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popculturebuffet · 5 years ago

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Ducktales 87 Reviews: A Drain On the Economy (CACC Part 1) (Commission)

Commissioned by @weirdkev27. The start of a whopping four episode commission as I review the original Ducktales Four-Part Serial, Cash as Catch Can! The Kishke of Macaroon decides the best way to market his once in a life time find of glowing, power producing fruit is to have the two richest men in the world weigh their money to see whose richer. Seems Legit. Glomgold of course can’t play fair but since this is the 87 version he simply hires and outfits the Beagle Boys to steal scrooge’s money instead of leaving a shark filled with c4 on the doorstep of the bin as a distraction while he tries to saw it in half with a giant buzzsaw. Tanks, childen nearly drowning and outbidding yuppies ensue. Full reviewcap with spoilers under the cut. Sadly no Sea Monsters eating Ice Cream Yet.

Huzzah! Another day another commission! And it’s a massive one too as i’m covering not one, not two, not three, but FOUR episodes of the original ducktales for 15 bucks! Thank you once again WeirdKev27 for the commission. Not saving this for the end this time, if you’d like to commission your own review, just pm me, it’s 5 dollars for one episodes, and now you get 5 dollars off for each episode you commission after 2. So for instance this multiparter was 4 episodes, so Kevin payed for only three, for a total of 15 bucks! Whatabargin! But enough shilling let’s get down to bidness. As usual for first episodes a quick rundown of my history with the show: Being a fan of the Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, which I fully intend to cover here at some point and yes you can commission duck comics too if you were curious, I did want to watch Ducktales for a while but didn’t really try to until the Reboot came out. As a result I got the first season dvd for Christmas, bought the second, and while I haven’t watched all the series, what I’ve seen is pretty good. It’s a fun, fluid adventure show that captures the spirit of the Carl Barks comics while doing it’s own thing with them. Sure some aspects of the time or even of the original comics that this adapted wholesale haven’t aged well, and we’ll get to some of them, but for the most part the series has a timeless quality to it that really makes it work. I may prefer the reboot.. but I still enjoy this series and i’m glad to revisit it.

So with that, we come to one of the series handful of multiparters. For the most part Ducktales was just one off adventures, episodes that could easily be aired at any time with little regards to a strong continuity.

But unlike most shows including the rest of the Disney afternoon that at most had one pilot movie and one or two two-parters, Ducktales had 4 multi-episode story arcs. The episodes were still written with about the same episode of the week format, it’s just instead of being all wrapped up there was an ongoing storyline that tied each episode into the next and drove the action. It’s honestly not a bad format and not all that dissimilar to the Sardonyx, Out of This World, Heart of the Crystal Gems, and Diamond Days arcs Steven Universe would have.. and if your wondering yes I would cover those for the same fees, but that’s not what we’re here about.

However even among this format this four parter was unique.. and not just for the “A Sea Monster Ate My Ice Cream!” bit we’ll get to next time. The other 3 mini’s were 5-part Season Premires that either set up the show period (Treasure of the Golden Suns) or introduced a major new character for the rest of the series (Fenton/Gizmoduck for Super Ducktales, and Bubba and Tootsie for Time is Money). Though weirdly in the case of season 2 these 5 parters were also the ONLY episodes, but one oddity at a time I suppose. My point is Catch as Cash Can is not only the only one not to start a season, instead coming in mid-way through season one, but dosen’t change the show and is only 4 episodes instead of 5. It’s still from what I can remember, which only came back when watching part 1 as I got it confused with treasure of the golden suns, pretty good.. apart from the third episode but we’ll get to that, it’s just worth noting is all. So with that out of the way is this four parter any good? How do the episodes hold up from a few years ago? Well I was paid good money to find out so let’s do it to it shall we? We open in Macarooon which.. I THINK is a play on Moroco, but still dosen’t make a whole lot of sense given it’s a cookie, this episode about fruit and Hamilton’s accent as the Grand Kishke, the country’s ruler, is a vauge indian stereotype with a touch of middle eastern sterotype. Sing it with me now....

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Still not great having a white guy do a vaugely foreign accent that’s played for laughs, and yes again acceptable at the time, I don’t hold it against Hamilton camp, still dosen’t make it at all comfortable. Though it’s still, and this is VERY faint praise, better than Carbomya, an ACTUAL CANON LOCATION in the 80′s transformers cartoon that’s as offensive and dumb as it sounds and, no joke, caused Casey Kasem, who I was reminded by the article linked above quit over this.. and found out from said article is Middle Eastern himself. Huh the more you know. And SOMEHOW this isn’t the most offensive thing the franchise has ever done, as japan had mexican stereotype transformers and kiss players.. just kiss players you do not want to know, and Micheal Bay later gave us skids and mudflap and I die a little on the inside remembering that happened. Back on point there’s been worse, dosen’t make this okay, but it’s not so offensive it ruins the entire episode. Just makes the Kiskhe’s seens wince inducing.

Scrooge and Glomgold are having a poker-esque dick measuring contest over whose wealthier but for once i’ts not just because it’s tuesday in duckberg but because the Grand Kishke has called both here. As he explains, and as they know but we don’t, while going down the stairs he fell down and found a vast cavern beneath his pallace with tons of glowing fruit that could soon replace lightbulbs if marketed correctly as they never spoil and never run out, thus putting his country ont he map. While the vauge “wacky foreigner” stereotype thing is unfortunate, the Kiske is likeable and does have good reason for not doing the marketing of his biggest export himself: He’s not a businessman and has a country to run. So he felt going to the richest man in the world was the right call, but Glommy and Scroogie are tied in assets so the Kiske decides to tie break things by having the two weigh their fortunes instead as the two you know.. have large piles of stealable money around for sentimental reasons.. and because they don’t trust banks. So yeah with the contest set Glomgold sets out to do what he does best... set himself on fire with a hairbrained scheme.. no wait that’s the other glomgold. Cheat.. which this one can actually do without ending up in a bear trap, so we cut to the Duckburg jail.. which is at least in this episode just one giant cell surrounding the Beagle Boys, though given their responsible for 80% of Duckberg’s crime, and a good chunk of this series as a whole, it probably IS just that. But Glomgold using ... a .. giant floating cow balloon.. wait..

I mean I love this because .. just what the hell is this, why a cow balloon.. was it the only one he could rent? Who rents those? Did he buy this thing? How’s he going to get rid of it? How’s he not getting caught for buying this thing? Did he make this? Did he spend a good few hours building a giant cow balloon fortress/ did he dump it in the river?

You know, maybe it was schemes like this that made Frank decide to make Reboot!Glomgold into the loveable incompetent maniac he is today. I mean this sounds like one of his schemes: If your going to do something right do it in the most insane, over the top, nonseical, costly, overcomplicated way possible. As it stands though the rest of 87 Glomgold’s plan actually makes sense: he throws down gas masks and gasses the guards, though the boys think it’s ma at first. However they quickly are fine with it being their dad as Glomgold has a job for them.. though they nearly nope out when they find out it’s scrooge. This is a neat contrast to the comics where, under both barks and rosa while the Beagle Boys would get discouraged or bemoan their defeats they still kept coming. While it’s likely only for this episode it’s nice to see them have some hestiation.. at least about going after the bin directly. Which given the bin is the most heavily guarded location in duckburg no matter the contniuty and while it’s been attacked and broken into millions of times at this point, no trick works twice because Scrooge adapts. It’s what makes the continual nature of the beagle boys assualts on it here and in the comics work and why their still a threat despite always getting beaten down: sure they get in once in a while, but scrooge outwits them and then presumibly offscreen makes adjustments for next time while at the saame time their too stupid and stubborn to ever fully give up and to stop coming up with new ways to get scrooge’s fortune for themselves.

It’s a good dynamic but I like some hesitation since even the dumbest crooks get wise eventually and their being hired by someone whose utterly ruthless and might kill them or worse if they fail. But Glomgold actually has a resonable counter, that since he’s rich he can suply them with everything they could need instead of whatever they can steal he just needs the manpower and the plausible deniability. They shake on it and the die is cast. At the bin Scrooge is annoyed at having to put up with the beagle boys again ow of all times, and we soon get the second best scene of the episode as the beagle boys, and cousins storm the bin, basically doing a zap branigan and trying to throw wave after wave of their own boys at them till Scrooge’s defenses falter. It’s a great and tense action scene as the boys send beagle after beagle with some great names I sadly forgot and should’ve written down. It’s a fun sequence, though it does show why the series updated burger as he gets distracted with food... because...

That’s literally the joke and I can see why Matt and Frank retired it entirely. But other than that it’s a joy to watch. The finale is notable as Bigtime uses some armor to tank things.. until scrooge actually brings up a tank.. with just one caliber larger shells than what his armor can take, a nice little gag. But yeah scrooge pointing a tank at someone is badass and one of the only two times this episode he really gets to be. More on that in a sec. But while the boys celebrate Scrooge’s victory Scrooge dosen’t, knowing they’ll just be back in in greater numbers and thus has gone to the ludicrous extreme of setting up an automatic cannon in his money bin that fires at anyone entering.. and then forgot his cane. You can probably guess what happens next.

Yup Scrooge is thrown back, because apparently he’s immortal in this reality too, and the bin starts to break down, while the Beagles storm in and seconds up. This scene just.. annoys me. I get Scrooge isn’t unstoppable, if he was the show, and the comics and the reboot of the show wouldn’t be as fun if he wasn’t challenged at all. Scrooge himself would be disappointed if his life had no stakes. My issue here is the beagles go from evenly matched with scrooge, if both using weapons to.. casually brushing past him and the boys. And they HAVE beaten them plenty in the comics, but usually it’s through surprise or threatening the boys.. who they have right there. Instead they just.. easily beat scrooge for no real reason. It just smacks of laziness: they need the boys to get in so like scrooge and his own boys they can see the money go down a crack and thus into the sewers, but instead of having a fight or them just you know hold the triplets hostage or use a ray gun or something since it’s plausible in this setting, their backed by a billionaire for this ep and it’s an acceptable substitute. This just makes no sense to me and really baffling bit in an otherwise great episode. But as noted the money went down the tubes, so the beagles retreat.. if only because they now can just go fish it out of the sewers like that’s somehow legal. But given how the Calisota supreme court seems to never change the various terrible loopholes that nearly loose scrooge his money all the time, it’s not surprising. Seriously it was used by Carl Barks more than once: Some asshole using a bet, wager or old timey agreement to try and take something from one of our heroes usually scrooge, and other writers followed suite naturally given he set the pace for them on everything else why stop now? Though really “Slimy assholes use loopholes to run roughshod over innocent people” is such a common thing nowadays and presumably was even more so then, I commend barks for not only picking up on it but using it frequently in a CHILDREN’S COMIC. God damn man that’s some balls. Anyways Scrooge can’t quite literally slip through the cracks, but the boys can and given they are as one, they all go down follow that dough while Scrooge tries to figure out where it is from above. Scrooge goes to city planning or something like that and gets the maps to the water works, and I like the fox clerk here, but the beagles also have them. And while Scrooge chases them above the boys continue their trek bellow eventually finding the cash stash with good detective work and call scrooge , who happens to have tracked the cash and is in the general area, over from above.. but get swept out because the beagle boys open the floodgates and into the city’s reservoir. ON the bright side I now get where “Open the floodgates comes from” Scrooge heads to the pumping plant to pump them out, but finds the beagle boys and a fight ensues to see who can accidently kill some children the fastest as the triplets are buffeted back and forth over, and over, and over and over and over...

And over again till the valves break and shove the Trips into a swanky condo just as a real estate lady, who according to the Disney wiki also showed up in “Magica’s Shadow War”, good for her with the yuppies naturally wanting the condo, though the boys stop them from buying it, trick them into the elevator and then use the override to shut it down so they can’t get back up. So the Trips hold onto the loot, while Scrooge arrives.. and again since Duckburg legal policy is chosen by spinning a giant wheel and going with whatever it lands on, Scrooge can’t just you know have someone come and get his property. His solution however is clever as after a bidding war over the condo he just decides to buy the whole blasted building. And at first I wondered why their wasn’t a bit of him grumbling over the price.. but then I realized his fortune, and doubling it is at stake. While Scrooge will spend as little as ducking possible, when the chips are down he will throw his money around. And I like that it’s a nice subtle character moment showing that he knows when not to throw a big tantrum about spending money and that he has more important things going on right now, such as keeping his hands on most of it. But naturally this wins though the real estate lady wonders how he did that. Lady he owns a good chunk of the city, is in the news frequently even in this series, and owns the largest building in town which towers over every other on a massive hill and is frequently broken into or attacked, how the hell do you NOT know who he is?

Regardless Scrooge regroups with the boys but the beagles are close and are even bright enough to cut the power. I LIKE these versions better than the reboots. With the exception of a lack of character actress Margo Martendale and you know the fat shaming and all that, these beagles, while having less personality are more compient, mor eof a threat and more enjoyable to watch instead of just petty crooks who only get involved when the opportunity strikes. IT’s one of the few changes i’m just. eh on. Most of the changes, making Glomgold more insane, making Gladstone just less obnoxious enough to be tolerable, making donald less of a scallywag and more of a responsible father, not having Daisy leave donald at the drop of his hat but be an actual supportive partner.. all good. This one’s just lukewarm though ma herself is awesome, the boys are just incompitent and I forgot when watching the series that while stupid and stopped constantly the beagles just aren’t. It’s something I can give this series more than the original easily. Scrooge is about to give up and is fading out on them, tired and exausted. This DOES feel in character as scrooge, like anyone can feel worn down and he’s tried damn near everything only to be ready to loose. The boys snap him out of it.. or rather Dewey does by hucking a wad of bills at him as seen at the top of the article and it’s easily the best gag of the episode. Though it’s also the ONLY time i’ve been able to refer to the boys actions by name as while one may do something.. their the same character. Now what they are varies as the show bounces between the classic HDL characterizations: They can be like they are in the barks comics and this episode, upstanding young woodchucks who are clever, loyal to a fault, and bring scrooge down to earth when he needs it as well as an utter asset to him, mischievous young boys screwing up as children often do but learning from their mistakes or short sided goal like they are in the other half of barks comics or the later theatrical shorts.. or hyperactive , sexist little shitheads who are selfish and lazy like in the early shorts minus the sexisim or quack pack. Though I now realize just from writing that that while Huey is based on barks and ESPECIALLY Don Rosa’s version of the boys, just taken to a logical extreme as well as being autism-coded, the other boys are based on other aspects of them with their sometimes scheming nature being given to Louie and their more energetic spells and overly 80′s attitude from this cartoon given to Dewey, with again both amped up considerably. It was a neat way to give them actual personalities instead of being one person sharing the bodies of three characters.

Yeah as you can tell while I WILL say upfront I love Russi Taylor and none of this is her fault.. i’m not a big fan of the classic versions of the boys. They aren’t BAD It just baffles me why Disney, and i’m blaming theme more as some foreign comics apparently did try as did Quack Pack, never let people differentiate them or thought to really try hard at that until the reboot and it smacks of their stubborn refusal to really change their iconic characters in a significant way. I’m honestly surprised the reboot got away with it and hope the 2017 personalities are the default. I also apologize for that rant but it was going to come about at some point might as well nip it in the bud now. But that smack to the head got Scrooge back in gear and it gave him an idea.. give them the money.. specifically pile money on the elevator, breaking it, after all he’ll need to fix it anyway might as well go all in, and sending the beagles crashing down.. to the waiting police. Who called them.. probably condo lady to make sure Scrooge wasn’t lying and to report strange men breaking in. Point is Scrooge is exhausted, but triumphant.. for now. TO BE CONTINUED.

Final Thoughts: This is a solid 87 Ducktales episode: it’s fun, fast paced, has a simple but enjoyable concept, and feels like a Carl Barks comic come to life without directly adapting his stories. It’s good stuff. I had my problems as mentioned but their outweighed by the great jokes, pacing and action in this one. A great note to start out on. In the Next Part: A SEA MONSTER ATE MY ICE CREAM! A SEA MONSTER ATE MY ICE CREAM! A SEA MONSTER ATE MY ICE CREAM! A SEA MONSTER ATE MY ICE CREAM! A SEA MONSTER ATE MY ICE CREAM! A SEA MONSTER ATE MY ICE CREAM! A SEA MONSTER ATE MY ICE CREAM! A SEA MONSTER ATE MY ICE CREAM! A SEA MONSTER ATE MY ICE CREAM! A SEA MONSTER ATE MY ICE CREAM! A SEA MONSTER ATE MY ICE CREAM! A SEA MONSTER ATE MY ICE CREAM! A SEA MONSTER ATE MY ICE CREAM! A SEA MONSTER ATE MY ICE CREAM! A SEA MONSTER ATE MY ICE CREAM! A SEA MONSTER ATE MY ICE CREAM!

Until then, you can follow this blog for more ducktales every monday, check my various sub pages for more ducktales reviews of the reboot, i’ve done every episode of season 3 so far and one season 2 episode as well as a recent review of the first darkwing ep, and as noted before you can comission your own review of any animated series, ones i’ve covered and otherwise. Reblog this to spread it around if you liked it, like it if you don’t want to do that, and until next time stay safe, check your house for gary busey, and hopefully we’ll meet again.

#ducktales #review #reviews #a seamonster at my ice cream #catch as cash can #a drain on the economy #scrooge mcduck #huey duck #louie duck #dewey duck #flintheart glomgold #bigtime beagle #burger beagle #the beagle boys #macaroon #ducktales 87

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