to Earth's atmosphere but of course the bullet hits one of Scrooge's satellite and rickashays back to the moon again. Upon realizing he is going to crash, Donald jumps out but just in time as the blast from the pod knocks him semi-conscious.

Last shot is him falling toward a crater and shows Donald gaining conscious only for him to see he is falling into the moonmite's mouth but doesn't reach beyond making a groan and the scene cuts to black with the jaw snapping sound (alternatively it can just cut to black as he falls)

The Jones Scene ends with Scrooge saying the same line about not paying Donald bills. Only he also adds once closing the door, "Fallacious tightwad, I ain't payin' for some leeching city counselor. I'll find that lad a proper therapist when he gets back. One that doesn't have an arachnoid infestation." *cue spider coming to crawl on Scrooge's face before he chucks it off*

Webby's line is cut down to "Well I guess there really wasn't some big mystery to solve." But the kids' lines stay the same frome there on.

Scrooge gets only Donald screaming "Uncle Scrooge!" before the audio cuts to audio to one of Mrs. Crackshell-Cabera's novelas due to the satellite being damaged(does that make sense? No but neither do moonpeople). You could probably make a suggestive joke here about cruises and Scrooge's line can stay the same. The camera pans up as the line is delivered still but it is just a shot where the moon is in focus. That or it's the satellite falling instead.

Happy Birthday, Doofus Drake! until Moonvasion:

(know it would be a pain in the ass, but I think it be cool to edit the intro to remove/replace Donald during the time he isn't shown in an ep. Though I guess they don't change the intro until season 3 so yeah. Mainly wanted to give the illusion that he is "missing" to scare anyone under 8 that "oh no maybe he is GONE gone just to be a prick

The Golden Armory of Cornelius Coot!

Trim down the Bigtime C plot like a LOT. Maybe end that original scene with Ma Beagle by having Bigtime lean on something (statue, standing on some "moss") and fall down to the caves. 

The cart scene with Bigtime still happens but that cut back from Launchpad and Della doesn't happen until after Della yells at Launchpad when she is flying. (So not the scene where Louie is kicking rocks)

Maybe cut the scenes where Bigtime is bragging about "finding a name for himself" and just have one scene where he ties up the boys and saves his family but they argue and waste time til Della and Webby come back. The end where Ma says BT is welcome back is cut as well, she just says it and then complains about the popcorn

After the scene with LP, Della and Webby, the camera pans up to the sky so a transition to the moon happens. Transition zooms out to reveal Penumbra looking at the Earth with her spear, before she turns upon hearing the moonmite screech and readys herself.

The moonmite is then shown crawling up from a hole at first by itself before Donald's torse is revealed, his hair is a bit longer and feathers are ruffled. Penumbra stands down and looks a bit more open before asking "Did anyone see you?" 

Donald just says no before hopping off, of course falling along with the equipment he brought. The shot is focused on Penumbra looking towards Donald's silhouette as he gets up.

She then asks "How's the leg?" To which the camera cuts back to Donald and we see him in full view, his model is similar to when he is on the island only way less beard and his hair isn't quite as long yet. But the most notably difference is that his right leg from the knee down is now a golden prosthesis. Don responds with "Fine, thanks for making it for me."

Penumbra turns back as Donald is shown to clumsily put the equipment on a nearby table and says "I couldn't have forgiven myself if I let Della's brother die." Donald nearly falls over again before she turns to face him and asks if he is ready to which he nods before they turn and the camera reveals the broken Spear of Selene. Penumbra's voice is heard then saying "Then Let's get you home." Before the ep ends.

The Richest Duck in the World!:

Everything is the same except when Penumbra calls, She says "This is LT. Penumbra calling for her friend Della Duck!-" [Della's Line] "All of your defense satellite just went down for some reason. Della-" Familiar quacking can be heard and Della even questions it before Donald's voice comes on. "Della!" "Donald!" Della parrots as she grabs the SATCOM box. "There's going to be an invasion! He's coming for the kids!" Episode ends the same from here.

[I'll make a second post l8r since I planned this to come out before 10 and it's already almost 1130 so yeah. Literally all these changes are basically to set up a bit of a stronger connection between Della and Donald (as well as giving Donald more screen time) by having the twins mirror each other a bit more. I personally headcanon that like Donald, Della is unlucky as well but in a different way. Where Donald has bad luck everyday of his life which mostly comes in the form of physical harm (secondly it would be emotional harm), Della's bad luck comes in the form where she is just as "lucky" as the rest of her family (maybe discounting Louie) but while she enjoyed 20ish years of adventuring relatively unscathed, she then crashes on the moon after a freak storm happens and is stuck there for over a decade. To me, her struggles on the moon in Whatever Happened to Della Duck?! And The Golden Spear! really showcases her bad luck, almost as if the universe decided to throw the biggest karma bomb at her all at once. But just like her brother she is fuelled with determination and love for her family in order to survive anything, she just has to do it all by herself (another thing which is worse for her bc she doesn't have them) at that point. And it isn't a one and done thing, it's something permit as she now is literally 11 years behind on parenting and the show continues to show her stuggle with that. By having Donald lose his leg and have a journey back to his family that's quicker than Della's (along with having company from nearly the beginning) it parallels that unluckiness the Duck twins have. It also can serve as a plot for future eps (well fake eps lmao). 

Ik that this au wouldn't have been possible as Disney would be really anal about having one of their mascots have a total design change. Unless they really wanted to milk having characters with prosthetics for park days or whatever, maybe it wouldn't be THAT big of a deal aside from some fluff articles. I realize though, it might overshadow Della's trauma so ideally I would hope to figure out or map out an ep where it would be addressed along with some other family issues.] 

[nitr0glycer1ne]

Ducktober/Duckvember 9 - Headcanon

Hi! My writing schedule for this is very hectic, but I've been working a lot lately and Death Stranding is out, so both of these have been keeping me busy... sorry!! I'll do my best to catch up on duck fics! I did a combo with this one since it features 3 headcanons of mine :) More on them in the notes at the end, so I don't spoil the story! Also first time writing Panchito and José so I’m stocked!! Enjoy!

It was supposed to be a calm Saturday in the McDuck Mansion.

Mrs Beakley was cleaning the hallways, Huey was absorbed in trying to earn his calligraphy Junior Woodchuck badge, Dewey was filming yet another episode of Dewey Dew-night in the triplets' room (even though it was the middle of the afternoon, since his filming sessions had been rescheduled courtesy of Donald and Della’s joint efforts), Louie was teaching Webby the ropes of advanced kart drifting techniques in his favorite racing game, Della was busy doing some maintenance work on the Cloud Slayer, and Launchpad was at an amusement park with Drake and his friend's adopted daughter Gosalyn. And since everyone was busy doing rather calm activities, Scrooge had taken the opportunity to sit in the library, comfortably seated in his favorite armchair, newspaper on his lap and a cup of warm tea on the small table near him, within hand's reach.

It was supposed to be a calm Saturday – “supposed” being the keyword.

Suddenly, an abominable noise akin to a deafening mix between a dying screech and an explosion vibrated through the whole house, startling all its inhabitants. Right after that first audible assault, a guitar riff resonated in every corridor and every room, its melody (if you could call it that) generously peppered with false notes. And as if it wasn't enough, a stream of somewhat rhythmic banging was added, and soon after what could only be described as the sound that someone recklessly stepping on a piano would make.

“What is that?!” Louie screamed, more annoyed than scared. He had looked forward to spending a normal day for once and was most displeased with the horrid cacophony. “I have no idea!” Webby answered excitedly, dropping her controller. “Let's investigate!”

The girl dashed out of the room, and Louie had no choice but to follow her. He really didn't want to, but the sooner they found the source of the disturbance, the sooner he could get back to his video game. As the ducklings were running in the corridors, trying to find the room the problem was coming from, they came across a very irritated Dewey.

“I was doing an interview!” he explained. “Whoever or whatever is making that noise will have to do some serious apologizing!”

Louie rolled his eyes, and the three kids kept running. They ended up in the entrance hall, the noise getting louder with every step; when they reached the bottom of the stairs, Della, Huey and Mrs. Beakley were already busy trying to locate the source of the noise. Said noise was still barely bearable; Huey in particular was looking particularly distressed, his hands tightly protecting his ears.

“What is going on here?!” Della yelled, her voice hard to hear above the cacophony. “I thought it was you, Dewey!” “What?!” the duckling shouted, offended. “Why would you think that?!” “Shut up!” Louie screamed as he held Huey’s right shoulder and pressed his older brother close to him, to comfort him and do his best to soothe his nerves. “You’re making it worse!”

Dewey was about to answer the youngest triplet but was cut short by his great-uncle joining them in the hall. Curiously, although he should have been the most annoyed by the sudden racket, Scrooge looked tired and resigned rather than angry. That startled even Mrs Beakley, who couldn’t help but ask:

“Mr McDuck, do you have any idea what-” “Yes, I do, Beakley.” he sighed, rolling his eyes and making his way to the manor’s right wing. “And I’ll put an end to it.”

Webby was the first to follow him, followed closely by Dewey and her grandmother. Louie stayed behind with Huey, waiting until his brother’s breathing had slowed down before they joined the rest of the group. They found themselves in the garage, where the noise was so loud it was painful to bear.

Since Launchpad had moved to live with Drake and Gosalyn the week before, the mansion’s garage had been eerily quiet without the constant, faint sound of Darkwing Duck reruns, or more recently, old rock songs. Now, however, the garage was anything but quiet, and the manor’s inhabitants understood why when they opened the door and found themselves face to face with what seemed like a fever dream.

Donald was wearing an old, tattered flannel shirt Della was sure he must have gotten as a birthday present twenty years before, and he was playing on an equally old electric guitar, his fingers running on the instrument with a surprising speed, but with a disastrous result. Donald had also combed his hair to resemble a fringe, falling on his forehead, stopping right before his eyes that were tightly shut closed as he was passionately shouting in what was probably an attempt at singing. Next to him, an antique accordion was propped on a chair, next to a flute and an acoustic guitar.

He wasn’t alone: two other persons were with him, and the four children were surprised to recognize him as Donald’s best friends, the ones they had met back in Brazil.

Panchito still had his sombrero on, but he was wearing tight denim pants and a leather jacket with shining spikes on the shoulders rather than the bright red outfit he had worn when they first met him. He was also singing, and was sitting behind worn drums, playing them with all his might, the sticks banging ferociously against the instrument. José was as into their “musical number” as his friends: he was standing behind a keyboard, hands expertly gliding on the keys, playing somewhat better than Panchito and Donald – which wasn’t saying much. He had gone through a wardrobe change too, wearing a white shirt with more buttons undone than fastened and slick black pants. José was singing his heart out as well, and sometimes his left hand left the keyboard to reach for a tambourine and shake it for a bit.

Huey and Della were in absolute disbelief at the scene, while Louie snorted and quickly reached for his phone, recording the disastrous attempt of a musical performance. Webby was confused, blinking quickly and looking at her grandmother for answers to her silent questions, Mrs Beakley answering only with a tired sigh. Scrooge was about to charge towards the trio, cane in his hand, but Dewey was quicker and louder:

“UNCLE DONALD, WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!”

His scream was so loud that Donald and his friends stopped immediately, drawing sighs of relief and pleasure from everyone else. He opened his eyes, and found himself face to face with a very angry duckling.

“Oh, bom dia, Donald’s family!” José greeted, not fazed in the least by Dewey’s tone or attitude. “It’s been a while!” Panchito added, smiling. “Yeah, yeah, hello. It’s not everyday that I can get prestigious guests on my show, and just when I was about to start interviewing Glomgold, you had to do… whatever that is!” “Glomgold?!” Scrooge almost choked as he heard his rival’s name. “Yeah!” Huey chimed in, having finally calmed down since the source of his discomfort had disappeared. “Do you really have to play so loud?” “And so false?” Louie added, saying out loud what everyone thought.

Donald looked a bit distraught, and Panchito and José looked at each other, confused.

“We weren’t playing out of key!” the rooster countered. “Si, it has been a while since we last practiced, but-” “It was atrocious.” Della provided. “Aw, come on, Dellita!” Panchito brushed her off. He stood up and ran to properly greet her, giving her a tight hug. He hadn’t seen her since she had visited Donald between two flights during his college days, and his duck friend had told him and José all about what had happened to her. “Come here! I’m so happy to see you!” “Sim, Della, you haven’t aged a day!” José smiled after giving her a hug of his own. “Flattery isn’t gonna make me less mad about you!”

Donald couldn’t help but feel a strange sensation in his stomach as he saw his twin sister reuniting with his best friend, a warm feeling tinted with nostalgia that brought a tear to his eye. He blinked it away, and when he opened his eyes, it was to find himself face to face with Scrooge, who was looking particularly crossed.

“Lad, the “no band practice in the manor without my permission” rule still applies.” “Uncle Scr-” “Band practice?!” Webby squealed, running away from Panchito ruffling her hair to Scrooge and Donald’s side. “I didn’t realize! It’s true that the three of you were the Three Caballeros! Since you said that last time, I did some research but didn’t find anything online!” “We were very, ehm, how do you say? Ah, underground!” José provided. “But I could give you a cassette we recorded. I have several back home.” “Aww, you kept them?” Panchito beamed, throwing his arms around his friend. “I’d love to, Mr Carioca!” “Please, call me José, docinha.” “Why… why would you want that?!”

As Webby explained how happy she was to put her hands on a tangible piece of Donald Duck’s history, Panchito and José decided to back their friend up, since said friend was looking a little guilty under Scrooge’s severe glare.

“Scrooge, sorry! We were so happy to celebrate the Three Caballeros’ revival that we might have gotten a bit carried away!” the parrot apologized with a smile. “Yeah!” Panchito added, firmly patting the old duck’s back. “We’ll be more careful in the future, promise!” “What do you mean, in the future?” Mrs Beakley sternly asked, her head already aching at the perspective of having to endure more of this torture. “You didn’t tell them, Donald?!” José gasped.

The duck rubbed the back of his neck, embarrassed.

“I… was waiting for the right moment and didn’t have the occasion?” “Told us what, Donald?” Scrooge squinted, sensing something not pleasant in the least was about to happen. “Donald said that since your garage was free now, we had all the space we wanted to practice and work on new songs for our upcoming album and concerts! Los Three Caballeros are officially BACK!” Panchito loudly exclaimed, José smiling in approval and Donald feeling very, very little under his uncle and Mrs Beakley’s intense stares.

A collective groan ensued, save for Webby’s enthusiastic “Yeah!”.

-

It was my first time writing Panchito and José, I hope I got them right! I took Spanish as a 2nd language (French being my mothertongue, English was my 1st foreign language in school, Russian my 3rd and Latin my 4th. Sadly I've lost almost all of my knowledge in Russian...) and don't speak Portuguese or Brazilian Portuguese so feel free to correct me. More on the 3 headcanons:

1) Sometime after season 2, Launchpad moves out of McDuck manor and goes to live with Drake and Gosalyn, although he still stays close to Scrooge and his family, especially Dewey! It starts as a simple roommates situation, but since I love Drakepad it ends with them in a relationship :)

2) Huey is gifted. It's probably me projecting, but Huey has a lot of traits often found in gifted people: being book smart, having interest in always learning new things and skills, trying to understand everything, being kind and trying to be as helpful as possible, and being easily anxious and prone to anger outbursts. I could go into detail about this haha, in fact I probably will in the form of a fic later in this challenge that will have Huey interacting with someone I also headcanon as gifted c: 2.5) And I can see Louie as being the one to calm him down the most easily when Huey has a spike of anxiety or a panic attack. Louie is good at reading people and he's also quite sensitive, which is why I can see him looking out for his big brother. Dewey just doesn't realize it, I think he has more difficulty reading people and understanding how they feel, especially if they try to hide it.

3) And of course the main focus of this fic, THE THREE CABALLEROS GETTING BACK TOGETHER !!! I really wanna see this in the show, even if it's just in passing. We know that Panchito and José will be in S3, and I really would like to see them and Donald playing music, even if it's just in a flashback or something!!

[lorewytch]

Make a Move Scene..

Authors Note: Hello everyone! ^^ My writing mojo is all over the place at the moment. So sorry I haven’t really posted anything in a few days. I have another finished scene for you from Make a Move. This may be the last scene I post on here until I start writing the full stories so be prepared for more angst, more ducks and more adventure!! This scene is a light and fluffy party scene...and since Scrooge is hosting it, it’s sure to be quite the affair! It might have slight hints (very very slight) of shipping but keep in mind the ages of the kids here is 16. Besides this story will mostly be focusing on Webby’s relationship with her father anyways. Anyway, I love this scene and found it fun to write the banter between them all XDDD Funny story about this scene too: When I first wrote it out, a power outage happened at my house and unfortunately I didn’t save what I had written so one part of the scene had to be rewritten, basically Dewey’s scene with Webby was redone from scratch. I lamented about the lost writing for a couple days before I finally got over it and started to write it again. Man....now if only that was the ONLY time I lost writing due to my computer losing power and/or restarting during the night. ;_;....

Anyways, enjoy!

Glancing at her mirror, Webby brushed a hand through her short hair nervously. Biting her beak she once more gazed down at the purple dress that fit her body almost perfectly. It was slightly loose with a clasp on her right shoulder seemingly holding the entire thing on her body. The glitter on it was almost blinding which is why she chose it. The same with the pink rose hairclip which had replaced her bow. Slowly she looked back at the bow resting on her night stand. Her mind was in chaos, how could she be doing this while her deranged father was on the loose? Granted, she had never spoken to the duck himself. But still, everything she heard seemed to point to him as the bad guy.

Gripping her dress, she tried to erase those thoughts. She needed to enjoy tonight. This was her birthday after all. The triplets had taken two months to wear Scrooge down to give her this. This was a reason to celebrate. She was turning 16 today. She was officially a mid teen and a step closer to womanhood.

A knock on her door caused her to look up and see her Granny. “Webby? Are you ready darling?”

Webby gave her Grandmother a bright smile. “Yes! How do I look?” Using her index finger and thumb, she picked up a lower piece of her dress and brought her arm up slightly. Spinning around, she felt like her hair was floating as well as her dress as she stopped before her grandmother once again.

Beakley gave her a somewhat sad smile. “You look absolutely beautiful darling.” Finding a tear slide down her face, Webby blushed a bit and grinned.

“Thanks Granny…” Blinking, she became surprised as her grandmother wrapped her within a warm hug and she returned it with everything she had.

“Well then, lets go and show you off..” Beakley smirked and took her hand. But as they walked towards the staircase she list off several ways to keep herself and others safe should the worst happen.

“And finally..” Beakley took her daughters shoulders in each hand and lowered herself to her height, staring deeply within her eyes. “If anyone asks you to dance…..you know what to do.”

“Right!” Grinning, Webby clenched her hand into a fist. Giving her a kiss on the top of her head, Beakley let go and watched from the side as Webby made her way to the top of the stairs.

Glancing down the stairs as she began to walk, she saw the triplets near the bottom of the staircase. All three were chatting to each other and Dewey laughed as Louie smirked. Huey rolled his eyes and smirked at his younger brother. Scrooge was by the punch bowl with Goldie of all ducks. Launchpad, dressed to the nines was chatting with Duckworth who was standing near the front door with a raised eyebrow and seemed to only be half hearing the rambling.

A few other guests including Gyro, Fenton, Selene and Storkules also seemed flitter about the room.

Finally, she reached the top of the stairs and the triplets instantly looked up. She couldn’t help it, she let out a giggle as Dewey’s lower beak hit the floor. Huey looked almost equally shocked, blinking three times before his face returned to normal. Louie, to his credit had a hand covering his bill to stifle his own slight gasp before he sent a smirk and elbow jab to the middle child. Now he was smiling slightly and nodded to Webby as she slowly walked down the staircase. Now it seemed as if everyones eyes were on her and she had to admit, it made her feel extremely nervous.

But as she reached the last step, a hand was waiting to take hers.

It was Scrooge McDuck with a warm smile.

Feeling excited, she took it and let him lead her through the parting crowd towards the dance floor.

“Webbigail, you look absolutely breathtaking.” Scrooge commented and once again she felt her cheeks warm.

“Thanks so much Uncle Scrooge.” She said a bit shyly, but was almost skipping with him.

“Would ye like to dance? Aye know I’m a little rusty but..” Scrooge hummed and bowed.

Squealing a little in excitement, Webby nodded and took his hand. Scrooge swept them both across the floor to the dance floor and Webby looked up at her mentor with pure happiness. All those years locked within the mansion, finally her wishes were coming true. Scrooge was finally acknowledging her and even wanting her to call him her uncle. She finally had a family she could be happy and proud of. She could finally find something worth protecting just like her mother had. They danced for a few minutes with Scrooge gracefully guiding her.

Spinning her a bit, Scrooge leaned in and winked. “And just between ye and me….Aye got ye more than one gift this year.” He felt proud of himself to see her smile suddenly brighten to the max. She broke away a bit and hugged him around the neck. “Thank you so much!” She pulled away and glanced around. “But…really this is the best present I could ever have…just being here with all my family.” She glanced back at him, rubbing her hands together nervously. “You have no idea how long I have wanted this.”

Scrooge looked at his niece with a soft smile and pat her head gently as to not mess up her hair.

“Lass, don’t yet worry. This will never go away.” He said firmly. “We will always be there for ye.” He glanced up and then looked down with an amused expression. “Aye better go comfort O’Gilt the girl gets jealous so easily.” He chuckled. Webby rolled her eyes. “And it seems ye have a line forming of yer own.” Tilting his head a bit to one side, Webby glanced over to see the triplets.

While at first they all had been staring, suddenly with her eyes on them all three glanced away. Louie was whistling and looking at his hands. Dewey was adjusting his tie looking ten times more nervous. Huey had pulled out his JWG from somewhere and was staring into it, every once in a while glancing up to see if Webby was still looking.

She giggled a bit again and started to walk towards the boys with a smirk. She couldn’t help it, they all looked adorably awkward especially in their suit and ties. Once she got close enough, she held out her hand to all three of them.

“Does anyone want to dance?” She asked with a slight tilt of her head.

All three shared a glance and their nervousness turned into determination. All three nodded and Huey glanced at her. “Yes, I do.” Taking her hand, Huey ran to the dance floor. Blinking, she let the oldest duck triplet drag her behind him.

Yet when they got to the dance floor, suddenly Huey looked a little nervous. He cleared his throat.

Holding his hand out, she took it and he placed his other hand on her waist. They began to dance a little and she could see Huey’s slight stiffness. Still, he was pretty good and she couldn’t help but ask. “Huey you are surprisingly good dancer, where did you learn to dance?”

“Oh, Junior Woodchucks of course!”

“They teach that?”

“I won the expert patches for tap, jazz, ballet, clogdancing and ballroom.” He grinned slightly. “Dewey got Ballroom too, Louie….just did his own thing. Well, you’ll see in a bit.” He chuckled.

“Clog dancing? Cool! You’ll have to show me that sometime!” Webby looked excited about that.

Huey rolled his eyes a bit, but he was smiling. “Only you’d be excited about clog dancing..” chuckling a little, he spun her around and dipped her a bit before bringing her back up and showing off some of his fancy moves. Webby herself was up for the challenge and narrowed her eyes with a smirk. Trying to control the situation, she soon took the lead from the surprised Huey and finished their dancing twirling him and dipping him.

“Woah..” he was breathless and Webby brought him back up with a shrug. They parted as the song ended. Suddenly Louie was there, tapping his brother and Huey stepped back. Waving to her and grinning he let Louie take her hand this time.

“Bye Huey!” She waved with her free hand and then turned her attention to the youngest triplet. “Louie! How are you liking the party?” she asked excited as they began to dance.

Both of their hands were clasped together as they danced. It seemed Louie knew less about ballroom dancing than his brothers.

“Oh, y’know its cool.” He shrugged. “A bit boring but I think it’s getting better.” He eyed her dress and smirked. “You certainly clean up well.”

Blushing a bit, she spun them both around in a circle before looking a bit to the side, annoyed. “Louie!”

He laughed a bit. “Sorry Webs I couldn’t resist.” Grinning he spun her around and into his chest. Her back pressed firmly against his chest she looked up at him.

Sticking her tongue at him she smirked and spun out, extending her free hand out and bringing herself back, taking his hand. They swung their arms in time with the song and she looked around a bit before looking back to her dance partner. “Hey…Louie..”

“Mmmph?” The youngest asked, his relaxed gaze upon only her. She looked like she was struggling to say something. Then sighed and shook her head.

“Nothing, nevermind..” She gave him another small smile and soon their song was over. As she slipped her hands from his, Louie tilted his head and gave her a worried look.

“Look Webs, whatever is bothering you. You know you can come to any of us. Sometimes it just helps to talk stuff out y’know?” He smiled and waved a bit. The next song was coming on and she nodded. Louie soon vanished and she was watching all the others dancing around her. Thoughts of what had been going on were invading her mind. She couldn’t stop thinking about her father. It was so annoying. She was supposed to be only thinking about tonight.

Ugh, maybe some punch would help her scattered mind.

Quickly she walked to the punch bowl. She downed two cups before Dewey approached her from the side.

“Milady, may I have this dance?” Dewey grinned, bowing. Glancing over, Webby was glad to see him. “Of course!!” She was so happy her best friend wanted to dance with her.

Slipping her hand within his, he slowly led her to the dance floor. Just to show off he spun her a bit as the high tempo music started. It sounded like a classic song from the 80s, but both teens seemed to enjoy it. Laughing, Dewey’s dramatic moves always kept Webby on the edge of her seat. He spun her and released her only for him to appear behind her and grab her hand again. His dancing was a mixture of tango and ballroom. With of course some Dewey flare mixed in.

If anyone could give her a run for her money with dancing, it certainly was Dewey Duck. Smirking and leveling her gaze with his own she opted for her own moves. She was so happy she could feel herself be lost within the music. She caught him off guard and took his hand and wrapped her own arm around his waist, dipping him low and winking. Then bringing him up. Not giving him time to reorient himself, she spun him and expertly placed her foot behind the other. He ended up tripping over it and she caught him, their beaks very close to one another as she once again held him in a low dip.

“Aww Dewey are you falling for me?” She joked and his wide eyes were lost within her own.

“Um…I..” was his intelligent response before he shook himself free from her spell. Smirking he leaned up, a comeback burning his tongue.

“What? you mean you haven’t noticed?”

Surprised by that comment, she didn’t notice as she was bringing him up once more that his own hands were assuming domination over the dancing again. It seemed as if this would go on for a while yet.

Both ducks were so dizzy by the end of the song that they were leaning against each other, catching their breath. Unaware they had several sets of eyes upon them.

“Oh wow…that was great Dewey.”

“You haven’t seen anything yet..” he replied a bit breathless.

Chuckling, she pulled herself up and together the duo made their way off the dance floor. But as she walked, a flash of black and white slid past her peripheral vision. Finding herself distracted, she turned to where she saw that flash. But saw only a small group of people talking and eating. Still, the slight pause caused Dewey to stop as well and glance where she was looking.

“Webs? What’s wrong?” tilting his head curiously, once she brought her head back she gave him a weak smile.

“Oh, no worries. I just thought I saw something…” Her gaze slightly drifted back, as if wanting to will what she saw back within her sight.

Dewey’s grasp on her hand tightened a fraction, once more bringing back her attention.

“C’mon Webs. Take a break from Spy Webby and enjoy the party.” Smiling, he dragged her over by the food table. “Besides, no one is going to break into this party..” laughing, he pointed to Duckworth who was standing guard at the front doors. “After all, we have the best security around.”

Once her eyes met food Webby instantly grabbed a few things. “You’re right.” She laughed a bit and glanced back at the front door as well. “There’s no way he would show up here anyways..”

“He?” Dewey frowned. But Webby didn’t answer.

Instead her mind seemed to be everywhere at once, her eyes drifted to the barrage of guests at the party. She was so distracted she didn’t notice the flurry of emotions flittering across Dewey’s face. Instead her eyes were focused straight ahead.

She scanned the room, trying to see someone that she knew couldn’t be there. But the pounding of her heart, the electric pulsing of the air. Everything seemed to indicate that something was very wrong.

Suddenly she saw it.

A man wearing a cape and his eyes covered with a black mask. Even with his face covered the hairstyle was unmistakable.

Briefly she heard Dewey yell out her name. But she was already on her feet, running through the group of people.

She saw Selene glance at her, saw the startled expression of Scrooge and Goldie on the dance floor. She even saw her Granny near the refreshment stand.

But then her focus was to the masked man before her sliding through the guests until he reached the middle of the room. As Webby stopped and reached out, he lifted one arm up, fingers splayed out.

He snapped his middle and thumb.

A click echoed within the now silent room.

Darkness enveloped the room.

Chaos reigned.

“Someone turn on the blasted lights!” Scrooge raged.

The sounds of people stumbling over each other and frantic yelling echoed within the room. Selene held out a orb of light and after a few more tense minutes finally the lights blared back on momentarily blinding everyone in the room.

“What in blazes what that?” Scrooge hissed.

A sudden yell directed his attention to the middle of the room.

Huey, Dewey and Louie were frantically looking around and reached the middle of the ballroom at the same time Scrooge did.

Webby was no where in sight.

Webby had vanished.

[adamarinayu]

Musings

So today I rewatched the Parent Trap (1998) and I had forgotten a huge chunk of it. I’ve been wanting to watch it since I first suggest the Family Trap AU.

Obviously the Family Trap goes a looot differently, considering there’s 3 of them trying to reunite their uncles, but it was just fun to watch again. Also I’ve only been to a summer camp once in my life and it was 11 years ago, so I was sort of reacquainting myself with camps and it gave me some ideas.

Arrival;

Huey comes to this camp every year, so Donald doesn’t have to worry about him being home alone, and everyone who isn’t new recognizes him- I mean he is basically THE Junior Woodchuck. The camp is pretty far away from Duckburg, however, so Donald doesn’t take Huey directly to camp; Huey rides the Junior Woodchuck bus. He’s the first of the triplets to arrive.

Louie is taken directly to camp by Gladstone, who gives him a nice long hug before Louie goes to check in (and is hesitant to let go because his little Louie has never been away from him for that long). They drive up in a really nice, fancy car, like a Benz or Corvette or whatever the Duck equivalent would be. Either way, it is nice. Louie arrives second, while Huey is in the cabin.

Dewey is taken directly to camp by Launchpad, but is accompanied by Scrooge. They drive up in the limo; this, of course, turns heads. Scrooge and Dewey say goodbye in the limo, as Scrooge doesn’t fancy getting mobbed by curious excited children, and Dewey goes to check in. He arrives last, while now Louie is in the cabin and Huey is off helping some newbies.

First Meeting;

The first day is a whirlwind of activity, with people arriving and checking in all day and being assigned cabins. There’s four people to each cabin, and Huey, Dewey and Louie are, probably thanks to residual luck from Gladstone on Louie, in the same cabin. 

They do not meet in the cabin.

Instead, they meet down by the lake. Huey is sitting by the water, watching some bigger kids roughhouse, when Dewey barrels right over him, tripping straight into the water (and accidentally dragging Huey with him). Huey is, naturally, shocked by this, and the water is cold so now he is cold. Dewey is apologizing profusely, his accent getting steadily deeper as he does, because he did not see Huey sitting there, he’d been so focused on getting to the pier. Louie, just casually walking by, offers to help the two soaked ducklings out of the water.

Their hair weighed down with water, it falls on their foreheads in a way very similar to how Louie’s hair is (just, Louie’s hair is less, well, wet), which when he notices causes Louie to accidentally let go while pulling them out of the water. Dewey at first thinks Louie is an absolute jerk because ye did that on purpose ye blasted chicken! but Huey, much more observant, notices Louie’s surprise. It gets cleared up pretty quickly though, the hard feelings don’t last once Dewey understands it was an honest mistake.

Introductions;

“I’m Dewey McDuck.” “McDuck?!” “As in the bajillionaire?!” “Er, he’s only a trillionaire, but yeah. Scrooge McDuck’s me uncle. He raised me.”

“I’m Louie Gander. I was also raised by my Uncle Gladstone.” “Gladstone Gander? Isn’t he that lucky duck?” “Yeah. I mean, he identifies as goose, not duck, but...” “Oh, sorry!.”

“I’m Huey Duck. Funnily enough, my uncle’s my guardian too. His name’s Donald.” Dewey looks wide-eyed at Huey. “Why are you looking at me like that?” “You were raised by Donald Duck?!” “Er, yeah- how do you know him?” “Sailor Donald Duck?!” “I mean he used to be a sailor... and we live on a boat...?” “Donald Fauntleroy Duck?!” “Okay, Dewey, you’re getting creepy...” “Tell me everything!” Louie is just Confusion as Dewey drags Huey closer by the collar of his sweater. “Everything!” Louie can’t help but think “isn’t this supposed to be the other way around?” Huey thinks Dewey is thinking of the wrong Donald Fauntleroy Duck. Dewey is just eager to write back to Webby with his findings.

Huey and Louie are so confused about why Huey being raised by Donald is such a big deal, so Dewey explains it. Huey laughs so hard he falls to the ground, trying to breathe. “My uncle, an adventurer! Oh man, you got the wrong duck!” Louie just shrugs. “I don’t know nothin’.” Dewey is confident he’s right.

Activities/Camp;

Of course, the three of them are inseparable within a day (each one finally feeling “complete” for the first time ever), doing all of their activities together, or at least watching each other play theirs.

They’re all pretty good at a range of things, but Huey is better at academic games, Dewey is better at the physical activities, and Louie is better at cardgames/guessing games. You can’t beat Huey at chess, Dewey at archery or Louie in poker.

However, Huey is the only one of the three who knows boating. The three of them go on the lake often, when there’s nothing else going on that interests them... they learned quickly to not let Louie handle the directions (it took Dewey taking the map for him to realize Louie wasn’t even looking at the correct side of the map, and therefore not the correct lake). Louie excuses it as having never needed a map, as he and Gladstone just “follow the wind.” Dewey and Huey decide this explains a lot.

Triplets;

They figure out they’re triplets when, one night a week or two into camp, they’re all missing their uncles. Louie misses Gladstone terribly, while Dewey misses Scrooge pretty badly too. Huey misses Donald but is more used to this than the other two are. They start telling each other about their uncles and their lives in general.

“Uncle Donald makes breakfast every morning, even when he has a shift at 7 AM. He makes something different every day of the week. Man, I’d kill for his pancakes right now.”

“Uncle Scrooge insists on having tea every evening at 5, when we’re home anyway. He drags Mrs. Beakley, Webby an’ Launchpad intae it, too. It’s really nice, actually, tae just relax an’ talk.”

“Uncle Gladstone takes me to all these really cool restaurants. When we can we’ll sit outside and play this game- we choose a colour and count the cars passing. Green is off limits, since it’s both our favourite colour.”

Just little things like that, including their uncles’ relations to their mother, until Louie, wanting to test his theory that Dewey and Huey might be his brothers, mentions his birthday. They other two are surprised and basically say in unison “my birthday’s October 17th, too!” Emboldened by this, Louie mentions his parents are gone; Huey and Dewey confirm theirs are too, finding this very strange; they were all hatched in Duckburg on the same day, to a mother who was no longer around. Louie, becoming a bit nervous at this point, admits to them he’d seen his own hatch certificate that named him as part of a multiple hatching- triplets.

At this point Huey and Dewey realize what Louie’s getting at. So what do they decide to do? Why, break into the camp’s office and find their hatch certificates, which lead to the conclusion that they are, in fact, triplets.

The switch;

The three of them come up with a plan to get to know their estranged uncles; they switch places. Dewey is immediately like “I want Donald!” while Louie is like “I want Scrooge!” So Huey just kind of shrugs and says “Okay then I’ll go with Gladstone. I’ve never been out of the country before, anyway.” It’s as simple as that.

As they’re teaching each other how to be them, the plan further develops into; let’s reunite and fix our broken family.

Huey pulls Dewey aside at one point to explain the financial situation and gives him a list of all of his summer activities, explaining that he does them so Donald doesn’t have to hire a babysitter, which would further stress their budget. Dewey thinks Huey is exaggerating but agrees to go along with it, for Huey’s sake. (He finds out later, of course, that Huey is not exaggerating.)

So they make the switch, and when Scrooge and Launchpad come to pick Dewey up, Louie climbs into the limo. Scrooge gives “Dewey” a hug, happy to see his nephew after weeks apart, and though he does note something seems different about him he accepts it as the time at camp. He doesn’t consider for a moment that it isn’t Dewey. (On the other hand, Webby takes one look at him and knows...)

When Gladstone comes to pick up Louie, he leaps out of the car and gives “Louie” a big hug. Huey is no stranger to these kinds of hugs from Donald. He gets in the car with Gladstone and instantly messes up; the song on the radio is one he likes, which Louie does not at all. Gladstone comments on that but Huey excuses it as having grown to enjoy it at camp. Gladstone accepts this.

Dewey goes back to Duckburg on the bus and reaches the pick-up area. He grabs his bag and goes to find Donald, finding him beside the old station wagon (thankfully at the back of the parking lot). Donald takes one look at him and goes wide-eyed, worrying Dewey. Then Donald says the words that strike fear into Dewey’s heart; “You’re not Huey.” Dewey panics, but then Donald asks “Which one?” and Dewey, worriedly and without thinking, admits he’s Dewey. Donald then breaks down in tears and hugs Dewey tightly, a lot tighter than Scrooge ever hugs him, having thought he’d never see Dewey again. He alternates between amazement that Dewey is in front of him and panic that Huey isn’t there (and is none too pleased to find out Huey is with Gladstone, of all people).

So that’s all my musings for this AU tonight, I’m sure I’ll have more later. I love this AU so much.

[owlsong74]

assorted thoughts on the Neverrest ep

Non-spoilery overall thoughts: I enjoyed this one more than both the Mark Beaks and the Mummies episode, but I’m not sure where it fits among the rest yet… mmm.. probably not as good as Beagle Birthday or Gander but better than Dime and Daytrip. A lot of fun either way, with some great character moments with Dewey & Webby and Huey & Scrooge! The music was also really good here (this is the first episode it really stood out to me). There were a couple things that didn’t work for me but overall still super enjoyable.

Ducktales Spoilers below the cut

- …so there actually is an xmas reference right in the first 30 secs. moving the episode up actually makes sense then i guesssss…

- im sorta disappointed tbh. i was happy DT wasn’t doing an xmas special. oh well. it’s like two lines, so not a huge deal

- Huey getting excited over surveying and cartography =D that’s my boy

- more Dewey and Webby friendship

- oh, i love you dearly Launchpad. but even you are not this idiotic. can we give this poor comic relief character some brains please?

- I love all of their winter outfits!

- Scrooge has no idea what hes doing leading kids into this situation, and there’s no Donald or Beakley to talk him out of it. they’re doomed- help!

- “Just because it’s a myth doesn’t mean it’s not real” yes especially in the disney ducks universe haha…

-… also is that foreshadowing for Della??? bc she’s supposedly connected to the greek godess of selene?

- “We don’t need anything but grit, gumption, and an unwavering–” NO SCROOGE!!! stop! do not pass go! do not collect $20! you’re gonna get your kids fucking killed!

- New info on timeline stuff! as of DT17, “75 years ago” Scrooge had “just made his first million”  2017-75=1942 meaning 1938-40 ish for the DTverse equivalent of the Klondike

- …maybe he’s not 150, but making his first million in 1940 still means he’s really fucking old

- This also makes the anachronistic Statue of Liberty in “great dime chase” make sense. it’s anachronistic for the 1880s but not the 1910s-30s, whenever he came to the US in this universe.

- LOUIE CONSIDERS LP AS FAMILY

- THANK YOU HUEY. VOICE OF REASON.

- I don’t think we’ve had a Scrooge Character Development episode since the pilot, so this is nice.

- portals? this is really, really weird.

- “you’ve made it further than anyone else has, isn’t that enough?… sometimes the bravest thing an explorer can do is walk away.” thanks, Huey. thank you for curbing your grand-uncle’s deadly fucking ambition.

- (i expected this to be a Huey-learns-a-lesson episode and it turned out to be the Scrooge-learns-a-lesson-episode. cool)

- man, this is the sled ride of Webby’s life!!

- “meh”? Webby….c’mon.

- The portals were a bit far-fetched for me? I think mostly because they remained unexplained. Like, everything else either had some sort of connection to the culture, or an explanation, or was just a new take on a Normal Supernatural Thing. These portals, just… didn’t work for me idk. Too far out of left field I guess haha

- also it’s good to get new timeline stuff, but a small part of me is a little sad that scrooge isn’t. just. inexplicably 150 years old. (even tho i know that wouldn’t really work)

[estacha]

HOW TO MAKE “CO-WORKING” WORK FOR YOU! – or a comprehensive guide about how to make your workspace more playful and a good place to be in.

.Hey! So you're a budding start-up or an individual creative and curious about trying out this "co-working" thing that creating a buzz everywhere? You have arrived at the right place! Let us drop a little help and guide for you to get started.

So before we go about exploring how you can start about getting this "co-working" thing to your benefit, let us put it simply before you as to what this "co-working" thing is! So, "co-working" basically is a modern corporative concept where individuals and groups of people come together to work collaboratively or individually in a shared space, basically a concept where strangers work side-by-side to each other. To know more about what are the key benefits of choosing a "co-working" space for you, visit O-Launchpad Best Co-working Space in Bhubaneswar.  

So now we have put our basics into perspective and we know what we are talking about, let us head over to how you can make this work for you.

HIRE A COMMUNITY MANAGER

Hiring a good community manager for your teams is crucial! A community manager is someone who looks after every member of your team, troubleshoots the issues that arise in the space, smoothens out your workflow and plans and streamlines your output, however, a good community manager does all that but also matches your company's ethics and energy and is righteous and motivated.

 Don't get me wrong, but any technical skillset can be learned but soft skills are something that makes a worker stand-out from their alternatives. Let’s be real, most problems in a workspace are not going to be technical, they are going to be frictions between two or more worker and you being the boss will not even get to hear about most of it. 

So getting a good community manager becomes extremely important, hence take time to find one and make sure their energy matches your company's values and are loaded with those "soft skills" we talked about. 

A good community manager will not only keep your team motivated and productive but will also go on to inspire your team to give their best.CREATE A COMMUNITY WALL

This is your space, personalize! Make a community wall and pin Polaroid pictures of your team members. 

Add their achievements and remarks from other members add their birthdays and then maybe describe them in one word and pin it on top of their photos, some companies go as far as adding networking details and even adding fun facts about their members. 

Anything from something as silly as their favorite food or something they keep doing quite often, for example talking too fast or moving their hair too much, can find its place on the member's board. 

Try to keep it as colorful, funny, and friendly as possible. Such a board will make the members know each other more and collaborate in a better way.

 Consider keeping a fishbowl in near the Xerox or Fax machine or near the toilet maybe and ask everyone to drop anything they want to be known “anonymously”. 

This will not only make them feel at ease and be more comfortable, this will also motivate them to give their best and most importantly feel their best!CONSIDER

 YOUR PHYSICAL LAYOUT

Traditional offices have been struggling to make better out of their spaces and arrange and rearrange them in ways to make the space more and more collaborative and make it feel less and less “officy”. But co-working spaces have that advantage along with the thousand other advantages of the traditional office spaces. So, take this as an opportunity and work to get the best out of the space. Personalize, make it more fun and artistic to look at and make work more fun! Consider reinventing your physical layout and personalize as much as possible. Take inputs from other members of your team, this will not only give you valuable insights on personalization of the space but will also make all your members feel as important as you are for the company and fade their hesitance to approach you with their problems or ideas.

 HOST EVENTS

Hosting events is not just about making everyone feel comfortable and collaborate better but hosting little events not just for the sake of hosting events but also to give an opportunity to everyone to network, know each other better, make working fun and getting to learn from each other all this is a fun and playful way.

 Make a calendar for all the upcoming events coming up that month, this will not only keep your team members keep looking forward to something but will also keep them from taking unnecessary leaves because they love their job, if the events are really hosted in a fun and entertaining way! Take a whiteboard and write down all the events that are up-coming on that day.

Some popular ideas include:

Pecha-Kucha: 

A Pecha-Kucha night invites participants to share 20 images each for 20 seconds. This is great for getting new members to know each other or for start-up founders to prep their elevator pitch.

Lunch-and-learn: 

For members, who don't have a lot of time outside traditional working hours; take advantage of the lunch break to host an expert speaker, a book club, a brainstorming session, or member-led presentation about a topic. 

Creative-Mornings:

 If there are a lot of creative types at your workspace, like designers, copywriters, or content creators, host a Creative-Morning. Over free breakfast, an expert in a creative field gives a short talk about what inspires them.

Start-up Weekend:

 The formal organization has hosted 1,800 past events in 500 cities around the world, bringing together developers, designers, marketers, and product managers to pitch ideas, form teams, build prototypes and launch their start-ups.

Work-warming: 

Host a karaoke night on the weekends and invite your team members to chill out and enjoy the weekends with good food and some wine and some fun games with karaoke.

START A COMMUNITY NEWSLETTER

Start a community newsletter, note down all the happenings that took place that month. Add all the advancements that your members have achieved. Mention the smallest of them, if someone offered a breakthrough with a client- add it! If someone came up with an amazing idea- add it! If someone could complete their assigned job within the given time- add it! No matter how small the advancement may be, it would mean a lot to someone and feel appreciated and recognized. Mention all this along with all the other important information like the new additions to your team, the important or the unimportant events coming up that week/month, and who's who.

 Finding all that in one place will only feel your clients feel safe and in secure hands. Keep it playful, keep it creative!

CELEBRATE EVERY LITTLE SUCCESS 

Celebrate every tiniest success of the newest of the members, especially interns, as they are the ones who might have moved newly to the city and missing their families, living below the lifestyle they are used to and made to work more than other members in the workspace. Most times when an intern at a company is happy, the company is considered to be a good place to be in and ethical in a lot of ways. Trust me people leave high paying places/positions for such caring work environments, even with a lesser wage.

 MAINTAIN THE AESTHETICS

One of the best and the most unique things about co-working spaces is that they are designed so beautifully and the aesthetics are taken care of. These places look more like coffee shops and less like offices so that nor just makes workers be at the place for long and be more focused but it also keeps them motivated and inspired and keeps them from taking unnecessary leaves to mentally detox and recharge.By keeping these things in mind and constantly being motivated to be a good boss for your company and for your members you not only attract like-minded people to work with you but you also give your company a more nourishing team of members who believe in the vision that you believe in. O-Launchpad has been helping companies, startups and freelancers by providing them best coworking space that fit into their budget. We are considered as the best coworking space service provider.

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales: The Treasure of the Lost Lamp Movie Reviewcap! (Patreon Stretch Goal)

Hello all you happy people! And we have a special review today for two reasons. The first is that this is my second patreon stretch goal review, having hit the 15 dollar goal back in march thanks to my wonderful friend Emma, the same patreon whose responsible for the Green Eggs and Ham Reviews,  who helped me hit the 15 dollar goal.  As a result you fine people are getting three movie reviews each based on a Disney Afternoon Movie with Treasure of the Lost Lamp today, a goofy movie at the end of the motnh for  a weeklong tribute to my favorite dogmandadguy.  Extremley was going to be part of it but the length of this review convinced me otherwise, but I will be doing it this summer so keep an ear out. If you want to help me hit my next stretch goals do yourselve a favor and zip on over to my patreon YOU CAN FIND MY PATREON HERE. My next stretch goal at “OH Look 20 Dollars” would give everyone patreon and not, a monthly review of Darkwing Duck as decided by my patrons, reviews of BOTH season 2 mini series from Ducktales 87, introducing Fenton to the world and blighting it with Bubba before the 2017 series fixed him, and as a brucey bonus added last month a review of Danny Phantom the Ultimate Enemy. And if that wasn’t enough if you help me get to the goal after that at 25 unlocks another trilogy of disney film reviews, this time for the proud family and recess movie and the best kim possible movie, and dcom period, so the drama as well as Bryan Lee O’ Malley’s two stand alone graphic novels, lost at sea and seconds for you Scottaholics in the audience.

The other reason now the shilling’s done. is that the plan WAS to review this back to back with Treasure of The Found Lamp, to the point the orginal review had a whole thing about that, why it was delayed etc... but now that review’s been scrapped all together as something sudden and wonderful happened. After just kinda giving up someone came through with a translation of Della’s first apperance so presumibly i’ll be doing that as part of the build up to mother’s day, and since I still want ot do maternal instincts too, and already had to let the Floyd Gottfredson birthday special slide away as well... it had to go as I want to leave the only open space on the schedule for the lovely person who found the story for me. But this review is still done, i’m very proud of it so join me under the cut won’t you?

Behind The Scenes: Before I get into it i’d just like to note this article from SyFy Wire. It , along with articles I found via wikipedia citations, was an invaluable resource. 

The film was an experiment: It was an experiment to see if one of their tv properties could bring in theatrical money, to see if a movie made on a cheaper budget and still rake in decent money, to see if a film could be made being outsourced to several diffrent places, and to see what one of those places, their recently aquiried french stuido, could handle this kind of work. 

The film, if succesful would be the first of Disney’s MovieToons line, a series of films based on their shows. As you can tell by the fact only this movie and Goof Troop happened and the Movie Toons label wasn’t applied to that one it very much failed. While the film was warmly recevied by people who liked the show general audiences didn’t turn out for it. As a result the MovieToons label was scrapped, future projects with it were canceled.. but the stellar work put in by the french stuidio lead to it perserviering for several more decades and lead to them working on the Goofy Movie, which we’ll get to later this month but needless to say was a MUCH bigger hit with a much bigger budget. 

As for why the film failed... I have two theories. THe first is that parents were stupid back then and didn’t want to pay to see something on the big screen they could see on tv’s. This is a stupid mentality to me as generally a movie of a tv show puts in a ton of extra effort and usually goes bigger and dosen’t go home. It’s a likely theory given most liscened films of the era didn’t do quite well, with all three hasbro films tanking. And look I get Transformers the Movie is cheesy and killed a lot of people’s childhood toys, but damn if it ain’t aweosme.. and also something I need to cover at some point. Thankfully this died out by later in the 90′s with Rugrats getting a hugely succesful if flawed film, a better sequel and a third one that was also a crossover with the wild thornberries. 

And even now in 2020 we’re getting the Loud House and Rise of the TMNT movies sometimes this summer, we were SUPPOSED to have gotten the bobs burgers movie this summer but arne’t because Disney is being a dick about it.

And we got a phineas and ferb movie last year. With this trend hopefully thsi means we’ll get a Ducktales 2017 movie at some point since season 4 left a huge sequel hook laying right there to grab for a feature film.  One final note: The film was conceptually thought up as a 5 part serial like “Treasure of the Golden Suns”, “Catch as Cash Can”, “SuperDucktales” and “Time is Money, something that DOES show as the movie weirdly has act breaks. In a feature film. Yup. 

The Guest Cast:

I won’t go into the full cast since I’ve sung Alan Young and Russi Taylor’s praises PLENTY on this blog before, and I plan to go into Beakly and Launchpad’s actors when they show up in the pilot movie. But i’d be remiss if i didn’t talk about our three guest actors for our three new parts. 

First up is Merlock voiced by legend and if I had a hall of fame, hall of famer Christopher Lloyd.. I need to get me one of those. Lloyd is of course known for playing Doc Brown in back to the future but has done countless other films, voicework, and other good stuff. Among his MASSIVE filmography includes The Back to the Future Trilogy (Already mentioned it but it bears repeating), Star Trek III, Who Framed Roger Rabbit as the pants destroyingly terrifying Judge Doom, The Addams Family duology as fester, a role rip torn would ironcially play for the animated series made to captalize on said movie, Hey Arnold! The Movie, The Oogieloves in The Big Ballon Adventure (Look everybody needs money sometimes okay?), and Art of the Deal: The Movie, which was not, thankfully an ego filating nightmare made by trump himself but a film made by funny or die parodying his terrible book and having Llloyd return as Doc Brown. TV Wise he’s known for Taxi, Back to the Future the Animated Series, Cyberchase and he most recently popped up on Big City Greens. How I missed that ep I.. do know as I haven’t watched season 2. Gonna fix that later this month. Lloyd is utterly awesome, a great guy and thankfully still alive at the time of this writing, so I was happy to have him here. 

Less familiar to me but still known is Rip Taylor, a comedian known for his flamboyant unique way of speech and his marvelous mustache. He showed up in things occasionally and always seemed like the nicest guy and his passing in late 2019 truly is sad. He does a terrific job here but more on that in a moment. 

Finally we have Richard Libertini, a comedian I never really saw in anything besides this who according to IMDB was most famous for his ablility to do a foreign accent. I REALLY hope all of them aren’t as horribly racist as this one. We’ll.. get to that in a sec as it’s time for the plot!

A Treasure Uncovered:

We open our film gorgeously. The animation is great in the film, having some rough edges I chalk up to the film’s hectic production, the studio being new at working at disney properties, and the film not being meant for HD. That being said a few rough spots here and there aside.. the film looks ungodly gorgeous. Like most theatrical films based on a cartoon it takes an already great style and makes it look great. It feels like a more fluid evolution of the cartoons look and it’s a shame we didn’t get more movies in this style for both this show and others, ESPECIALLY Darkwing Duck. Can you imagine a Darkwing Duck movie with this lush animation? Hopefully we’ll get one eventually. 

So our heroes are going to somewhere in the Middle East. That’s.. that’s all wikipedia gives me and all the film gives me. As usual Scrooge is after treasure in this case the Treasure of Collie Baba, the greatest thief there ever was based obviously off Ali Baba from 1001 nights and that one Beastie Boys song. 

It’s here we find the WORST thing about the film, the thing that makes this a hard one to watch depsite otherwise being pretty good, and that makes my skin crawl knowing i’m a white man and a BUNCH of white guys, Ducktales series creator who did the voice casting for this character, the writers who wrote him, the direector disney them fucking selves who thought this was okay. 

The film has some horrible steroytping. It starts with a bunch of backgorund guys surronding Scrooge, with crooked teeth and steotypical voices. This on it’s own is odious. 

It somehow gets worse. Then we meet one of our antagonists. We meet Dijon. 

This Fucking Guy 

Djon is horribly offensive reminding me of other such luminaries in being ungodly offensive yet somehow getting put to film as Jar Jar Binks (With all respeect to his poor actor Ahmed Best, this is not his fault), Rob Schinder as a Sterotypically asian preist, Skids and Mudflap, Rob Schinder as a sterotypically mexican bandit, The Whitewashed cast of The Last Airbender, and Rob Schinder as a stereotypically asian preist. What i’m saying is Djon is an AWFUL, horribly offensive character.. and that Rob Schinder should be shot up into space, not to watch cheesy movies, he’s not funny enough for that, but instead to be sent to a satlitie that’s liveable, but also filled to the brim with spring loaded boxing gloves. Just tons of boxing gloves that feel like getting punched by a heavewight boxer all hidden... they could hit his legs, his face, his nuts, his face and his nuts, the point is he’s in constnat pain unless he moves carefully. 

And lest you think i’m exaggerating for starters this is his design. 

It just screams “vaugely but sterotpyically middle eastern” along with cowardly. The fact he’s also a literal rat is just the icing on the cake made of broken glass, shrapnel and broken DVD’s of Transformers; Revenge of the Fallen. They say if you eat a reveng eof the fallen dvd John Tutoro appears at the foot of your bed and watches you while you sleep.. and by they I mean me. It was a bad bet. I got rid of him with some insese and a bribe of five dollars. 

Oh but that’s just design.. when he talks it’s MUCH worse. His voice is like if they took Apu from the simpsons and said “This but MORE offensive”, and his perosnality is WORSE. He’s a thief.. and not in the endearing loveable rogue way but he’s a pick pocket and a running “Gag’ is that he’ll often grab eveyrthing within reahc. As the deisgn shows he’s a coward running at every opportunity. Oh and to top it all off he’s the willing servant of the white coded, given all ducks in this series are white coded and voiced bby white actors, big bad. And the actor is naturally VERY white to make this cocktail of offensivness so complete that if Disney ever got rid of this film I GUARANTEE the republcian party would be running in with accusations of cancel culture gone amok and never shutting up about this like they did the muppets. Which for the record THEY DIDN’T CANCEL THEM, YOUR POINT IS ILLEGITMATE, THEY JUST WANTED TO BE SENSTIVE YOU GHOULS. 

I do have a reason for bringing up Disney’s content warnings... most damming of all given just how DEEPLY uncomfortbale this character is.. there isn’t one for this movie. I double checked: There isn’t even wanring notes on the website. It’s just.. on there. And given just how ghastly a sterotype Djon is.. that’s not right. Seriously they DID put them on certain episodes of the show, theyk now this sort of thing is wrong and they done wrong.. but for NO reason they haven’t done so for a film released 31 years ago. Around the same time as the series and just offensive as that show at it’s worst if not more so. This is flatly inexcusable.. par for the course for Disney’s incompetence but still horribly furstrating, disgusting and shameful.. which has been the theme of the last three days really. I expect better because when it comes to putting that warning label on this stuff, they usually are better. First the scheduling mixup and now this. You already do a handful of things wrong Disney why add this to the list?!

It’s just draining not only to run into another Disney Fuckup after a weekend of dealing with one of their worst in recent memory, but just to watch Djon. To see this horrible caractrure saunter onto the screen and go on with his harmful schtick, to see that THIS is what Ducktales 87 reduced non white people to more often than not.  It’s remarkable just how throughly and awesomely Frank and Matt completely and totally reversed this. Instead of horrible sterotypes in the reboot, we got TONS of loveable people of color, an endearing latino hero, a smart african american buisness woman who takes no shit but is still a consumate professional, and an egyptian HERO with an intresting story and a strong moral code instead of this horrible reminder that racisim in media was such an afterthought not ONE person brought this up during the scyfy wire stuff or in any inteview i’ve seen. No one cared. Djon was POPULAR enough that he got three episode sin the series. THREE FUCKING EPISODES. This film could be GOOD.. but it’s just so bogged down EVERY FUCKING TIME this artists interpreitation of what Tucker Carlson sees when he looks at a middle eastern person I had to pause to compose myself and had to take a break writing this review to avoid tyiping this in all caps and using the phrase YOU RACIST MOTHERFUCKERS every other sentence. And again i’m white, I get this is second hand offensiveness.. I do... but it dosen’t mean I can’t be offended other white people were so callous about other cultures behaviors this happened.

And what makes me feel worse.. is that I just sorta... never thought about white people voicing non white characters. Things like this I noticed sure, I realize now part of the reason I didn’t like this movie the first time I saw it was this alex jones version of a looney tune, but I do feel shame for not noticing or caring long before this. Sure I loved it when a character of color got played by a person of color.. but I didn’t realize just how deep that problem was and how LONG it went on for before the outcry post george floyd and the call to action lead to most shows still going course correcting. It’s why stuff like this extra botehrs me: because THIS was just as okay at the time. No one blinked twice about this and odds are the creators involved still haven’t. And that.. that’s just terrible and it hurts to think about and  I still have most of the movie to go.  

The Pyramid of Peril:

So we do get a gorgeous unvewling scene of a box Scrooge found out about from Collie Baba’s horde that should lead them to the treasure. This scene reminds me of Indina Jones.. and I bring this up because the poster was specifically made to mimick an indinia jones poster, to the point of getting drew struzan to do it. THe creator of Ducktales objected..l but I do not get WHY. While I”m not sure if he had yet, Speilberg flat out admits the Carl Barks comics were an inspiration for Indina Jones, with the iconic bolder chase coming from a similar scene in one of Barks Stories. Gotta cover that too. So yeah I don’t get not wanting an indina jones style poster when both were inspiried by the same work and it’s just simple logic and it looks so neat. Thank you. 

Scrooge finds seemingly just clothes.. and a map. Jeff Dunham’s Most Racist Puppet reports to his master, Merlock. Merlock is a.. meh villian. Christopher Lloyd does try.. but Lock is your standard evil overlord wants to take over the world type. He dosen’t have much depth, or personality and only his style saves him from dragging the film down along with Dana Carvey’s most racist disguise in master of disguise. He does have a deent shape shifting gimick and being played by Christopher Lloyd means he’s acted TREMENDOUSLY. Alan Young was apparently in awe watching him work and that’s wonderful to hear. The guy did his best. Weirdly Merlock would show up in tons of other works, mostly video games.. but even weirder he NEVER showed up in ducktales 2017. Both Djon and Gene would, Djon thankfully renamed we’ll get to all of that tommorow thank god. I need it after this. But Frank has outright said they didn’t use Merlock because there simply wasn’t anything they could do with him they couldn’t dow ith magica. My likely guess is the might of found a way to revamp him EVENTUALLY, it’s not like radical revamps weren’t there thing come on, they just had way more stories with Magica and didnd’t get around to it before the show was canceled. Just make him some sort of evil god or something. it’s what I might do. There’s a lot of angles with him. Though I would’ve still gotten christopher lloyd back. I mean most of the recasting is good but he’s still alive and deserved a better shot at things. 

So Merlock sends Djonn to go with scrooge as his guide to find the treasure, as there’s something of imense power within it. And I gotta ask WHY does Merlock need a minon. No really. This isn’t a situation like reboot magica where he’s trapped in another realm. He can shapeshift into any animal. We only see him use falcon, rat, cockroach and bear but theoritically he can become anything and bear alone is still a LOT. Why does he need this sterotype even other sterytopes ar eashamed of? The film dosen’t NEED Djonn. Just let Christopher Lloyd monologue and leave this post 911 propogranda cartoon at home. 

So our heroes nad rejected jar jar prototype head into the desert, and seemingly find nothing before finding a small pyramid all while Merlock follows desecretley as a mighty hawk. 

Scrooge makes the boys and Djon dig... because they clearly forgot the “work hard” part of his ethos. 

Our heroes unveil the pyramid... and while Merlock SAYS he searched the desert and I get it’s hard to see thourgh all of that.. the dude is immortal, had decades to search and had Mickey Rooney there on standby to force him to go comb the desert. I have an artist rendering of that hang on

So our heroes enter the pyramid and it goes.. really how you’d expect: there’s a bunch of traps our brave explorers have to pass, the boys minintpret a juinor woodchuck saying about loosing your marbles to mean using the ones they actually have which geninely comes in handy as they trip the traps and Rob SChinder as a carrot stumbles into one. Also launchpad is wearing a hawaiin shirt and shades. This has no baring on the plot, but it does bring the movie up a notch in my book and I question why the reboot never used this outfit. Then again they also never properly used Donald’s Quack Pack Outfit (Which bad show or not, is objectively awesome), or his Quack Shot Indiana Jones Riff Outfit, so  it’s not like there isn’t a presdecnt for not giving a character a cool costume change from a previous medium. I really should do a top 12 missed opportunities list for the 2017 cartoon.. the ideas for stuff are really piling up. 

OUr heroes eventually find the treasure which has insidiously clever security the more I think about it: at first I thought it had none, just a pit with some... scorpions? I mean their supposed to be but they look like they crawled out of the same stygian hole in the sky Doofus crawled out of. And if your asking me “wait which Doofus” the answer is both. Both these abominations crawled out of a stygian hole in the sky.

But the treasure is on a platform surrounded by scoprions with the only way out being the trap filled way they came in. Unless someone comes in with a full team and a bunch of lootin sacks, they aren’t getting out with EVERYTHING. They can steal SOME of the treasure but there’s no way to get any signifigant portion... and the team thing itself is an issue, something Collie defintely predicted being a thief himself: while some thieves can work well as a team, hence why we have four oceans movies 3/4 damn good, and for the record 12 is the bad one, 8 is how you do a soft reboot and a female led reboot right, a good chunk of professional crooks will turn on each other or try and swinldle... and tha’ts dangerous in a trap filled temple but hey some criminals ain’t so smart.  If they all were Rudy Gulliani wouldn’t have two razzies for preparing to pull his pants down, and have waved his phone around on tv like a dare for future adminstrations to arrest the shit out of him would he? 

But Scrooge has his family so they get loading. But not before Webby finds the lamp. Not knowing about it Scrooge has no intrest in it, but Webby does. We also get a really simple but hilarious gag where SCrooge dickers over the idea for a second.. before Webby picks up a Jeweled tiara to possibly take instead. The best gags to me are often the ones that just let the character’s perosnalities take the lead and bounce off each other. It’s why when I reviewed the four lilo and stitch crossovers recently I harped on character interaction as their biggest weakness: it’s what MAKES a good work for me. It’s why my faviorite comics and shows often follow a loveable group of disfunctional misfits. I like a group of big personalities who despite in theory should NOT be able to work making it work anyway. And it’s honeslty what’s made Scrooge last so long: Scrooge on his OWN is awesome.. but iwth the boys, donald, and in the case of this series and the reivival Webby and Launchpad, with people to bounce off of who he contrasts heavily with, from Launchapd’s buffonery to Webby’s inehrent sweetness in both versions, to the boys genuine honesty and sense of adventure.... it makes him truly stand out. He’s a great character on his own, don’t get me wrong.. but it’s the people around him that give him chances to show WHY. A good character on it’s own is fine and dandy.. a good character with other good characters around them is where it gets truly special. 

Merlock naturally bursts in and in a VERY Black Heron move needlesly outs what micheal bay sees when he closes his eyes as a bad guy... no really he grabs the guy with his talons as he captures the treasure and reveals he’s a bad guy. I don’t even get why keep Djonn alive. He’s done all Merlock possibly could’ve needed and Merlock is ruthless... this makes no sense and only happens because they need Djonn for later in the plot.

Our heroes barely escape, rafting out on the platform itself in a thrilling sequence.. but it’s the one right after that catches my attention. Scrooge utterly defeated, having searched for this treasure for forty years and unresponsive to everyone else. The anmation, coupled with the incomprable Alan young’s acting makes this the highlight of the film for me. Beneath the armor of wealth and skill.. is only a poor old man who just lost something he’s been chasing after most of his life. Scrooge tries his hardest not to be vunerable and both shows and the original comics all use that so when he truly is devistated like this, and i’ts belivible since this treasure is a personal goal of his and as someone who has had things that they seek out specifically, loosing them always hurts. It hurts to ALMOST reach a goal only to have it crumble out under you

But while this alone is good.. what’s next makes it great. Webby sweetly offers up the lamp. Scrooge turns it down, and her genuine gesture reinvgorates him and reminds us of who he is “I’ll find it if it takes another 40 years”> Scrooge may be bitter, mean and selfish a lot of the time.. but deep down, he’s a good man and one who will not give up, and a momentary setback can only stop him so long as long as he has his family to remind him of who he truly is.. and what’s truly important. It’s genuinely sweet and to me is also a reminder of why 87 Webby is a good character: Shes’ not perfect, her main personality trait is often Girl Sterotype”.. but she’s a genuinely sweet small child with a huge heart. It’s telling that while 17′ Webby is almost completely diffren,t and far better, that heart remains her biggest strength. Sure her reboot self could kill a man nad no one would ever find the body, but it’s her heart and empathy that makes that possible and makes her Webby.  That inherent loving nature is what makes Webby webby wether she’s a toddler having a tea party or a tween getting ready to intergoate a guy with a meat tenderizer while saying ‘Cute girl stuff”. 

Gene Genie Let’s Himself Go:

It’s a few days later and this is the point where it REALLY becomes obvious this was written as a bunch of episodes. Though to the film’s credit while it does ake this feel like a compliation movie as a result... it dosen’t hamper the film’s quality, condiment from Rush Limbaghs’ hot dog stand does that just fine, but once you notice it it’s impossible to unotice it. Weirdly though it seems chunked up into four episodes rather than the usual five, likely cutting down an episode, though I can’t see where they cut out material frankly if they did and i’ts just as likely they woudl’ve had to make one to fill in the space.

So Scrooge is in a mood, being grumpy with his secretary Mrs. Featherly, quackfaster in all but name, and having to be sent home. So while Duckworth goes to fetch him Webby polishes her treasure at long last readying for a tea party, something the boys roundly reject because their sexist little twits and swo were the writers or executies who assumed all little boys act the same. It’s easily my biggest pet peeve with the series as a whole: anytime this crops up with the boys it turns them into the worst dicks imaginable. It’s telling this, being mean about her wantin ga tea party with her surrogate brothersi s TAME. Normally they’ll say she can’t do things because she’s a girl or mock her hobies outright instead of just be mildly dickish. And while she dosen’t look much younger Webby is VERY CLEARLY, in this series anyway, supposed to be say 5 or 6 to the boys 8-10. 7 at most. SHe’s a small child and while it is realistic for older kids to bully younger ones, it’s not fun to watch. It’s why I get annoyed at all the big sibling bully characters.. some work, but most aren’t fun to watch because there’s nothing funny or intresting about it. It’s the same deal here. 

Thankfully that quickly goes away as the lamp moves when Webby rubs it and does so again to prove it did move. Huey finishes it and we’re introduced to Gene, the best part of the film.  Gene is a Genie and he takes a second to dart around before messing with the appliances in the kitchen, as he was last around during the time 1001 Nights Came About. Cleverly though, and so we thankfully don’t have 80 dozen fishout of water jokes that have already been done before. As you can probably guess i’m not a huge fan of time travel fish out of water stuff. Now from another dimensoin or planet, i’m on board with with Star Vs, Steven Universe and Sym-Bionic Titan being great examples of this, as is the comic resident alien. (Despite having the wonderous Alan Tuduk the show sounds way more mean spirited and misses the entire point of the comic as given by the author in the credits, i.e. that the alien is supposed to NOT be a threat and just be gently waiting for a ride) The inverse is also good with Amphbia and owl house, taking a human and plopping them into our world. But time travel stuff just usually runs the same beats of “look at the shiny thing” and what not. The only time i’ve sene something SIMILAR work is with thor where their society is SIMILAR to vikings time but still it’s own thing.. it also gave us a classic gag in..

So yeah i’m glad they dropped this and instead had a clever way around it: Gene reads the encylopedia at the mansion. Granted it’s Scrooge so I don’t know how current it is and given this came out in 1990 thus HOW racist it is. It’s not a questoin of IF it was, but how much.

But having caught up the kids confront him with the fact he has to grant wishes. This lamp runs on what I now realize are Aladdin rules: Whoever currently holds the Lamp is the Genie’s master, they only get three wishes, and that dosen’t reset if it changes hands. The only big diffrence from the usual is Gene dosen’t have to TELL them about the wishes like Genie did, and Gene very begrudginly agrees to it. He also seem’s phsyically pained when doing so. 

So since all 12 know about him, each of the kids gets a wish though it seems unfair with HDL. Their one person, they shoudln’t get 9 wishes just because their brain is spread out over three bodies. 

This film continues the weird simliarties to Aladdin by attaching rules though they instead come up as a result of our heroes talking rather than the Genie just flat out tleling them: both share the “you can’t wish for more wishes” thing, a common rule in these stories and usually only broken nowadays as a clever twist as the rule is SO common place, not having it is a twist. But it is there for a reason: to limit the sheer power of a reality warping wish. The wishes can also only go so far. In a nice line, when Huey, Dewey or Louie suggests wishing for peace one earth, Gene says “No pipe dreams’ He can’t bend people or reality on THAT scale. He can bend reality as we find out, but it’s smaller scales like turning someone’s possesions over ot someone else, warping the bin into a castle, or bringing inanitamte objects to limited life. Still HUGE feats worth of a genie, so Gene’s power isn’t so nerfed it’s unusuable, but it does explain why his evil pervious ownder Merlock, more ont hat in a bit too, didn’t just wish to have eternal dominon over the earth or something. Gene can do just about anything but he can’t change the world on a fundemental level. 

And I do LIKE having rules in wished based stories like this, I chalk it up to growing up with Fairly Odd Parents... though they eventually went too far in the oppsoitie direction, pulling rules out of their ass to suit the episode, instead of simply having some very standard, very understandable rules that still pose challenges but don’t outright cheat so the episode can happen. 

So Webby does her first wish.. and wishes for a Baby Elephant, something Gene is against as he prefers they keep the wishes small: otherwise he gets found out, and the fight over him begins. So one of the boys wishes him away. Or Webby does. Point is it’s gone though not before Beakly sees it and Scrooge smells something is up. Our heroes try to hide gene, but gene thankfully simply dresses up like a modern kid and thus is able to pass as a friend of there staying for the night. 

So with the rules established and what not the kids find a clever solution: they simply go a ways away from the mansion into the woods, far enough from town to avoid any suspcion, and same iwth the mansion and just wish for all kinds of stuff: a giant bunch of ice cream toys, standard kid wish fufillment but it’s nice... in part because the kids treat Gene like one of them. Wihle they STARTED asking him about the wishes, this starts the bonding process. Soon he will be part of the hive mind.. SOON. 

Until then though after using another wish to make scrooge not mad at them for coming home late and missing dinner, that night we find out Gene’s backstory.... and it’s an utter tearjerker. As it turns out Merlock wants him back because he’s Gene’s former master and as you’d guess.. it was NOT a happy existnace, used contstnatly to do horrible things with no power to stop himself. Pompeii and Atlantis were both directly Merlock’s fault and it was only Collie Baba stealing the lamp that put an end to his hell. He also answers the two obvious questions botht he audeiince and the boys have: How the hell is Merlock still alive and shoudln’t he be out of wishes then? The first is simple. Unlike pretty much every DBZ Villian whose WANTED to do so, Merlock wished for immortality first chance he got, taking the Zamasu route instead and thus leaving him free. 

As for the wishes thing it turns out his amulet, in adition to shapeshifting, also gives him extra wishes becuase fuck it. 

But the boys sweetly offer to protect him. 

The next day, Apu’s Cousin let’s Merlock know the maps in the mansion and Merlock has him help sneak in with Merlock taking rat form. This backfires as Mrs. Beakley notices the form and chases after him with a broom

Meanwhile Webby has her tea party with Gene after he and the boys played cops and robbers earlier, and he’s bored.. though nicely not because it’s a girly thing, but because the stuffed animals aren’t alive and she naively has him fix that. This leads to 

Which sadly is jsut scrooge vs a duck toy but admit it, you want that movie for Disney Plus yesterday. Call Charles Band Disney. CALL CHARLES BAND! 

Whelp Scrooge Still Sucks:

Scrooge takes for a turn for the obnoxious in the next part, but i’ts fine by me as it’s part of the plot. Naturally this reinactment of Cult of Chucky has lead to Scrooge finding out about the Genie. To his credit, Scrooge is tactical about his wishes. As said by the Duck himself “I could wish for a diamond, no the world’s biggest dimaond, no ten world’s biggest diamond, no a diamond mind, no the MINING INDUSTRY!”

The sheer power this gives him is TERRIFYING, both because of his status.. and because unlike the kids who all wished for simple kid stuff and used up their wishes quickly, he both gets how much he can do with this and could conquer the world economy if he truly wanted to. 

The obnoxious part comes in as he treats Gene as not a person, figuring he’s just there and forces him into the lamp despite the kids protests after Gene grants his first wish: Collie Baba’s treasure. It also dosen’t feel like the wishing nor him using the lamp to get the tresure back goes against his hard work ethos: for the former while he is getting all this magically, he’s still having ot use his wits to get the most out of it, and he did earn the lamp itself square. For the latter, he already earned the treasure square too and had it stolen. He’s onlyg etting back what’s by all rights HIS. Granted he plans on giving most of it up for a tax break but still it’s his by right. 

However the reason his assholery works is twofold: first it’s Scrooge. While he’s not a TERRIBLE person, in the comcis and this cartoon he isn’t a GOOD person either. He DOES have a good heart and will usually do the right thing, but his first instnct is always to get more money and to be a cantakerous old bastard to eveyrone and everything. While he’s subtly grew out of “I hate eveyrone and everyone hates me” as his guiding principal, it’s still his defualt reaction to most situations. But he first relents by letting Gene attend the party, part of why the Collie Baba thing stung so bad was that he’s told the historical society he’d get the treasure for years only to come back empty handed, if shrunken. But he still manages to have a good time while Asok and Merlock infiltrate.. well I’mRunningOutofINsultingNIcknamesCanYouTell steals the silverware. Yes... that.. that really happens. 

Look we’re almost done, i’m almost free of this racist mummies curse. Let’s continue. Gene sees melock and freaks and drags SCrooge with him and while at First Scrooge is cranky...

No but now I want a Donkey Kong Country crossover too dammmit. And to talk about those games. Another thing for the list. But Scrooge is righ tot be a bit surly...

Okay now your just pushing it. As Gene whisked him away without telling him anything other than vauge worries... but then he gets a full idea of why Gene’s so terrified when Merlock shapeshifts into a bear and starts breaking the door down. Eh, could be worse. 

Gene shrinks them to escape and Merlock leaves thinking they fled but leaves Skids Minus Mudflap to go look for them. Scrooge sneaks out but bumps into a cart running from the photo you see when you look up stereotype on google. I mean I assume.. let’s try it. 

Huh you know I HOPED but I never expected... 

So Google Proving My Point plans to give his lamp to the master because of his weird Torgo-Esque obession with helping a man who clearly wants to murder him but takes his sweet time doing so because plot, and Gene figuring this COULDN’T POSSIBLY go as bad as Melock getting him urges the dummy to keep him and make his own wishes.

This goes about as well as you’d expect....

Wiped Out With A Wish:

Scrooge returns home to find Watto has wished to take his poessions, fortune, everything and Scrooge gets thrown in jail for breaking into his own house. We get two great moments back to back. The first is Scrooge lamenting loosing his fortune in jail, and realizing the sheer power and risk of the lamp, especially since he worked hard to earn it, every bit of it.. and Sam Wilson’s 70′s Backstory came in and took it all in an instant. 

The second is Scrooge’s family coming for him, including Launchpad , Beakly and Webby obviously and bailing him out. Though Beakly is UNGOLDLY annoying in this scene, sobbing hysterically and adding nothing and it’s not nearly as funny as the  film thinks. Turns out Goliath getting buried wrapped in chains threw them out. 

Scrooge takes a bit to rebound from all this.. but eventually realizes something: he knows the security of the bin inside and out. He had it put in after all. So it’d be easy enough to break in. So they gotta break in to break out the lamp, undo this nightmare, and END THIS MOVIE. Seriously this review has taken two days  as is I do NOT want to miss my invincible review. 

So they break into the bin, and it’s a tightly paced Scene, scrooge going in one way while the kids go the other and we even get a nice callback as the marbels come in handy to get past one of the traps. It’s just a good scene. it’s only real flaw is that Launchapd just sorta disappears as does Duckworth despite the fact their in a plane, and the bin later gets turned into a floating castle. Kinda a plot hole to not have Launchpad crash in to save htem just saying. 

Scrooge eventually does get to Djonn, whose been ignoring the imminent threat of Merlock while Gene sweats it out... and this backfires horribly as Merlock hitched a ride as a roach (Though there was a hilarious scene of him getting fried constnatly by lasers when Louie went through a laser hallway, as while Louie had the directions, it dind’t take into account passengers on your head. 

So Merlock remanifests in full gets the Lamp and unleashes his wrath on Tin Tin in the Congo and turns him into a wild pig. 

Not you sweetie. He then forces Gene to turn the castle into a fortress and float it back to his home in parts unknown. It’s a DAMN cool scene with impressive and horrifiing animation as the bin melts and crumbles into thte castle and the kids barely make it up the stares as they shift and disolve. Really top notch stuff.

Scrooge stands up to Merlock... and this naturally goes poorlyw ith Gene begging Merlock not to respond.. and Merlock having him blow scrooge off the top of the forgtess storm eagle style, though scrooge understands. And this is the true reason why scrooge being a dick didn’t bother me so much. Because it helps create a great contrast between him and Merlock. Both thought of Gene as a tool rather than a person.. but Scrooge grew to realize he was wrong and what he was dealing with wasn’t some magical goodies creator.. but a child forced to constantly grant wishes, in sheer agony to do so no less, likely so sick of it because again and again and again people used him as a slave to get what they wanted and to hell with what Gene wanted. He realized he was terrible for making this poor boy into his slave simply because that’s his job. In contrast Merlock could give no shits and is a malevolent monster who glefully uses Gene despite the pain the wishes put him through and his protests. It’s why Gene is the best part.. he’s  athroughly likeable, throughly inncoent character with tons of personality and a truly tragic and horrifying backstory and Rip Taylor acts the hell out of every scene with the guy. 

Thankfully the marbles come in handy one last time and Huey, Dewey or Louie snipes the lamp away and a struggle for it insues between Scrooge and Merloc mid air. it’s fucking awesome.. and it get sbetter in how scroogewins. He simply gets rid of Merlock’s amulet, taking it then throwing it. Grante dhe COULD’EVE used it for unimited wishes.. but it was too risky to do that and as we’ll see in the ending , Scrooge realized the Lamp was too powerful to keep around for much longer and too much of a tempting target for his rogues.. not that we see them this movie as the crew wanted it to bea ccesaible and thus kept hte cast to the main cast from season 1 and just made new vilians and a new supporting character, but still. 

He does use his second wish though to undue the damage Merlock had done and the bin and clan mcduck are returned to duckburg in good condition.

Time for our ending, which is genuinely and wholly touching. With the lamp too dangerous to use Scrooge considers just sending it to the earth’s core, which horrifies the kids as it’d mean Gene would be trapped there forever... if the molten lava iddn’t just outright destory the lamp and probably kill him. But Scrooge.. isn’t the bastard he likes to potray himself as. Instead he makes Gene into a real boy. He gives the poor kid HIS wish, which designrates the lamp and undoes all the spells... so Merlock is PROBABLY dead but he does return for some games so maybe not? 

And so we end on two things: Gene happily playing cops and robbers with the boys finally free.. and Birth of A Nation grabbing all the loot he can in his patns and running off. Ha ha ha thank god i’m done with this prick. And no I will not be looking at his ducktales episodes unless I have to. 

Final Thoughts:

This movie is OKAY. It has a solid plot, gene is a wonderful chacter, the animatoin is pretty prettay pretty good, and the voice acting as usual is excellent, with Rip Taylor being the standout. 

But as my paragraphs of rage shoud’ve made Clear Djonn is just BAD. Easily the worst character i’ve encountered in my year of reviewing and some of the worst writing i’ve ran into. And that writing includes a goblin man voyerstically forcing two teenagers to make out, making jokes about santa renaming himself Clem the sceneafter he tearfully confessed to letting the elves and ms. claus die, accidental transphobia via the u-men, and Bryan Lee O malley thinking we needed more than one volume of Julie Powers being around.  This was disgusting, even by 1990 standards and especially by 2021 standards and it drags the film down considerably. Without it the film is okay.. with it the film is just VERY hard to watch any time he pops up.  He made getting through the movie a nightmare and while I pause a lot becaue it’s a bad habbit I did so more simply because as I said earlier in the review I could not stand him. 

It makes it a hard film to recommend. If you can stomach the racisim, then it might be worth it, but be aware of what your putting up with going in. But if you can’t.. there’s no shame in that, it’s carbombya levels of bad. Which yes was a real fictoinal country. It was so bad Casey Casem quit transformers over it. True story. So yeah, it’s an okay film, on par with the series at it’s best for the most part.. but Djonn just spoils it for me. 

If you liked this review, like it, share it around that sort of thing and if you want MORE disney movie reviews, in addiiton to the goofy movie one later this month, if you help me hit my 25 dollar stretch goal on patroen.com/popculturebuffet, i’ll do reviews of the Recess, Proud Family and Kim Possible MOvies (Well so the drama anyway), so help me out would you and i’ll see you at the next rainbow.

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales Treasure of the Golden Sun: Three Ducks of the Condor or Now with More Racism!

Hello all you happy people! And welcome back to my look at Ducktales: Treasure of the Golden Suns!, the pilot episodes that started it all. This look was one of my patreon stretch goals. To explain them in case some of you aren’t familiar with patreon it’s essentially like a kickstarter stretch goal: every milestone I reach in my monthly earnings means a crop of reviews for you guys, with this being 10 and my review of the movie, and the goofy movies in two weeks and September respectively, being the 15 dollar one. So if you want reviews of the OTHER Ducktales mini series Time Is Money and Super DuckTales, then hop on aboard and help me reach my 20 dollar goal so I can keep making these reviews for a living and give you all more. Said goal also includes a Darkwing Duck review eveyr month AND a review of teh Danny Phantom special The ULtimate Enemy so hop on board HERE AT MY PATREON.  Patrons also get exclusive reviews, access to my discord server (Though if anyone would be more intrersted in me making that public let me know), and to pick a short each time I do a birthday special for a character from Looney Tunes, Disney and Beyond. And next month is my boy Donald’s so since you all already sat out goofy NOW is the time. 

So now my very necessary plug is out of the way, i’m very poor, we can get to the review proper:

When last we left off Scrooge and the Boys went on their first proper adventure together, heading to Central America to follow the map from the first episode and running into Dr.Claw  El Capitan and his new best buddy Glomgold. Mild racisim, moonsoons and much better pacing ensued. 

So join me under the cut as my boy Donald returns, some iconic characters are introduced in Webby, Launchpad and Beakly, though this series only made one of them iconic to be fair, and we get some more mild racisim because fuck my life. Onward to the cut! 

So yeah as I’ve mentioned a few times now this episode had a content warning.. which was fair as there is some pretty cringy stuff in here but it had the side effect of me holding my breath until the racisim came up and whapped me in the face. So i’m keeping that tension up for you guys so I don’t have to suffer alone. 

We open at the Mansion. Scrooge is trying to find a governess for the boys, but they keep scaring off all the clients because they don’t like the idea. And for once.. i’m on Scrooge’s side here. Yes I know there’s a sterotype of rich people hiring a nanny to not have to parent. and it’s sadly often true and it’d SEEM like Scrooge is doing that.. but really he just wants the boys to be safe. He’s fully grown to care for them and just wants someone cheap and responsible to look after them while he’s busy and clearly still makes time for them. As someone who is a former nanny, albeit for someone working class, I get that as much as you WANT to spend every moment with your kid you often can’t. I say all this because SO MANY kids movies and shows villianize parents for not spending time with their kid when their clearly just working to support them. There are nuanced exceptions to this and refreshingly Craig of the Creek has outright avoided this: JP’s mom is gone almost all the time due to working as an airline pilot, but while he clearly misses her he never resents her or guilts her over it, he understands sh’es supporting him and goes out of his way to make sure his friends can meet her. It’s really swee.t And while again I get it, this guys a billionare, most examples aren’t, Scrooge still really CAN’T stop working: He has more money than god and like most bilionares REALLY should give most of it to charity or to help with programs instead of hoarding it in a massive bin.. but he’s also got tons of companies, factories, investments... people COUNTING on him to make sure these are working correctly and keep their jobs. So yeah i’ts nice that the show isn’t demonizing scrooge for this or dosen’t even consider it: he’s getting help beacuse he needs it, that’s what’s important. 

So while the boys widdle down the nannies, Scrooge talks to a renowned coin collector. He does show off his collection to the guy, but his main goal is naturally to show him the coin from last time. Turns out that naturally for a five part episode the treasure they lost last time was just a fraction of the real thing and the real titular treasure is a mythical horde even Scrooge, who normally has proved something out of myth is very real 5 times before breakfast, didn’t think existed. 

Something I do love about this five parter is how every treasure hunt has ended up being important each piece of the puzzle leading to the next like any good treasure hunt. As for where this one leads the collector HAS heard of only one other coin like it, up in the Andes Mountains in a mysterious fortress whose mountain habitat and being a fortress makes it hard to get to and the owner is apparently a real piece of work.. but Scrooge isn’t afraid of a little hard work and is ready to go after it.. he just has to find a Nanny first. 

And he does as there’s only one left: Mrs. Beakley, who we FINALLY meet after two episodes. Yeah for some weird reasont his episode choose to cram the rest of the major main and supporting cast into one episode.. it still works, they all still get great introductions it’s just weird to me when you have five episodes to not say introduce Launchpad last time. 

But regardless as I said it’s a good intro.. despite the boys wilding a lasso and a snake.

 Beakly is unphased and even dosen’t remotely fall for them trying to say she got the wrong name. And while Scrooge is a little impressed, he’s even more when she states she’ll work for free... with one condition: Free room and board for her and her grandaughter, Webby, who has been there the whole time and looking cute as a button. Scrooge is unsure but one minute of Webby being adorable later and he’s agreed. She can’t eat much right? He also hopes she’ll help the boys not be douchebags, unaware that their inherent poorly written sexisim means that was never going to work. And why yes I will call it out eveyr time it happens because it happens every time they have an episode together and only gets worse. 

He goes to Gyro for help and Classic Gyro.. is utterly delightful. While I clearly have issues with Classic Scrooge, whose a greedy poorly aged asshat and the boys, who are sterotypes of male children, Gyro? He’s nice, friendlya nd eccentric, using a delightfully wakcky pogo hat thing to think and takes only a mintue to figure out how to solve a seemingly unsolvable problem and only needs a few hours to build his cool looking bird ship, using bird legs to offset the hard to sort out landing conditions. But since it’s a fancy bitch, it needs a pilot and i’m sure we all know where this is going...but since Carol Danver sis busy he has to go with Launchpad. 

Launchpad’s intro is great, cheerful as he does a job testing a plane and naturally crashes it, and when thought dead walks out seconds later unharmed and jolly as ever. Scrooge is naturally terrified of the prospect of flying with him but dosen’t really have another choice “I hope my insurance is paid up.” Scrooge it’s you.. of course it isn't. 

So with that our hero bids a farewell to the boys and ends up unteitonally coming off MASSIVELY unlikeable. No really he leaves them behind for their saftey despite needing help... and then upon finding out Donald is going to be on leave soon in the andes, and just assumes that YOU KNOW, he’d LIKE to go on a dangerous exausting adventure instead of actually get some rest after working in the goddamn navy and STILL dosen’t take the kids along despite having a very tearjerking farewell IN FRONT OF HIM that happened at most a month ago. Granted i’m suprised Donald is getting leave this soon.. but since I genuinely like to look into this sort of thing and the last time I didn’t I was correctly reminded Gulliver’s Travels was a satire.. and found out someone HAD actually watched the Jack Black movie. I only vaugely remember a trailer.. I thinkn it was a trailer? Maybe it was the middle part of a juinor novelzation where htey have all the photos? I really don’t know. I know almost every pokemon on sight but not where I saw pictures of a forgetable jack black movie, what a shock. 

So long story short I DID google it. Here’s what I got

So given clealry more time has passed than we’ve seen on screen, enough time COULD have passed for Donald’s three day pass to kick in. So credit to the crew for actually thinking that out. They still get all the blame though for not only not seeing how bad not taking the kids to see the uncle whose like a father to them a month after he left when he CLEARLY can is bad, but how worse it is that the first break donald gets ina  month.. is spent helping scrooge against his will on a life or death treasure hunt. 

And I get WHY they wanted to try out having Donald on an adventure: he was in most of the carl barks material.... but I also dont’ get it as Launchpad was deisgned entirely to fill in for Donald when needed, we’re only three episodes into the series and this gives the wrong impression Donald will guest star a lot more. In practice while he still did get a meaty 8 episodes on the show including this one, 2 of which were cameos and the pilot only dosne’t count because of the exnteded slapstick sequence, and dosen’t appear at all after season 1, likely because Fenton’s introduction made him reduntant as he was an even more blatant Donald stand-in. It just feels weird to shove him into the pilot movie when we should be focusing on our main cast, epsecially with so many getting intorduced this episode. It woudl’ve made more sense for Gyro to be the third man instead and it woud’ve elmaited Scrooge’s uttelry horrible actions here of depriving his nephews of their surrogate father. 

So Uncle Dickstick leaves with Launchpad to go abduct donald.... and tha’ts not me being funny, that’s what actually happens. Donald is singing out on leave.. with his superior... weirdly doing paper work outside on the flight deck. 

And is angry at Donald because of him taking pictures and stuff and threatens him if he’s not back exactly in time... because look he’s on a boat with a bunch of sweaty men but as the most superior officer he can’t enjoy that so he has to get off SOMEHOW and ruining donald’s life just happens ot be a thing for him. 

So yeah Scrooge straight up naps Donald via claw and Donald is angry, wondering, as you’d expect “What’s the big idea”.. and once Scrooge clairfies he did it.. still asks that because what the fuck. And the episode treats this as comical, as it does Launchpad not understanding Donald.. and don’t get me wrong you CAN make a good “I can’t understand Donald Duck” joke, the 2017 series made PLENTY. But said series also spoiled me as they did it with far more effort, while also still showing just how much it would suck to have everyone around you struggle to hear what you say and never listen to you. They actually cared abotu Donald’s well being where as this one thinks “Gee you knwo what would go great iwth a hard month’s naval work? MORE WORK HELPING YOUR UNCLE GET RICHER FOR NO PERSONAL BENIFIT AFTER HE KIDNAPS YOU”. 

So our heroes.. and scrooge, head to Andes and find the temple and it’s here “Sigh” we met our antagonist. A Conquestador Douche who DOES have a name and it is on the wiki.. but is so generic and unlikeble I’m just going to keep calling him conquestador douche, whose introduced waving his sun coin around while the natives all bow to him because of the coin.

Welcome to the racisim! Admitely it’s not as bad as Treasure of the Lost Lamp, that’s a high bar to clear, but ti’s still not great to have the racist cliche of “character conquers a civilization because of they belivie he’s a messenger for their “silly” god”. And the saddest part is not that I didn’t notice this trope and how bad it was as a kid watching shows like this... but that as an ADULT about 4 years ago when I watched this episode how racist it and this trope in general was didn’t register to me at all. That.. really bothers me that it took me this long to pick up on things like this and i’m sorry for it. 

That’s honestly WHY we need these warnings and WHY i’m so hard on this racisim: it wasn’t necessary, it could’ve been removed and you clearly just didn’t care or didn’t realize it was racist. And even acceptable for the time dosen’t work for anymore: I learned recently that the creators of Fresh Prince of Bel-Air, both white, hired black writers..and actually LISTENED, looking to them for personal stories and to check them if one of the white staff wrote something that wasn’t true to the black experience. I know that sounds like the bare minimum but this was the early 90′s, that kind of thinking wasn’t hte norm like it is in most writer’s rooms now.. and sadly not ALL writer’s rooms. Not only that but just today I ran into a MST3K skit that lampooned this kind of bullshit from not long after this episode. People clearly knew better, the writers of this episode just didn’t’t care

 So yeah, I get this was a kids show in the 80′s, I get the writing staff being almost all white.. but they still coudl’ve avoided cliche sterotypes and done something diffrent. It was was still wiithin white people like myselves power to actually think about something other htan themselves and we did not. So i’m never going to stop holding my own people accountable for just how BADLY we’ve fucked up in ways great and small because it still hasn’t stopped , likely never will so I won’t. 

But yeah.... the tribe here are portrayed as ignorant, mindless dumbasses who blindly follow tradition and a clearly corrupt leader. It’s patronizingly stupid to assume just because a belief system is diffrent than yours a person will belieive anything. Religion CAN make people act stupid, the fact many people are homophobic simply because the bible, a centuries old document written and distrbuted by humans that could of been altered by people with a clear homophobic agenda, says they should be. But there’s the very clear very gross implication here that any god but the christian god is invalid and simplifies wonderful and well thought out myths and beliviefs from various cultures into “well they belivie in da sun god because of the shiny coin”. It’s gross, i’m glad it’s stopped and it’s VERY telling that the closest Ducktales 2017 came to this was the most dangerous game night which while a tad cringe inducing at least showed the tribe it used was clever, disposed the person they mistook for a god after it was clear he wasn’t one , and were wholly sympathetic. 

Naturally Conquistadouche orders the tribe to attack Scrooge and it works briefly , though Scrogoe prepares to take on the ENTIRE villiage.. and given this is Scrooge and on this blog we’ve seen him take on an entire town before, and that was a more inexpericed less bastardly scrooge yeah their fucked, and only escape death because the coin falls out of scrooge’s coat when he tries to help donald who naturally injures himself trying to help. 

And since as per white dumbass racist logic, the villiagers thought Conquistadipshit was a messenger of the gods because of his coin, they think the same of Scrooge, this causes them to stop and bow instead and protect scrooge when Conquistadumbass tries to attack our heroes. Their given a room for the night naturally. 

Conquistadick demands they give him the coin and leave, but Scrooge has none of that: he has no reason to leave and has all the leverage so he instead demands to know wha’ts going on. 

Turns out Conquisineart is the decdendant of one of the crew from the ship Scrooge found: their captain rain off with it, leaving two of his men behind, though both had the map to the rest of the treasure and split it: one left for the Arctic, the other stayed and did the whole racist god bit. And somehow despite all the time passing Conquistadoodoohead still has his half and Scrooge aranges a trade for the coin. And why yes their is the obvious problem of “what if Conquistascoobydoo say tells them he’s the true god and attacks scrooge like he ends up doing in the climax”. And Scrooge’s plan.. is to have the plane ready and to run to it, despite Launchpad not being a mechanic and saying as much. Instead of you know... stealing the guy’s coin while he’s asleep or something or just having launchpad, whose bigger and stronger and donald whose not bigger but is also stronger hold the guy while Scrooge steals his sun coin, then simply walks to the plane with the map, the coins and all the leverage. at worst the guy tries to do the same scheme without any coins and as the end of the episode shows, that wouldn’t have worked. He was stupid. Oh and the cherry on  top of this shit sundae is scrooge objects to the guys tyranical rule.. but is okay with letting it keep going if he gets his coin and DOnlad, whose there for the deal, never call shim on it. 

We then get a bit of Launchpad being forced off a cliff to ride a giant Condor...

Look this episode is filled with racisit sterotypes, a generic villian and Scrogoe being awful. I’ll take a fun sequence of Launchpad riding a condor, with Donald providing an assit with his camera  by blinding the beast so Launchpad can ride him properly giving them more leverage now Launchpad is popular. And a deadline to fix things by tommorow. 

The next day Launchapd and Donald have defied logic and their own tendency to screw up and fixed the bird, while Scrooge makes the deal.. and naturally it goes EXACTLY how you’d expect and Scrooge runs, though our real heroes get thigns running. 

That’s when the people arrive on condors to persue, a fight insues yoru standard hero stuff.. not bad but given the racist context I can’t really enjoy it like Launchpad flying a condor.. which had some mild racisim in them making him do that as a ritual clearly deisgned to kill him but i’llt ake mild over pretty damn obvious. Eventually douchebag looses his coins, his ctizens abndon him. Happy end. 

So with the map Scrooge decides to do the logical thing.... have launchpad drop him in the middle of the ocean in a raft and steer there

Launchpad takes Donald home in time and his superior is mad he dosen’t give him a proper salute.. even though he CLEARLY just got home and is diisorented from a crash. Launchpad makes a quip and this episode mercifully ends. 

Final Thoughts:

This episode starts out okay.. but quickly goes downhill fast and steep. There are massive bits of racisim, massive leaps in logic, and massive amoutns of scrooge being a dick.. not his WORST in this series but it’s still bad. It’s just not very good. It’s the second worst episode of Ducktales i’ve seen, only held up by my boys Donald and Launchpad. This was miserable.

Next Time on Treasure of the Golden Suns: Our heroes head to the arctic for another offensive episode to rescue scrooge from his own stupidity.  Next Time on this Blog: We return to Green Eggs and Ham and hop on a train as our raging bitchcanoe mother and daughter duo meat our ambigiouslyg ay duo at last. 

See you at the next rainbow.

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales Reviews: How Santa Stole Christmas! or Scrooge is kind of a dick

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays everybody! Christmas begins on this blog with the last new Ducktales of the season! Time to break out some eggnog, presents and warmth of good family, i’ve got a bushel of Christmas reviews planned for the season, and this one is just the start of htem. As you can probably tell by my enthusasim I love this holiday. Oh sure it has it’s bad sides, paticuarlly several jackasses making huge deals out of the fact some people say happy holidays because “there’s a war on christmas” when really their just petty morons who can’t accept theirs more than one holiday in the month and not everyone likes christmas. I do, but I know not everyone does, and that’s fine. But overall it’s a fine holiday with warmth, cheer, family, generosity and of course, what brings us here today, really damn good episodes and specials of television. It’s just a really warm and cheerful time that , whlie it can bring out the absolute worst in people.. can also bring out the best more often than not. And that’s why I love this holiday. If you don’t that’s just fine, but it’s my blog, I can love what I want. And I love this holiday.. and I loved this episode, a good end to a great run of episodes. So let’s rock around the Christmas tree and find out why Scrooge hates santa, this is How Santa Claus Stole Christmas!

We open with the classic night before Christmas poem.. only naturally since Della is reading it to the boys, it’s Scrooge’s version involving barbed wire and calling the man a traitor because what honestly did you expect. Though I find it ironic a man introduced in a Christmas story has a one-sided blood feud with Santa. The boys are annoyed with this and just want free presents and the presecne of a jolly fat man and don’t get why Scrooge hates him. And yeah.. all of that tracks. They were raised by Donald who, while he clearly spent several years at Scrooges tolerating this feud, likely figured the Feud was just some personal gripe of scrooges and that Santa had done nothing that terrible. Which given Scrooge isn’t personable on the best of days and the episode goes out of it’s way to point out Scrooge has no friends, is entirely accurate and Donald was, as always the sane one in this situation. Plus he was already mad at Scrooge, this was just another way to tell him to go fuck himself. 

The boys hear what they think is Santa on the roof but turns out to be Scrooge, in full Scottish war garb manning traps with webby.. in full chimney camo... putting a knife to Dewey’s throat for siding with santa.. well okay pointing at his throat but still god damn. Every now in then i’m reminded how ready Webby is to murder someone. It never gets easier or less disturbing. The boys.. continue to make a good point: Scrooge says he’s the richest duck in the world and can provide them whatever.. but being Scrooge just gives them itchy hats made of cheap fabric, and bemoans them wanting a trampoline, a new electronic game, and a new phone. And while Scrooge can give them whatever he wants, it’s his money, he also could’ve put some actual thought into it and clearly views the holiday more as a transaction and less for hte acutal sentmient. Instead of giving them personal mementos, or making them personal mementos, or even just simply building them a sled or something, a simpler toy than what they want but still something nice that comes from the heart.. he just gave them the cheapest hat he could find and tries to guilt them for not liking his thoughtless present he probably bought in bulk for everyone in the manor and his employ because he’s kind of a dick sometimes. IT’s good storytelling though as it sets up that Scrooge.. can possibly be int he wrong, so when the main plot comes to his front door, quite literally, there’s some doubt as to wither he or santa is in the wrong. Speaking of which Santa is at the door. So cue the credits and cue the cut for the rest of the plot as is usual. Full spoilers, and full plot under the cut. Ho ho ho. 

First a quick comment on the Holiday version of the theme, the same one from Last Christmas! IT’s really good, a really nice frank sinatra style verison of the theme. Good stuff. My only real complaint is like last time.. there’s nothing unique about it, it’s just the normal season 3 intro but with snowflakes. And that’s.. more on Disney than the creators. If Frank and Matt had the option they would likely do an entirely original intro.. it’s just Disney can be cheap when it comes to intros, see how possesed ludo stayed in the star vs intro long after that plot point was resolved, and only affords one a season. That being said they still have one up on most networks, who, with the exception of Netfix with she ra, never really let intros change more than once, if at all. I mean I get it, budgets are higher here than with anime, they can’t do a new song and intro every half a season.. BUUUT it wouldn’t kill more stuidos to do this more often and do a complete intro overhaul, as it adds freshness, and you can still use the same old theme, just over a new set of pretty images. Most just allow a few swap outs, Disney included, and while I get intros are expensive, this is something you can use for a whole season, or more, why are you like this? 

Anyways one theme song and me complaning about an animation trend I don’t like later, we’re inside the Manor with none of the other adults present because this season hates me. I do actually get it this go round: Besides Della, Donald and Launchpad getting a full subplot in the other holiday episode, they aren’t really needed. In fact most of the episode’s present day is a framing device for the tale of how Scrooge and Santa met and why Scrooge hates him, so for once the minmal use of the supporting cast.. is actually done well. The focus is on Scrooge and Santa, a feud that’s had four years build up in real time, and two years in series and a bunch of months. So yeah, i’m okay with sidelining everyone for once, because this story really needed all of the space and there was no real place for them aside from the climax. This is Scrooge and Santa’s story, with Webby there as an impartial-ish observer. We’ll get to that in a moment.  Also if your curious where in the fuck this episode fits on the series massively warped time scale.. i’m going with this and “The Trickining!” taking place before season 3, since “Astro Boyd” takes place in march, and “Forbidden Fountain” takes place in probably late april, huge thanks to a friend on discord for help with the timeline. Otherwise it just makes no sense whatsover and while it dosen’t TECHINCALLY need to, I prefer the series timeline at least making some rational sense. The world dosen’t have to but time still does. So the boys are at least 12, possibly turning 13. Congrats. Or maybe they just don’t age. I dunno. 

Now time and plot concerns aside, Santa gladly gives the boys their gifts which is.. everything they listed: A mini tramp for Dewey, Legends of Legend-Quest 2 for Huey, and another phone for Louie, which Scrooge dosen’t get. But Louie gets it on 2 levels: One, the one he asked for is probably a nicer model and as someone who just got a very marginally nicer model on insurance, I get it, even if like Scrooge i’m fine as long as mine works, it’s still nice to have more space to do shit. And two, he plans to sell the old one and keep the money. So yeah the boys already loved Santa but now they have every reason to since, you know, Santa actually gave them what they asked for and Scrooge gave them itchy hats because he’s cheap not because he put the slighest thought into it. And no i’m ont letting him get away with that: Again, off list, perfectly fine. Right behind me on my sprawl of book shelves is Weird Al’s biography, a really fun, really intresting book with photos on his career. I did not ask for it, but my mom rightly knew I would love it and got it for me for my birthday, which is very close to christmas, the 16th if you were curious, anyway, and I’ve treasured it since.. and really need to re-read it. My point is you CAN get someone something they didn’t ask for and still have it be something they LIKE. I did that for most of my christmas gifts this year. Scrooge just, as I went on about above, didn’t give a shit and was a bit callous about it so yeah, Santa wins this round.  But Santa naturally needs Scrooge’s help to save Christmas because his ankle’s sprained and he’s out of options. Scrooge.. naturally refuses because, as i’ve made clear this and past episodes, he can be kind of a dick and Santa is one of his worst enemies in his mind. Why help him? So Santa, reluctantly, offers Scrooge the one thing you can get for the man who has everything: An agreement to leave his house alone. The boys aren’t happy about it, but Scrooge reluctantly agrees to the deal. They prepare to mount up though the boys aren’t invited, as Scrooge thinks their too far in the Santa camp and Scrooge does not trust him. Which again is both accurate and fair on their parts as again, he gave them things with well meaning and love, he gave them hats he fished out of the dollar store clearance bin. I mean at least go for the dvd’s and blu rays man. Yeesh. Santa does lightly buy them off by offering them another present if their good boys. Though honestly given Santa in this universe, he probably was going to anyway and this is his nice way of getting them to stay behind to make Scrooge happy. 

So as they take off, while Webby is wary of Santa, she is curious what happened, especially since earlier Scrooge actually did finally voice his gripe, if without any full length explination: Santa took Christmas From him. And Della might know that, Scrooge likely didn’t tell her or Donald the full story and Donald rightly didn’t buy it was that one sided. And it isn’t as we’ll see. Since the episodes divided up into two storylines, i’m once again splitting the difference. This time though I would like to mention the story is beautifully woven in, with both complementing each other: there’s some legit suspense as we wonder if Santa did something really that bad or if he’s lying to webby, or if Scrooge being Scrooge was just exaggerating or holding onto a grudge that was partly his fault. It’s genuinely well done to build up the story and helps really flesh Santa out as a character in both stories. i’m only not doing that because my short term memory, while good enough to hold the story for now can be spotty, and this is a lot less taxing on it. Also parts of this segment happen before the boys leave, but it’s easier this way. Sooooo... 

Times Past: Santa’s Worst Christmas Some time ago... seriously I don’t know. Scrooge was born in the 1800′s and Christmas well existed by then, to the point there’s actually a story starring young scrooge published over seas. Granted the Duck’s are no stranger to christmas, as I already covered Christmas on Bear Mountain for Scrooge’s birthday, and will be covering “A Christmas for Shacktown’ sometime this December. It’s just something worth noting. But given this universe can do whatever it wants, having it invited sometime in the early 1900′s or late 1800s is fine just fine. 

Scrooge is a coal salesman, selling people what they need but getting no shelter as he’s, again, an ass. But in the depths he finds Santa, whose having trouble puling his sleigh, and gets them in the previously closed door with kindess and saying he’s with me. We now get an idea of who Santa truly is: a kind, selfless soul who thinks nothing of himself, and is happy to offer a gift in exchange for something, but does so only in the most well meaning, warmest way possible. In short this Santa really is.. what Santa is at his best in stories; a kind, generous man who just wants to make people happy. He just gave a gift not because he wanted to bribe his way in, but because he was genuinely hoping for some shelter and wanted to be greatful. It also shows that clearly, even if something did happen.. Santa probably isn’t evil. A twist still could’ve come.. but spoilers.. it dosen’t. Santa is genuinely this kind and self sacrificing and noble. He’s just a good person.. and that would ultimately be the problem but we’ve got a lot of subplot to cover.  So Santa parties with what are clearly going to be his elves, and turn out indeed to be elves at the end when the fire goes out and Scrooge is suddenly in buisness.. and he and Santa make a great team, as Santa talks him up and says he can deliver a whole year’s worth of coal all over the world by Christmas Morning, so Christmas DOES exist here, it’s just Santa didn’t which kind of tracks. Well played. I’ll keep my earlier mistake in there though. Keeps me fresh. But Santa offers to help.. after all what are friends for? And Scrooge says their not friends.. their partners. 

And Santa says why not both. And a friendship is forged. And it makes sense.. while i’ts not as tight as it will be, Santa is a warm generous guy who helped Scrooge multiple times just to be kind: He helped him find shelter to repay his kindness helping him.. then helped him sell his coal, when he didn’t have to and while he upsold him on what he could do, did so not out of malice, but so his friend could sell MORE and with eveyr intention of helping. And this friend is someone he just met, is kind of cranky and rude.. but as we all know is a good person underneath and to Santa.. that’s what he sees.. the kind young man who helped him pull his sleigh when he didn’t have to and was already cold and miserable. And that.. that just warms my heart a lot.  But Scrooge being Scrooge has a mystic artifact that could help: The Feliz Navidiamond, a mystic artifact that can seemingly control time he got off a  spanish sailor needing coal. The two head in but encounter it’s guardians. The Magic reindeer! And that’s part of what I love about this episode: besides really getting christmas, we’ll get to that, it has a creative and intresting Santa origin baked into the show’s mythology that also shows off an intresting part of Scrooge’s past. Santa manages to pacify them with jingle bells and our heroes head inside.  In the cavern they find a Giant Snowman.. because this show is fucking awesome and Santa’s attempt to be nice bacfires but Scrooge’s natural paranoia and gumption pull through. It shows off why they make a good team: Santa’s niceties helped them with the reindeer, and netted them future transportation, while Scrooge’s natural grumpus tendencies help when nice just won’t do it. They work well together: one’s a showman and the other hasn’t learned how yet, one is nice the other naughty. It’s easy to see why they worked so well together.. in both senses. They make it past the Snowman and find that the diamond slows down time running on “christmas time!”.. seriously a great pun and one of many this episode. This show had a chance to go all out on holiday puns this go round and they did not blow it. 

But... sadly... and obviously the good times can’t roll forever and when we next return to the story it’s a year later. McDuck and Klaus coal is a MASSIVE concern, and Scrooge is eager to get started... but Santa.. wants to just give gifts instead. To do something Generous. Buisness just isn’t in him and he just wants to do something kind. It’s.. not a bad goal.. i’ts just not Scrooge. To Scrooge it’s a betryal of all he stands for: foreswearing profit to give something for nothing for seemingly no reason and to a younger even meaner scrooge.. it’s an utter betryal.. and a breaking point. Either his daft presents idea.. or Scrooge. And why yes this episode is dripping with ho yay and why yes this does resemble his painful breakups with goldie. And why yes is glorious.. Imean I wasn’t shipping Scrooge with santa before but now? Hot damn. But yeah the two have come to a parting of ways, and Scrooge bitterly leaves, while the elves reveal themselves. And my heart hurts “The Empire Builder from Callisota” bad so thank you and fuck you show.  It also probably shows why Scrooge has exactly one friend, who also works with him so it’s complicated, in present day: He just dosen’t want to let people in... and now we know WHY. The first genuine friend he made, the first person he let into his heart.. betrayed him. It’s no wonder it took decades for Beakly, then the kids to get into his heart again: the guy’s been betrayed by goldie, in his mind betrayed by santa and as we’ve seen his own dad turned against him eventually. He had no one for so long, he built a wall all around him but the wall was too tall and it blocked out all the birds and the son. But this .. is a really damn good story that fleshes Scrooge out and explains his hardness. In the comics it was Glomgold.. here.. it’s much more personal and cuts much deeper. And I absolutely love it. This story could’ve neatly fit into life and times if it made any sense in Rosa’s timeline, and it would be just perfect there. 

PRESENT DAY: Concentrated Awwww

The present day plot is a lot simplier but still fantsatic: Webby slowly warms up to Santa depsite herself.. despite Scrooge clealry seeing she is.. she sees the man is just.. nice. He gives her a new crossbow, a really nice one she probably didn’t even expect to get given you know, everything and knowing scrooge, and appricates the sentiment and slowly sees the man isn’t some monster, but just a jolly old fat man who wants to give presents. Even Scrooge seemingly warms up a little.  We also get tons of cameos during delivery, as they visit tons of supporting cast.. sadly no Darkwing.. but this one was clearly meant to go anywhere and is clealry set before “Let’s Get Dangerous”, but tons of other great bits: We get the Drake recidence with Boyd getting a present.. and somehow also doofus whose filled his stocking full of.. something. I don’t want to know and you can’t make me ask. You can make me ask why the fuck Doofus gets a present, but it could be filled with bees or maybe Santa truly thinks theirs good in him.. which .. yeah tracks. I mean not their being good in him.. I think dr. loomis said it best.. I mean it was about micheal meyers but.. same diffrence minus the patricide?

I mean points for trying though Santa, you mean well you loveable bear in both senses of the word you. But anyways other cameos include Fenton, alsleep with his armor strewn about, aww, with the gizmo armor set to hit people with fruit cake. Thought that was against the geneva convetion but alright. Scrooge’s been hit with worse. We also get them visiting the boat and giving Donald and Della presents, awww. And of course I saved the cameo I put up top for last as Webby visits her closest friend and her gilfriend and gives both an adorable cheek kiss. Though only Lena reacts.. probably because this isn’t the first time Webby’s snuck into their bedroom at night but probably the first time it hasn’t been accidently creepy because she’s still learning boundaries. Also i did not realized they shared a room. Aww. Also it’s the first time we’ve seen their room, which as you’d image from a sorceress and a magical researcher/bookworm, it’s a massive sprawling library from what we see with a skull with a candle in it, a picture of a house, and a calender. IN short it’s perfect and i’m glad we finally saw their room. 

So yeah things are going well and Webby finally realizes “Shit Scrooge is the bad guy in this scenario” at the end of the story, realizing Santa was just as hurt by the split as Scrooge was and that he had to make the harder choihce for the right reasons. Unfortunately, as i’ve said a lot this review, SCrooge is a dick and only coperated, as he wasn’t using the magical present sack, but his own filled with Coal to teach people about responsiblity. Thankfully, Scrooge realizes he’s been a dick to the globe when he happens upon little Jeniffer, a small pig girl who mistakes him from santa and takes his coal, meant to warm her fires.. and makes it into a doll. And resists his attempts to take “Coalette away”... Scrooge then rants and .. we actually get a good reason for why he’s being such a douche... as a kid he had nothing, and a gift of coal for his fires would’ve been welcmoed. He simply just.. dosen’t get the frivolity. He gets the warmth and joy of the season but not the gift part. And it’s only seeing this small, innocent child, play with a doll, he realizes “A warm heart can keep you going through the coldest nights”. And it’s then he finally realizes why his old friend did what he did.. because as i’ve been saying the real gift.. is in the giving.. of giving someone something that makes their memories glow and their heart warm. Even a lump of coal can do that in the right hands... a toy can get someone through the roughest times and it’s the WARMTH of the gift you remember, not the gift itself. I remember that book I mentioned proudly.. as do I remmeber the copy of the art of the venture brothers right next to me, or the copy of the people’s doonesbury my best friend mike bought me, and so on.. not because of the book itself... but because of the thought and warmth of someone getitng something for you because they care, not for their own reward, but just to make you feel nice this holiday season. That’s the true spirit of christmas.  Naturally realizing the errror of his ways in true christmas story fashion, Scrooge is devistated by his own actions. And Santa is PISSED.. but Scrooge is now regretful.. if also pissed because Santa stormed in there and it turns out this was all a ploy to get his friend back... which destroys Scrooge’s anger as he realizes just how much his old friend missed him and how many years he wasted lashing out at him when , in the end, Santa was right. So with only so much Diamond power left, and time running out, what can they do to right this? Simple, Scrooge suggests splitting resources. 

So we get a glorious shot of the three boys, and the twins riding  the reindeer. Also we get Launchpad! 

Who naturally wonders if he can crash a reindeer while Beakly thankfully stops him from murdering Dasher. So Christmas is saved and Scrooge and Santa exchange gifts: For Scrooge, a set of bells with their old company name.. and for Santa? a garage door opener. While Santa’s confused turns out.. it’s to turn off the traps. He’s welcome any time.. just use the front door. Cue a big hug, and Webby narrating us out as Scrooge wishes everyone a merry christmas once again letting people into his heart.  I have.. the approirate response to that. 

Final Thoughts: Excellent, easily one of the best of the season, the series and possibly of chirstmas show episodes all together, we shall see when I put together my list. And given how utterly excellent Last Christmas already is, it was hard to top.. but they did it. This was a warm, wonderful special that gets to the heart of christmas.. and really why I LIKE santa so much. For all the comercailsim around him.. he’ s a kind generous man who gets kids to belivie in magic for a while, wants nothing in return , with the offering of cookies just there to be nice and thank him for being a good person, and just wants best for people. He’s what’s best about christmas rolled into a person. And the series gets that and makes him the kindest guy around. It ends up being a story abotu Scrooge learning the meaning of christmas, an irony that’s not lost on me, but in a way that’s diffrent and unique from last time and works just as well. It’s just a warm wonderful epsiode with plenty of great gags and adventure and a beautiful, unique story at it’s core that could only be told here with tihs cast and this version of scrooge and that’s what makes it so damn magical. Easily a fantastic note to go out on.  Next time on Ducktales: I don’t know! Next time this blog covers ducktales: We’re going back a few seasons to the only episode i’ve never seen, not even a little bit. It’s the treacherous summit of mt neverest!  Until then, if you liked this review, reblog and all that good stuff, follow for more ducks, and if there’s an episode of any show you want me to cover, my cyber monday sale is still going till midnight central, and even past that if you get in a liittle past it, so you can comission a review of any episode for just 3 bucks right now, 5 if you get to this review after monday. So spend if you have it.. and if you don’t.. happy holidays to you anyway. Have a wonderful season. 

[popculturebuffet]

DWD Reviews: Dry Hard or The One and Only Liquidator.. Episode.

Happy Birthday Liquidator! I nearly missed this, I procrastinated a bit too much, but thankfully I got this in time for the anniversary of Dry Hard. Now technically, by airing order LIquidator first showed up in “Just Us Justice Ducks”buuuuuut since that applies for a good chunk of the first appearances there, I choose to go with his first chronological appearance instead. So i’m breifly dipping back into the road to just us justice ducks for one quick review before getting back to life and times and three cabs. Thankfully there’s only one major Disney Birthday next month, and it’s Panchito, so I can fold it into the ride of the Three Caballeros, and hopefully by then i’ll be into the legend of the three cabs itself. But enough insight into my creative process let’s talk about Dry Hard and ole Liquidator himself? I won’t be doing my usual play by play.. partly due to time constraints, as I got to this review far later than intended due to a bungled sleep schedule and another, real world stuff related project I wanted to finally get done. And partly because this episode, while excellent, is pretty simple in it’s plot and being more of a comedy episode, as most Darkwings are honestly, ther’es no real space to dig into a lot of character stuff and most of it would be spent saying “that’s really funny”. And if i’m going to be doing more Darkwing reviews, and try and branch out into more comedy shows period, I’m going to need to try some things once in a while.  The plot in short: It’s an incredibly hot day in St. Canard. While Drake is trying and failing to set up his new sprinkler system, he needs a 3/4 picniey flange as everyone keeps telling him, Gosalyin is profeteering and is in full “little shit” mode, offering consturction workers nearbye complimentary oversalted ships to get them to buy her lemonade.  To make matters worse Bottled Water around the city is turning up gross, as is the tap water, we get a great bit with some yuppie valley girls over that, and an overly hot Darkwing, I mean he’s always hot but still, finds only two brands haven’t been poisoined. His and launchpad’s faviorite and one ran by Budd Fludd. Given his name and his schister apperance, it shouldn’t shock you Budd is behind things and while posioning his competitors and being confronted by darkwing, and acompanied by his two backup dancer’s/minons, he falls into the water, melts, jesus bud what’d you put in there, and seemingly dies.  Naturally Darkwing isn’t that lucky, and instead it’s a super villian origin story as Budd has become the liquidator, and after giving Darkwing a through beatdown and Darkwing narrowly escaping turns all the city’s water hard, just go with it, to blackmail people into paying 5000 dollars for his product. Darkwing persues him, in a swim costume Liquidator chuckles at and compares to his cousin as seen above, and finally using that flange beats him temporarily.. and then for good when Bud shows up at his house, using wet cement to make his new foe into a statue.  The reason for my brevity is this episode is the plot’s fairly simple.. but not bad at all. It provides a great origin for liquidator, and a creative foe for Darkwing to fight, one he can’t gas or punch and has to use clever tactics to fight, while Liquidator keeps pulling out new powers to fight back. But all make some logical sense, except for him being able to turn everything into hard water but hten we wouldn’t have a plot so kay, and up the stakes and his solution is both creative and makes sense given Darkwing was doing some work on the house,so the cement was well set up. It’s not bad by any means, in fact i’d call it excellent, it’s just a bit simplier than the last few episodes i’ve talked about and more about getting more gags and action in and given how creative and funnyt his one is I can’t complain. And character wise Drake is just being his usualy stubborn self, insiting he’s “the original mr.fixit’ when tha’ts clearly not true. It’s a simple standard comedy sueprhero setup: there’s a problme in their life, and solving that problem beats the bad guy. I’m mostly familiar with this sort of set up from the early 2000′s as the boom of teen hero shows really loved this trope and it’s generally a good one. 

As for Liquidator himself.. he’s utterly fantastic. His pitch man gimmick is great, his minions, two sinigng showgirls who repeat what he says, are never not funny, and he himself has good banter with darkwing and intresting powers. It’s a shame this is his only solo apperance as the guy had a LOT of potential and most of the crew’s arguments... just kind of fall flat. 1) He’s too Powerful Then just scale him down like you ended up doing. The show has a wonky timeline and two diffrnet negaducks, it’s okay if a character comes back with less powers so you can use htem more. Just being able to shape himself and blast water is enough. You can remove his hydrokenisis with other water that isn’t part of him (though he could always gain the abliity to add more to him to keep it intresting), ablility to transmute water, ablility to boil himself, and abliity to turn into tiny gremlins when split up. No one would’ve carred for a good few decades and I would’ve understood.  2) His gimmick of talking like he’s out of a commerical is limited Not really. HIs debut had times where he talked normal and advertising has a long history. It’s TRICKY to write for but the payoff is a really funny runner.  3) Coming up with ways to defeat him This one’s a bit more understandable but as creative’s that’s your job, and there’s tons of ways to beat a water based foe, as spider-man can attest. 

MY point with all that is, there’s a lot of ways around the issue set up here, and it’s a real waste of one of darkwing’s best foes. Especially since his origin is intresting, he has unique minions, and a REALLY cool apperance. That might of also been part of it: The liquidator is animated, to use a pun, very fluidily you can see his water bubbling when he stands sometimes and the animation is REALLY beautiuful and well done. So that easily could’ve been part of it: unlike the other villians he’s also harder to animate so they just went iwth theo nes they already had who were easier to deal with. It’s really a sad, wasted opprotunity and the character deserved better.  So yeah overall, a fun, slight episode, with a great villian who again, deserved way better and could’ve been written around more. But if you have D+ check out Dry Hard. It’s a classic and if you haven’t checked out Darkwing it’s an excellent episode to gage wether you’ll like the series or not.  Coming up we finally take a look at one of my faviorite Disney shows, House of Mouse, then dive back into scrooge’s life stoyr. Until then you can comission reviews for five bucks via a direct  message on here or my discord, which is avaliable via my askbox. Until then, there’s always another rainbow. 

[popculturebuffet]

The Three Caballeros Movie Review: Rejoice Now Donald’s Been Laid (Commission)

It’s time at long last we talked about those three happy chappies in snappy serapes. Who say so? @weirdkev27​ say so! He’s planning on funding an ENTIRE retrospective on the boys, so in addition to my Tom Lucitor Retrospective (Expect that to return very soon as one of the episodes in it is time sensitive), Road to Just Us Justice Ducks, and look at “The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck”. I’m proud to announce a new recurring feature on this blog “The Ride of the Three Caballeros!”, a look back at these birds of a feather who flock together and their wild and wonderful history cumulating in “The Legend of The Three Caballeros”.  Honestly I thank Kev for the idea as it’s a damn good one. Ever since seeing them on House of Mouse, which I both really need to cover and Disney needs to add already as we’re a year into Disney plus already, I’ve loved Jose and Panchito, and reading barks story years ago, and again recently, gave me a lasting love of these goofs. They have great snappy designs are the rare pre-ducktales 2017 non duck bird character, and have wonderful personalities. There’s nothing not to love and thus nothing not to love about covering their adventures. So i’m excited for this and not just for the much needed christmas money.  Naturally we’re starting the adventure here with the founding of the trio, though Kev, for now he could change his mind, choose to start with this movie instead of it’s predecessor Saludos Amigos,  on this date for two reasons. The first is it’s Friday the 13th, which besides being the basis for an utter classic of a Hey Arnold episode

Which yes for those unfamiliar with Hey Arnold features Arnold dealing with a spell of bad luck, some bullies and his grandmother dressing up wlike a black cat to rescue black cats, which is sweet.. and training them into her horrifying army of the damned, which is somehow still sweet as it is awesome.  It’s also the day this guy barges into my house thinking it’s camp crystal lake

I swear to gods Jason GET A FUCKING PHONE WITH GPS. We are not clearly not teenagers. And he’s always so embarrassed and the stab wounds always take so long at the hospital to treat. It’s just a mess.  But it’s also, according to this film Donald’s BIrthday! This was during an earlier point in his career, that will be important in a bit, so Disney hadn’t yet settled on their tradition of having their characters birthday’s being the same date as their first appearance. For the record that would make Donald and Della’s current birthday June 7th. I did a special on Donald Duck shorts for it this year. Not sure what i’ll do the next. We will see. And for fun and my own curiosity I looked up the birthdates of some of the other Ducktales castmembers as well as my boys here They are: 

Jose: August 24th (World Premier of Saludos Amigos)  Panchito: December 21st (The Mexico City Premiere Date for this very movie) Scrooge: November 14th (Thank you INducks seriously it’s a massive help with this.  Daisy: June 7th (Debut of Mr. Duck Steps out) Huey, Dewey and Louie: October 17th (First appearance in Donald’s Newspaper Strip) Webby, Beakley and Launchpad: September 18th, thanks to launchpad’s driver’s license as well as all three characters debuting in the opening arc. Though to separate them i’d likely  try to find different dates for both. For now i’m going with October 12th for Mrs. Beakly (The airing date for the Ducktales 87 ep maid of myth) and October 29th for Webby (the airing date for another 87 episode, this one about webby and a horse).  Gladstone: August 15th, as while it was released in january there is no firm release date for it. Plus a summer birthday fits him better anyways. Thank you Inducks for that.  Magica:  September 28th, finally a firm publication date. While there’s a creation date unlike Gladstone I see no need to use it.  Darkwing Duck/Drake Mallard: September 6th GLOMGOLD: July 26th Was that entirely necessary? No Would I do it again.. absolutely. It also means I really need to do something for Scrooge’s Birthday in two days. But that’s future me’s problem. Current day me has his own problems specifically a movie review to continue.  The films genesis was a in a good will tour Disney did in South America, as part of America’s Good Neighbor Policy. FDR started it in order to try and strengthen ties between Latin America and North America, to prevent any sort of war with our close neighbors and to foster good economic ties between both as well as integrate Latin culture into americans lives to make them care about those countries more. And given it was started as HItler’s rise to power grew, and America knew they’d inevitably be dragged into World War II, and thus wanted to put the kibosh on several Latin American’s Nazi Ties. So in exchange for Money, since Disney was struggling due to overextending itself and the big animator’s strike at the time, The US sent Walt and some of his animatiors to South America, where MIckey Donald and Goofy were big and to make a film based there. Hence we got Saludos Amigos which is .. kind of forgettable to be honest, though the Gaucho Goofy segment is fantastic as the “How to” shorts with goofy around the time usually were. But the film gave us Jose, hence why Donald and him are familiar with each other here, and was a moderate success. This lead to the Goverment, who’d already contracted a bunch of propaganda, one of which I covered in my Donald Duck Shorts Birthday Marathon because it contained prototypes for Gladstone and Scrooge, so another feature for South America was a win win: The US got another way to strengthen ties between the Americas, and Disney got a film they could put out during said war to lift spirits, as well as on that would likely be a hit in South America due to them not being under wartime money crunch or the misery of having a war looming overhead. As a side note. I found out after looking at the wikpiedia article on The Good Neighbor Program.. it eventually and sadly collapsed as the US post WWII shifted to the Cold War and thus threw away non interference if it meant beating the Russians. Classy.  So yeah.. this film and i’ts predecessor are technically propaganda pictures. There was also another disney full length propoganda picture about fighter jets, I only learned about this thanks to the slashfilm article I found on the movie that told me a lot of this in the first place. It’s not avaliable but it should be.. though at the very least unlike say House of Mouse, Wander Over Yonder, Penn Zero: Part Time Hero, American Dragon Jake Long, The Weekenders, Pepper Anne and MANY more, it’s absence from Disney + makes sense. And I will continue to bitch about this till Disney actually starts adding more legacy animated shows, or at least makes a few of it’s own, though I will concede reviving the Mickey Mouse shorts that Disney Channel started up is a VERY good first step and i’m sure What If and Proud Family: Louder and Prouder will be fine. I just want more animation content on the streaming platform of one of the biggest animation studios in the world with one of the most storied histories. I’m REALLY not asking a lot. 

That bit of bitching aside I will give Disney+ credit where it’s due. The service offers MOST of the Disney vault for a very reasonable price a month, in crisp HD, and thus allows someone like me, who hasn’t really dived into the disney vault and slept on watching three cabs despite borrowing it from some friends, to dive into beautiful animation like this any time. It also allows me to explore disney’s older films, the ones I want to anyway, at my leisure and it’s a REALLY nice feeling. It’s also nice to have all the various animated shows in nice clean copies. So while there are sizeable gaps in the library, many of which as highlighted above have no reason for not being there and some like Song of the South have DAMN GOOD reason for never being there, I still apricate the service for being a vast, glorious digital library of Disney content as well as stuff they’ve acquired like the marvel show library, and this review would not have been as easy to do without it. So with my opinions on D+ and the exposition for WHY this exists out of the way, as I couldn’t find much else on this flim’s background, join me after the read more for a full review of the film! Who says so? I says so! 

We open with.. the Disney+ content warning again. In my review of the last part of “Catch as Cash Can” I went on about how much I apricated it and it stands: while i’m not blind that it’s a blanket statement to cover disney’s rears, it’s still apricated for them to care enough to force the content warning on the viewer. Given how bad they usually are at falling on the right side of history, this is very admirable. Though thankfully this film isn’t as offensive as the last content warning I got for the last part of “Catch as Cash can” aka “Watch registered White Guy Hamilton Camp play a bad indian sterotype for 22 minutes while my soul slowly dies”. Here there are bits, which i’ll get to now to save me the trouble later: The Littlest Gaucho’s side characters are all drawn pretty carcturish and a bit cringe inducing. The other is of course Panchito our Mexican representative.. who wears a sombrero and shoots two pistols around. And there’s just a tinge of white man going ot another country to get laid with the way Donald behaves throughout the picture. Basically little touches here and there but nothing that spoils the picture overall or makes whole scenes unwatchable. Still worth having the warning up, but not worth getting too worked up over.  So onto the film itself and as mentioned i’ts Donald’s birthday! And I will say the film has lots of great little gags here and there.. I won’t be pointing all of them out because this film was 70 minutes long but their very charming. HIs first gift is a projector and screen.. which he naturally has to fight to get working and which first projects on his ass, already a good start. And a general thought I like is how receptive Donald is to soaking in another culture. He just seems joyusly enthralled by the various films, gifts and places his friends bring him.. 

But again we’ll get to that. Point is it’s very nice to see Disney portay learning about another culture so positively and with such a hot head as donald. Even if i’ts in part to appease the US Goverment, ther’es a genuine feeling that they truly fell in love with these countries and aren’t JUST shilling them because it’s in their contract, but because they genuinelly liked it there.  So with that we get to our first segment. See the film is one of Disney’s Package films, anthology films taking a bunch of short segments and pasting them together, but here it’s framed through the narrative of DOnald’s birthday, so there is KIND of a plot.. but it’s mostly an excuse for musical numbers, short films, and more musical numbers.

Dammit Elmo, we will get to it! So naturally i’l lbe dividing up this review into various pieces. First up...

1. The Cold Blooded Penguin: Life of Pablo, The Good Version This is a brief but endearing short about a Penguin named Pablo who dosen’t like cold weather, can relate, and wants to move to some tropical paradise, again can relate. It’s BARELY related to the theme of hte movie, celebrating Central and South America, but it’s so damn charming I can’t help but love it. And Pablo is so damn adorable, as are his friends. I mean look at him. 

He’s just so precious and you just want him to finally get to his paradise with the help of his friend, his boiler there smokey joe, and root for him as his farewell party dwindles from a bunch of penguins to just bob and gary here. 

I may love Gary, the tall one, more than I love Pablo honestly> His sad eyes or the way he’s the ONLY one who sticks it out to the end, seeing Pablo off at last. Pablo’s first attempts, going without his boiler, which just ends iwth him freezing and attempting to carry smokey joe on his back both fail, he eventually decides to go with a boat and cleverly simply saws the ice berg he’s on so it’ll drift with his house and possessions, and has Gary hit it with a bottle both to christen it and to send it flying. Plus having bags on the bags on my eyes myself, I can relate to their tired expressions. As can we all after this year. Just a month and a half and it’s finally blessedly over. 

Pablo makes his way through, finally finding his island only to nearly have his iceberg melt before he gets there. But he persevers and gets his paradise, even adorably eating a banana> Though it ends on a mealoncholy yet still funny note of Pablo missing home even though he has a pet turtle/butler now. Man I want one of those.  One final note is that the short is narrated greatly by Sterling Holloway.. aka the future WInnie The Pooh using that exact voice which while a little weird in hindsight, just makes the short that more adorable if you imagine Pooh is reading a story to you. Just a really damn cute short with some good and intentive gags, and penguins. I mean i’ll be honest I have a soft spot in my hart for those tudeoxed boys thanks to the comic strip BLoom County and it’s lead character Opus taking up a LOT of real estate in my heart and brain. Here’s a few samples of him just so you get why.  

Just a sweetheart. Though his honker would grow exponenitally with time. And once get grabbed by a card carrying MAGA asshole. But I can talk about my boy here and this strip again another day. Point is I may love pengies but even that aside this is a good short and a good way to start things off. Sadlly the pacing then lops out a bit as the next two bits aren’t QUITE as entertaining. 

2. Birds Birds Birds: Of Arcuan BIrds and Toucan Sex Donald then watches a film on birds, and i’ts basically just a bunch of short funny gags with various tropical birds. There are a FEW notable bit sin the short, and I will get to them now, but otherwise it’s just okay.. not great but not exactly memorable. I honestly forgot there was anything BUT the Arcuan bird in this bit. Speaking of which A) The Arcuan Bird, a hyperactive pink little guy who makes a little “yatatata” noise, and boops donald a bit and later shows up in the film to steal Jose’s Cigar. Easily the most entertaining part of this section and there’s a reason why he became a massive fan faviorite, as well as got a more expanded roll in Legend of the Three Cablleros. He’d also apparently later return for another Package Film. What a bird.  B) There’s a bit with Toucans, which I remember because I freaking love Toucans, the big colorful beaks look neat contrasted with their black and white bodies and they seem friendly and the one fictional one besides Toucan Sam I can rmemeber is Tuca of Tuca and Bertie. Nuff said. And because they mention the Tucan’s making love. First off this is how a Tucan makes love. 

And secondly, clealry the term has evolved considerably, but it’s still chuckle inducing to have that term in a disney movie, especially since it makes me think of a number of things most notably this. 

Which, fun fact, is the song that will likely be sung when Donald and Daisy finally have sex in the Ducktales Reboot. Della didn’t buy those choir robes for nothing. Though the joke here is simply that they can’t kiss because they have big noses. GET IT. Though I have seen incompatable noses end marriages. 

See I told you his honker got bigger. Okay onto the 3rd thing from this bit. 

C) The Flamingos, who retract into themselves while Donald adorably copies. What a boy. With that I can move on from this segement thankfully and onto... an even worse one!.. wait... 

3. The Littlest Gaucho: The Boring One  This one’s a leftover from Saludos Amigos, likely because that one already had a Gaucho Bit with goofy and because it’s not very good. But Disney was strapped for cash so use everything you got. And yes I advocated for using everything in my review of life and times part 1.. but that’s more for a shared universe and left “Oh hey I found this short in our garbage let’s put it in another movie to save money” way. I appreciate being cheap, I myself am unemployed and right now these reviews are my source of income, but you could’ve just you know.. let the film be shorter? You didn’t have to waste animation leading inito this bit.  This one is the story of a young boy, as narrated by his older self who can somehow see through the veil of time and yell at his younger self. How? 

But it dosen’t really help the story as i’ve seen far better interactive narrators and ones clearly editing history. Especially since, despite ending on a VERY sour note, How I Met Your Mother was a pro at this. It’s not the film’s fault, but even back int he 40′s I swear they could do this better. 

It’s the simple story of the little Gaucho finding a flying Donkey, befriending him, and then entering him in a jockey race which they win. There’s one or two good gags here, but it dosen’t have the cutness of the previous segments and only one or two good gags. It just feels like filler and if I watch the film again, which I probably will, I will fast forward past this. Thankfully after this we finally get a break. 

4. A Song For Bahia: They call him JOSEEEEEEEEE.. and he’s Donald

Jose enters! Donald’s next gift is a book from Brazil that’s smoking..mostly because so’s Jose. The two friends reunite, with Jose in a story book asking Donald about , what I assume is Jose’s home state of Bahia, one of Brazil’s 20 states and spelled Baia in this movie for some reason.  We then get an absolutely beautiful sequence of Jose’s voice actor singing about Bahia and showing off how beautiful the country is through gorgeous animation. It’s a really marvelous segment and really pretty to look at. And once that segment’s done the film starts to pick up in energy, though unlike the Gaucho segment, the Bahia song is actually good. 

5.  Os Quindins de Yayá: The Sleeper Has Awakened.. and by the sleeper I mean Donald’s Penis.  There’s a few bits here. We start with the wonderful song, “Have You Ever Been to Bahia?”.. which is almost entirely Jose asking that to donald who says no, with some fun mindscrewy animation.. the film has not BEGUN to mindscrew, but we’ll get to that. 

Also for this segment Jose apparently has Jamie Madrox powers.. or he’s from Cragg.. either way, Donald hasn’t been to Baia so let’s go. The boys take a train, the Arucan messes things up again, etc etc and soon their in Baia where two major aspects of the film show up: Blending Live action with animation, and Donald being really horny. It’s not to a creepy degree outside of one segment, we’ll get there, but Donald being really into live action women is a major part of three segments of this film. If your wondering while Daisy had debuted, she wasn’t the ETCHED IN STONE, presence she’d become for Donald. Which I don’t have a problem with, I love them in Ducktales 2017, their one of the few tolerable aspects of the quack pack’s i’ve watched, and they were great in House of Mouse. I”m just saying some works don’t really have her around in them (Donald’s spy and papernik adventures), while other more charming and eligible women are, while others have her as outright abusive (Legend of the Three Caballeros). I’m not against Donsy when done properly, again huge fan of the Ducktales 2017 version of the couple, I just dont’ think it has to be mandatory. The fact the Italian comics made Donald a fairly likeable alien queen as a love interest proves it. 

But yeah here Donald’s thirsty as fuck, can relate, and thus we get our next musical number.. and that blend of live action and animation. I will admit, especially on second viewing.. it’s pretty obvious their mostly using a green screened animated backdrop with the charcters on it. The other segments are much more integrated. That being said.. i’m perfectly fine with it, as Disney was on a really low budget, only able to get financing for package films like this since their main financer wouldn’t given them money for anything but shorts, so it was a workaround, not to mention having a mass talent exodus over the strike and World Fucking War II to contend with. So cheeping out on ONE segment in a large film, and STILL having it come out good is fine just fine. And it truly does, the segment centers around Yaya, a cookie seller and the object of Donald’s affections, though he gets mad when a guitar man slips in and woos her instead for a bit before eventually leaving her alone, with Donald getting a kiss. But while parts of that clearly haven’t aged well, it’s an utterly joyous and fun musical number in an already fun musical, and Aurora Miranda who plays Yaya, and is sister of Carmen Miranda something Disney actually put in promotional materials.... come to think of it I didn’t watch the trailer.. I’ll get to it in a moment. Point is, Miranda is very talented and it’s  VERY fun number. Have a listen since the sequence itself is WAY to long to put video of up on youtube. 

And having watched the trailer during that music break, it’s not bad, I expected more cringe. The most I got was them calling the women “latin american lovlies” which.. seems.. wrong. But with the romance of Bahia setting and Donald dragged out by Jose, we can get into our next segement as, over halfway in, we finally get our third Cabllero 

6. The Three Cablleros: Who Say So? We Say So!

HERE COMES THE PANCHITO Ladies and Gentleman and Others! HERE COMES THE PANCHITO! the moment you’ve been waiting for! HERE COMES THE PANCHITO! the pride of Mexico! HERE COMES PANCHITO! Panchito Pistoles! 

When then meet Panchito who joyfully shoots guns around, because stereotype but thankfully he’s also joyful, jubilant and likeable much like his pal Jose. Panchito’s just a thoughtly likeable character and next to his smooth talking pal, it’s easy to see why the two became huge fan favorites. And thus we get our title track. 

IT’s a beautiful, fun segment, that while some portions, such as Panchito’s yelling or “some Latin baby’ haven’t aged particularly well, is still a fun colorful number with amazing music and great gags, that utterly sells our boys camaraderie. I have no notes, ten out of ten flawless classic number. Who Say So? I SAY SO! Also given both boys kiss Donald at some point.. yeah these boys are bi as fuck and damn i’ts awesome. 

7. Mexico: Bored Again, Naturally.  Donald then gets a pinata and we get a short story about a bunch of kids going around to places only to be told “no shelter no posada”. Like the Gauchito bit.. it’s pretty boring and nonconesquential and only gets a leg up due to being far shorter and a little adorable versus not really as adorable as the segement thinks it is. The kids end up at a party with a pinata. We do get a fun sequence after this nothing of a story of Donald batting a pinata around while the boys mess with him a bit. It’s fun stuff.  Out of the PInata we get another storybook, and another slow segement of Panchito singing about mexico which is a less fluidly animated, and thus far less entertaining, version of the Bahia song.. diffrent song, same premise of a bird melodically and beautifully singing about his home land, but less engaging because it’s just still images. I get they were low on budget but while I can forigve that for the Yaya sequence.. this one.. I just can’t as they not only already did this, but did it less good the second time around. The song is lovely though, and I do miss a time in our culture when we looked at Mexico with fondness and didn’t have a FAR too large portion of our population think anyone from there should go back where they came when they come to our brave country to find shelter, aslym and opportunity just because they didn’t go through “proper channels’ even though that’s difficult. WHat i’m saying is fuck our immigration policy for the last 4 years, and bless the president-elect for planning to fix that ASAP. I felt it was worth mentioning in a review ABOUT a Mexican character who, in the reboot, is an immigrant to America. 

8. Everybody Dance: Another fun number. 

We’re onto Mexico and it’s time for another musical number

So our heroes dance, Donald hits on some more women.. stuff we’ve seen before but it’s still a fun beautiful song and unlike the last bit while the animation has clearly aged enough to be more obvious, it still looks great next to the various live action dancers and blends real well. A fun time that gives us more great music and another reminder from donald that...

I mean I get being thirsty as shit, again can relate.. but the next segment takes it from Donald and the Boys being kinda horny to. 

9. The Beach: Donald Gets Creeptacular

Yeah this bit is .. less endearing. The boys fly the serape over to a beach, and divebomb the girls, which isn’t a sex act.. that i’m aware of. But yeah chasing around several women, and donald leaving the Serape to chase them around old beach movie/benie hill/trying my patience style. It’s cringe is what i’m saying as a man literally chasing a woman around is considered flirtitng here and that’s all kinds of EUGGGGHHHH. The previous segments had Donald be kind of respectful in his woman chasing: while he was pretty horny, he also tipped his hat, flirted a bit, asked to dance you know, normal shit.. not decided “let’s chase them with a serape that will turn them on!’ jesus.. yeah not much to say here either just.. really creepy. But we have not reached peak horny donald yet.. oh no. 

10. Donald’s Surreal Revere: WHAT EXACTLY THE FUCK. 

Dora Luz appears in the sky of Mexico after the boys exit the book and flip to Mexico’s night life... just go with hit and Donald swoons over her before joining her int he book and after getting a kiss from her and swooning over her.. has an acid trip. I .. I don’t know how else to describe Donald’s surreal reverie. It’s clear Walt just told the animators do whatever. I will TRY to describe this sequence as best I can, but I make no promises except what I describe is exactly what happened, see for yourself.

Okay so after Dora’s magical floating kisses, just go with it, kiss donald he explodes, in a rocket blast clearly symbolizing his errection, then becomes a neon sign and a hummingbird, just go with it, tries to kiss Dora’s image appearing on a flower, then Jose and Panchito BURST out of the flower with tiny chipmunk voices and gun violence, a SCREAMING TECHNICOLOR TRANSTION, dora singing the song in the middle of a flower again , donald making out with the flower but it turning out ot be panchito with a giraffe neck saying “Some fun eh kid?”, donald falling through a sea of ladies, donald chasing the ladies on a serape. Donald’s disembodied head looking at the ladies before bursting out of the picture to chase them GOOD GOD DID WE NEED MORE OF THAT?! The boys ending up on female bodies and them some sort of horse abomination. Then we get into what must of inspiried a young david Lynch as donald kisses the flower agian, then ends up in one as they replay a creepy whispery recording of either Jose or Panchito saying pretty girls while we see still images of the girls from the beach. Hummingbird Flower Donald then has a romantic duet with a lady because WHY NOT at this point, then multiple donalds before he spins away. We get one last number with donald dancing with living cacti that turn into mini donald’s that’s slightly more sane and finally this bit is done. IN conclusion. 

I just.. I have no words. The giant mess of text up there should explain it and I purposfully didn’t divy it up as i’ve been trying to do more often, as it deserves to be one long string of nonsense. I just.. it’s beautiful to look at but what the hell was that. Is this going to happen every time Donald and Daisy have sex? Is this what Donald’s brain is like all the time? Did Panchito inject him with pure liquid acid?

So yeah we thankfully conclude the film after that with 

14. The Wrap UP The boys horse around with a bull and then heartwarmingly watch fireworks together.. there isn’t much to add it’s jsut fun to watch and a nice pallete cleanser after loosing my sanity. Isn’t that right keith david?

You always say that! So...

Final Thoughts: I’ve made my thoughts on the various segments clear, but what of the film as a whole? As a whole.. it’s pretty fun. Is it the best film Disney’s Produced? probably not. But it’s a fun, brisk 70 minutes, hampered by a few slow spots and some weird horny bits, and various segments feel like an acid trip despite having never taken acid. But our boys easlly anchor the surreality and thirst and all three have great chemistry both comedically, friendship wise and romantically. It’s also very easy to see why this film and it’s cablleros got big in Mexico and Brazil as the film seems like a love letter to both, and is fairly respectful. WHich for the time, sex tourism aside, is pretty damn inspried. So yeah in conclusion, this is a really fun memorable film, it was even better on a second watch and it’s an enjoyable colorful reminder of Disney’s package film era, which I might dig into a bit.. I just may have to borrow a copy of make mine music.. guess what just got added to my list of “why the fuck isn’t this on disney plussss?” 

Regardless this was a fun review and auspcious start to the ride of the Cablleros. if you’d like to comission your own movie or tv review, hit up my ask box or submit box or shoot me an ask to get my discord. You can also join my patreon, patreon.com/popculturebuffet, Until then you can check this space for the various ongoing series mentioned and regular Ducktales coverage every monday. Until then, Adios, with a christmas message from my personal fourth Cabllero