#but louie's bug obsession also goes with this

[neonbuck]

one of the most interesting themes in the pikmin series is how obsession (especially over your job) can consume you, until you become a part of it, and so far i like where pikmin 4 is going with this

[popculturebuffet]

Ducktales Reviews: The Battle for Castle McDuck!

How to sum up how I feel about this episode.... 

Yeah that’ll do it. This wasn’t a BAD episode. It flowed nicely, had two great new additions to the cast.. but after weeks of really good episodes, warts and all.. this one was just.. okay. Part of the problem isn’t the episode’s fault as I went in expecting the answers to scrooge’s immortality, the answers to hortense we didn’t get last week, and you know donald and della actually getting to interact with their grandparents. I got.. pretty much none of that, though I did get some answer as to how Hortense lived long enough to have donald. But we’ll get to that. Point is part of the episodes baggage is on setting my expectations too high, the same happened with “Astro B.O.Y.D.” earlier this season and in hindsight, that one is really excellent even if it wasn’t the fenton episode I was hoping for, it’s still really damn good. THis one... even if it’s not what I was hoping ofr, while not bad it’s still pretty medicore. Let’s get into why shall we? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- We open at Castle McDuck, where Webby’s narrating for people who didn’t see the last episode set here and aren’t obsessive about watching the show like you or I. And also because this time she’s not so starstruck that she can’t actually speak or function, so she can actually get all the lore she wants in. The family is here because while the Druid stones seem to be working, the mists protecting the castle, and keeping it out of lockstep with reality every 5 years, have suddenly vanished.  Naturally Fergus blames Scrooge for that. I’m mixed on this version of Fergus. While i’m fine with chanigng things up from life and times, having him live and having him resent scrooge on some level, it worked better last time as there was emotional weight and a reason behind it: Scrooge and him didn’t get along becasue Fergus missed his boy and resented that his sucess lost him a son and made him cold and bitter like Fergus himself. It fit both men to just be too damn proud to talk it out. So while Fergus being a bit crotchety still isn’t ENITRELY out of character him still being a dick to his son for no real reason and given no new one for being an asshole to him just annoys me. The character last time was three dimensional, understandable and likeable. This one is just a bitter old man constantly yelling at his son and doting on his daughter. More on that bit in a bit. 

Downy meanwhile is just as lovely as last time: Since she lived long enough to see her grand children this time, I love seeing her as a wonderful doting grandmother to her great grandbabies. She’s wonderful and I’m thrilled to see her again. It does however bring up one of this episodes biggest issues: Donald and Della are absent and this time for no good reason. Last time, it was fair enough to exclude Donald as there was no real space for him in the narrative, and he likely , even if he loved grandma and grandpa, didn’t want to have to explain his estrangment with scrooge to them and break his poor gram-gram’s heart. That’s fair.  This time though? Their not there because.. frank didn’t want to use them. That’s.. literally it. They could’ve fit fine into the family fued narrative epseically since we’ve seen them sibling squabble, and unlike other adventures they’ve been absent, where they clearly just wanted scrooge to have time with the kids, or in the case of rumble for ragnarok scrooge had valid reason for not using them, this time? There’s no good excuse. Della would want to see her grandparents, Donald would get drug along. They only appear every 5 years. WHy the hell wouldn’t they be here?! I get trying to have character ballance but we’ve had several episodes this season of just scrooge and the kids. We DIDN’T need it this time and the lack of characters dosen’t really change anything. It instead wastes plots like getting to see what Donald and Della’s relationships with their grandparents is like, or their aunt, or finding out how their mother died or at least fucking MENTIONING hortense outside of one word and a photo. YOu think the fact their sister is dead would be important to Scrooge and Matilda but it just.. never comes up. Their niece and nephew never come up and my patince comes up short. I’m fine with character ballance but i’m not fine with wasting a golden opportunity for character interactions we haven’t gotten. I get we just had two weeks of donald and della I do, but it dosen’t make this any less frustrating or nonsensical. Having characters appear two episodes in a row dosen’t magically make them irrelevant or we’d be seeing less of Huey or Louie or Dewey and outside of last week, we REALLY haven’t. If they can show up once an episode why can’t their parents?

Point is a mystery’s afoot, and so is THE PHANTOM BLOT.. to no one’s suprise as he was both in the episode’s description and frankly magic being drained is his mo, this time using a portable generator. Webby dosen’t catch on to this.. but  I let it slide as while she’s the only one to have really met and fought the blot.. she’s also busy with mc duck family stuff and frankly while a missing mystery is here, given how deep the mcduck rouge’s gallery goes, it’s not a stretch to say it could be any one of them. Especially Glomgold, who while not magic is willing to pay for rediculous shit why would “dispersing scrooge’s family castle’s mists to bug his parents” be any diffrent. Or possibly replace them as their son because he’s kind of nuts and entirely made of stupid and that’s why we love him. And Magica has the obvious motives of revenge on scrooge, as this isn’t her first set of dead parents, and a castle full of mystic wonders. It’s plausable to wait and see who it is first instead of just assuming it’s one guy. 

And yup there��s a mysterin town:A set of mystical bagpipes of the clan mcduck that can bring life to where there is none. We don’t know if they can raise the dead but they can bring inanimate objects to life so there’s that. But seriously Donald should take them to his parents graves just to be safe. But before we can get to duck necormancy we have to find them so we get... (checks notes) a Louie and Huey team up again where Louie is an abrasive jackass to his brother for planning ahead, despite the fact he’s been proven wrong on that front twice now, and is entirely insufferable and has learned nothing about trying to find a quick and easy way of doing things depsit elearning this lesson 80 times already. 

As you can tell I hate this subplot and am getting it out of the way NOW because it’s not good and treads ground we’ve tread THREE TIMES ALREADY. and you did it right the first time, you did it okay if sloppiily with let’s get dangerous. Why this ? Louie learns nothing, Huey learns nothing and it’s not funny.The two just search for the mystery, and Louie is impatient. Though talking with a friend in a ducktales server, i’m in one now and it actually really helps with these, did make me realize that Louie’s character development has stalled like I thought... it’s simply a Marco Diaz situation. Like the third season of star vs the forces of evil, it’s basically a coin flip if your getting a well developed verison of the character that’s been built up over multiple seasons.. or a jackass whose learned nothing and treats other people badly. Their different FLAVORS of jackass but jackass still tastes awful no matter who it is. It’s not as BAD as it was there as while it’s not helpign the character, it’s not actively having him do the worst things possible, but it still makes Louie’s plots a chore to sit through at times as when he’s not well written like with split sword, rumble for ragnarok or tickening, he’s just a 2 dimensional greedy jerkhole and I don’t want to spend time with him. And the other brothers have had times of being written one dimensional, not going to lie, but all I get from Louie in these plots is this:

After almost getting his family killed, after getting scrooge’s fortune overnight with minimal effort and having everything he wanted only to learn, suprise, it takes a lot of work to maintain.. and he still just dosent’ get that the easy way isn’t always the way, and after the trickining and let’s get dangerous hasn’t learned his brother is usually right when he’s being anal retentive. This was fine in the last 2 seasons but too much has happened for him to get away with this shit and not come off as obnoxious. It just drags any episode it’s in down with it. I”ll leave the rest of the review under the cut. 

One more subplot before we dig into the main one: The Phantom Blot and his new partner, Pepper! If you don’t remember her it’s fine as she wasn’t named but she was the egghead voiced by Amy Sedaris who showed up for one scene back in the Blot’s first apperance and who frank said they had more plans for. Well we see those plans now as Pepper has been paired with the Blot for this mission as Bradford’s policy for missing mystery missions now is the buddy system. No going solo, despite the Blot really not liking any of this. Which honestly both fits Bradford, as he’s endlessly practical, and is just a good idea: most of his agents are kind of wild cards and have their own agends so forcing them to work together not only gives them better odds with scrooge, but prevents them from working their own angles against FOWLS better instrests. IN this case having the peppy, energetic and talkative pepper go with the closed off and dogmatic blot keeps him from going overboard, as Castle McDuck is basically one large magical nightmare for him to destroy and Blot keeps pepper on task and on stealth since, as we learn now we get to know her, she’s a bit overly excitable and not all that subtle, if not to dewey or della levels. She can stealth when necessary. She’s also DETERMINED to get the blot to bond with her and work with her, and is delighted to work with him, getting the job because.. no one else wanted it becasue the blot scares people and puts them off with his intensity, which he’s shocked about but really shoudln’t be. 

IT’s just a nice dynamic, he helps her be a better agent and she helps him realize he can’t do EVERYTHING alone and that blindly destroying all magic in his path, as much as he’d like to isn’t the option, using some runes to track them. Sure pepper makes their presence obvious once or twice, btu she’s also essential to the mission more often than not and by the end, even if they loose, we’ll get to that, Blot has fully accepted his partner. It’s.. honestly heartwarming when you think about it: The blot’s probably closed him off from personal relationships of any kind because A) his family got brutally murdered by the person he’s hutning and B), he has a mission he can never rest in. He likely wanted to work alone because it’s how he rolls nad i’t sonly through seeing someone who genuinely WANTS to be around him and wants his missiong ot succeed that he realizes he dosen’t have to push everyone away and allies are more useful than none. It’s a warped way of thinking but for someone with as much baggage as blotty, it’s progresss and it’s a really sweet story. HOpefully this relationship will go farther.. I mean strange relationships have happened than a dogmatic dog who hates magic and a peppy go getter both working for an obliviously evil businessman. 

So onto the main plot: Turns out Scrooge wasn’t the first person Fergus called this episode as we meet the DT17 version of Matilda! Horay! She’s voice by Michelle Gomez who like David Tennant and Catherine Tate before her is a doctor who alumnus.. though this time she’s past my time watching the show. I really gotta get on catching up. She played Missy, the female regneration of the master. Gomez is spectacular in the part here, and while I have no past experince with her I certainly want to see more of her work as she’s a delight.  Matilda is Scrooge’s sister. In the comics she was the duitful sister who looked up to her big brother as he left Scotland to make his fortune, sending money and mementio’s back she scrapbooked. She eventually went with Scrooge to america with him... but this didn’t end well as Scrooge took advantage of his sisters as help and when he finally did take them along on an adventure, it was his lowest point, going from an honest buisness man to a cruel robber baron for one moment and left him and his company. She and Hortense TRIED building a bridge with a suprise party.. but by that point while Scrooge had backed away from being a monster, he was still such a dick things blew up. As far as we know he never saw hortense alive again, and he only saw matilda in her old age with the two reconcliing. I’ll get more into ALL of this when I get to those pieces of life and times obviously. Point is she’s a good character.  And so is her reboot version.. but the reboot version did catch me off guard as, much like her dad she’s not really much like the sensible sweet woman from the comics. But given DT17 tends to really play fast and loose with previous versions of characters, and it often works out i’m not going to gripe about it: what  they did here works. As for what EXACTLY they did here, this version of Matilda is more flighty: not incomptient or lacking in charm, but due to sort of bouncing from one improable venture to the next and staying at her parents between ventures. She’s sort of a female version of Jubal Pomp, an itallian duck comics character who modelded himself after Scrooge, but dosen’t have the common sense or work ethic scrooge does. That’s really matilda here minus the looking up to scrooge part: she dosen’t seem untalented, just a bit footloose. She also likes needling her brother and is unsuprisingly her dad’s faviorite since she’s around more.  The two naturally get under each others skin, and we get our main conflict... not just because of their fighting.. but because Webby can’t help but mettle. She’s what makes this plot work: Webby can’t help but try to interfere because she dosen’t get siblings sometimes fight and have long standing resentments, something I relate to, and that stepping in or trying to end it sometimes just makes it worse. Granted sometimes’ it’s necessary, but in this casey Dewey, whose trying to inch her away is right on the money and after the awful plot with these two in SPlit Sword, it’s nice to see Dewey be in the right, but for actually good reason instead of just because the episode says so. Here he’s right that her getting involved will only escalate and her attempt to do so only reveals Matilda kidnapped scrooge’s pet hair clump and died it. She also has something resembling an emu.  This only makes things worse and starts to escalate tensions leading to some between both sides, as Fergus takes Matilda’s and Downy takes scrooges. Again REALLY could’ve used the twins. We do get a nice bit where Webby coaxe Dewey, who understandably dosen’t want to help her further spiral into her own issues by helping mend family issues she really isn’t qualified to solve.. because she’s you know... 13. I mean granted Steven Universe did this sort of thing at her age.. but given he eventually repressed his issues so much he had a mental breakdown and turned into a giant angst monster, and only got better with therapy.. maybe get some therapy instead Webby. Just saying. Therapy everyone? Therapy? But yeah she coaxes Dewey with a statdew, and yes she says that exactly.  This gets the family breifly united, as Dewey fakes an injury.. but finding out it’s fakkkke combined with Huey and Louie coming in just causes the enitre family to spiral into squabbling and webby to shut down a bit, with Scrooge planning to form his own clan after bickering iwth his parents and sister. Oh and it only gets worse when Pepper accidently brings some statues to life, and they get in on it too while Webby’s convinced the families over and she just wanted a place in it. And even if this isnt’ the BEST episdoe the show’s ever done, i’ll get to why in a second, I do like this. Webby’s nearly LOST this family once, way back at the end of season 1 when no one but beakly thought of her feelings about her best friends and surrogate uncle all leaving her after her other surrogate uncle you know.. said some pretty unforgivable things. She’s trying SO hard to force it to fit, so hard to fix things because she can’t stand them being broken, something I PAINFULLY relate to given my own personal issues with not being able to stand people being upset with me. She just wanted a family and i’ts gone.  Of course it isn’t and webby’s sad words coupled with some house crashers get the clan mcduck statues included to kick Blot and Pepper out and get the bagpipes back, while Scrooge points out it’s the good families that can withstand a squabble. So the mystery’’s gotten, Scrooge and Matilda are squareish... and this episodes thankfully over. Happy day! Final Thoughts: This episode is okay. I very clearly have my problems with it.. but it’s a fine half hour of television and funny enough to bounce through it with some good character stuff. It’s just after the last few weeks, and really this whole season.. I expect more. There was no real emotional core besides webby this episode and her issues wer eboiled down to “Families fight but it’s fine”.. which itself is a pretty uncomplicated message when family dyanmics can be complciated messy and painful. My family is thankfully fairly stable, if not without issues because hey no one is, but given other people watching might come from far worse homes where the bickering is far worse and far more toxic.. yeah maybe have some nuance here.  And this is from a show that usualy does that WELL: We saw it with Fergus last time before he was hollowed out for this episode and reduced to an angry dick. We’ve seen it with Donald and Scrooge’s estrangment or Donald and Della’s relationship: Family is complicated , messy and even good ones have problems. That should’ve been the message: family can squabble or even have serious issues but they come back together. Instead we just got a bunch of bickering for a cheesy message that dosen’t quite fit with what the series done. It fits for thanksgiving: family , the good kind, can last arugments and is there for you regardless.. and I know my family is. I just feel they could’ve done the message better. Basically the episode was fine... it just wasn’t up to the high standard this season has set even in it’s down turn and is easily the weakest epseically since Matilda really dosen’t feel all that fleshed out even though what we got of her was great. Basically not a BAD episode.. but it could’ve been a great one, and i’m disapointed the series didn’t try harder.  NEXT TIME: regular coverage for the year concludes as we go back a few months chronlogically to find out why Santa and Scrooge hate each other. IT’s christmas time ya’ll! Until then if there’s an episode of ducktales or another disney series you’d like me to take a look at, suggest it in the comments or comission it outright for give bucks via my direct messages on here or send an ask for my discord. Until we meet agian, there’s always another rainbow. 

[fly-pow-bye]

DuckTales 2017 - “The Other Bin of Scrooge McDuck!”

Story by: Francisco Angones, Madison Bateman, Colleen Evanson, Christian Magalhaes, Bob Snow

Written by: Colleen Evanson

Directed by: John Aoshima

Storyboard by: Jean-Sebastien Duclos, Kathryn Marusik, Jason Reicher, Fill Marc Sagadraca

Strange.

We start off with the evil laughter of Magica De Spell, and is forcing Lena to use a diamond dagger to cut off Scrooge's Number One Dime off of his necklace while he's sleeping. There's a lot of exposition here; it does explain why Lena is still here, and even mentions a Lunar Eclipse will happen that, according to Magica, will enhance Magica's powers along with the dime. There's going to be a lot of teasing for the finale. She also explains that Lena has to do what she says for her freedom. No mention of the "anything her dark heart desires" this time.

I will say, and this is a constant throughout this episode, that the way she is animated is really cool. She constantly transforms to give us visuals, such as right at the very beginning. and sometimes she even takes up the whole screen, only showing her red, angry eyes staring at Lena. It really shows off the fear that Magica's new character exudes with her presence. She eventually gets caught by Webby, and gets whisked off to the hideout.

Lena rightfully calls out Webby and asks why she was snooping around at night going into Scrooge's room. It turns out that Webby is still creepy when it comes to her obsession with Scrooge, wanting to collect his drool. Lena uses his to her advantage: she says that she has caught her "bug", and Webby is completely delighted.

Webby: (looking like an absolute maniac) I know, we should start with a blood oath! Yeah, BLOOD OATH!

Probably a blessing that Lena gives her a different idea that will help her to her freedom: try to get that Number One Dime! Webby laments that he always keeps it on him, so she can never take a good look at it. However, she decides to a long lecture about every single adventure that Scrooge has ever taken from her self-written book on the life and times of Scrooge McDuck. In that wording, too, in a nice nod to the comics.

Meanwhile, we see the boys doing the “trying to break a world record” cartoon cliche, or at least that what it felt like at first. The twist is that the almanac Louie is using is not actually real, and is pretty much just a way to get Dewey to do Louie's chores. This scene shows anyone who’s watching the reboot for the first time that Louie is the scammer of the three, which will be a little important later.

Louie isn't the only one hiding secrets, as Huey starts acting very suspicious, as if he's hiding something. Something strange is going on.

Scrooge agrees, as he woke up to find nick in his unbreakable Number One Dime necklace, and confronts Mrs. Beakley about it in her only appearance in the whole episode. He has to put the dime in the titular “other bin” while he apparently gets his necklace repaired, and he's also going to try to hunt whatever supernatural creature caused this nick with a crossbow.

Magica overhears this, and goes back to Lena to tell her to ask about the Other Bin. Webby gasps and stands still, Lena elated that she knows about it.

However, it's that she knows about it, but she's afraid of it. The Money Bin is for the money, the Other Bin is where all the bad things are. Despite her fear of it, she pulls out this big map with all the locations she knows where it isn't. Lena then tells her that she overheard that this Number One Dime was put in there, and asks if they can try to find this Other Bin thingy.

Webby says she doesn't know about all of this, because she's afraid. Lena essentially does what Webby did to Dewey in The Spear of Selene. As in, she reminds her that this seems way out of character to just give up finding a room with a bunch of unknown artifacts related to that adventurer! She obliges.

Cutting back to the Huey, Dewey, and Louie plot, we find out just what Huey is hiding: a sasquatch! He was just hanging out on the ceiling, and nobody bothered to look up until now. We get his origin story.

While Huey was looking around in the forest, persumably for some sort of badge, though one is never mentioned, he finds a sasquatch with a thorn in his foot. Because the sasquatch seemed to be as tender as his poor little feet, Huey calls him Tenderfeet. This plot doesn’t even focus on Huey. Instead, it focuses on our lovable little green scam artist.

Tenderfeet puts on one of Louie's jackets, and, noticing that the jacket is getting stretched out due to his large size, Louie wrestles it off of him. Tenderfeet then cries, and motions to Huey and Dewey that Louie is being mean to him. On one hand, Louie actually was being mean to him, but on the other hand, I’m having this sinking feeling this is going to be one of those plots. Louie threatens to rat them out on Scrooge for letting a monster in the house, but Dewey and Huey have their own ways to blackmail him.

Dewey: I'm sure Uncle Scrooge would like to know about that charity he's been donating to for the last three years.

Wait, how long have they been staying at Scrooge's? They only heard of legends of this person before they got to go to his manor. Louie's Kids, the "charity" Dewey's talking about, will get a mention at the very end of the episode, something a lot of the jokes don't get.

We go back to Lena and Webby, who is looking in the Wing of Secrets from Woo-oo. They know this because Webby's book is essentially the strategy guide. Why didn't she use this before, as the map from earlier seemed to imply that she was looking for it? Maybe she just need that motivation from Lena, I guess.

After putting a key into a painting of Scrooge standing by the opening of a bin, the painting turns into a door, leading to the Other Bin.

Webby: We should find the dime in no time!

(enters room with tons of doors)

Lena: You were saying?

After the commercial break, Webby and Lena decide to open a random door. I guess Scrooge decided nobody would figure out that "put the key into the keyhole in the picture" puzzle, and left all of the doors unlocked on the inside.

Oh no, it’s the portal to Unicornland! Quick, close the door before you-know-who shows up! No, it's just a room that has a majestic "Sword-Horse" in it. Did Scrooge have to make this wacky rainbow land just for this one room, or did the unicorn make it?

Much like in Gravity Falls, these “sword horses” are jerks, though it’s a possibility that being stuck in a room in a bin, he most likely has a seething hatred for anyone remotely related to Scrooge.

Magica: Someone's wearing her crazy pants today!

...she doesn't even wear pants. In fact, the only person wearing pants in this whole plot doesn't even appear for the rest of the episode. Webby is still pretty overpowered, but she needs the help of Lena's diamond dagger to counter the Sword-Horse's sword. She questions why Lena has it, and Lena does her amazing distracting abilities to point towards a number on top of the door: 6456.

Webby, with her encyclopedia knowledge of anything Scrooge, figures out that means 6/4/1956, and this is the date Scrooge found the Sword-Horse. This was his prison for the last 60-ish years; no wonder why he's angry. This means that dime must be in room 1877, because that's the year he got the dime. The inconsistency with the dates will be used in this plot.

Meanwhile, we learn that, yes, the Tenderfeet plot IS one of those “Devil In Plain Sight” plots! It’s not the worst Devil In Plain Sight plot, but it’s so generic. Oh, and unlike the unicorn, he talks, but he sure won’t let Huey and Dewey know that. He calls all of his buddies via video chat to have a huge party at the Manor, and has given a group text with all of the “deets”. That never gets addressed again.

Louie tries to, but. Huey even punches Louie in the arm all because Tenderfeet did a pouty face, and this time Louie didsn't deserve it. Even Scrooge tells him to clean up the mess that Gavin made at one point. By the way, this is apparently happening in the middle of the night, judging by the Lena plot, and that never gets addressed. It seems like more proof that this plot was just shoved in there.

Speaking of which, the most noteworthy part of the episode begins. Webby and Lena find Room 1877, and Lena goes in, closing the door before Webby can get in. It turns out to be The Worry Room from the original comics and cartoon, the circular hole caused by Scrooge walking around in circles surrounding a pillow with the Number One Dime on it, completely unguarded. Nobody is around. Could anyone stop Lena from getting the dime, even herself?

We’re getting into major spoiler territory here, and while I usually skip hugely spoilery scenes if I don’t have anything to add, I have a lot to add if I talk about this one. Like before, I’m not try not to give everything away, but I highly recommend watching the episode first.

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Since Webby is nowhere around, Lena just walks up and grabs the dime under constant demands from her shadow Aunt. he shadowy form of Magica envelops Lena’s body for a second, and just by the power of just touching the person holding the dime, she seperates from her.

Magica: With the dime in my hands, nothing will stand in my way!

Except, she doesn’t have the dime, as Lena managed to cup it in her hand. Webby cuts through the door with that diamond dagger, giving more point to the unicorn scene, only to outright find out about Lena's big secret. Before anything can happen, Magica hits her with a spell.

This spell turns her into that doll from the first episode that looks like her previous incarnation. She even uses it as a puppet as a bit of irony, which she outright tells Lena and the audience.

They go so over the edge with this scene, after a certain point, I really wanted to know how Lena will get out of this situation and how Webby can somehow get out of this situation. I’m not kidding, they really go for as much shock value as you can get for a children’s cartoon and then some. Once a point of no return happens, a point of no return so shocking that even I gasped, something unexpected happens that "solves" this plot.

And I mean, unexpected in a "ha ha, you got me, DuckTales 2017, prepare for that Disgusted Dewey" kind of way. I had no reason to believe this episode would pull that card, because I thought DuckTales 2017 was above that. However, the more I thought about it, the more it feels like a great way to lead to a turning point in Lena’s character.

It does give Lena a lot more motivation to actually see her worst fears in action, and they did it in a way that doesn't change anything in the major plot before the finale. I would imagine the twist was used so they could get away with a lot more, too. Again, watch the episode if you see what I mean.

Not speaking of something that adds anything to anything, the Tenderfeet Gavin plot also comes to an end. Louie tells the others that the Tenderfeet is losing his hair, and that without the magic power of the forest, he's done for.

The other two buy it, because let’s face it: we have to end this plot somehow. Scrooge shows up here, crossbow in hand, only for all the nephews to do the "please don't shoot him, he was my friend" cliche. Louie does remind the viewers and Gavin that this was his way of winning in the middle of this. Scrooge never really makes the connection between the dime and this creature, or why the creature would want the dime. More proof that they just shoved a scrapped episode idea in here, along with its nearly complete lack of connection with the A plot.

He then takes his time and decides to go back to the Other Bin to get back his dime. I'm guessing in the middle of looking for that supernatural creature, the necklace either repaired itself, or he sent it to someone. He manages to find Webby and Lena, but he only tells Webby that all she needs to do is ask, not snoop around forbidden bins.

There’s another huge twist at the end, where Lena meets Scrooge and makes an attempt to talk to him. I was thinking the main question of the Lena and Magica arc was “Is Lena going to betray the Ducks as Magica wished, or will she switch sides?”, but the last minute of this episode changes everything about that. You really do wonder how Lena is going to get out of this situation, and this time, there is no cop-out.

How does it stack up?

I’ll be honest: I didn't like this episode at first. It felt like it was just trying to do what JAW$ did, but in an over-the-top way. However, future viewings had me soften up on this. One of my opinions did not change, though: the Gavin plot was something I’d expect out of a generic cartoon from the 80's, and I don't mean DuckTales 87.

I’m going to be the contrarian one and say that I didn't think this episode was as good as JAW$. The great Magica animation, the dime scene, and that last minute saves this episode from being the first Disgusted Dewey. I know a lot of people are going to disagree with this because "ooh, scary scenes!", but this is just my opinion.

Next, the Disney Afternoon fan service continues!

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[howardpaulanderson]

Here’s to Labor; An American Beehive

Homer is short and wiry, proud, you can see it in the way he punches his time card, and at fifty-five his job is to push and pull eight hundred sixty pounds of yarn, crucifixion style, a buggy of steel in each hand, three hundred feet up the concrete hall of the plant.  He does this sixty times in eight hours. Sometimes he dreads coming to work. But he says the workday passes fast for him and I believe him. He walks down to fetch the first pair, shoulders drooped, arms barely swinging, as if they’re accustomed only to having weights attached to them. Over the years scores of persons a third his age have turned down the job.

As Homer sweats his way down an aisle he passes Louie, also short but overweight. Louie is sitting on a bench and wiping his brow, for it’s hot down here in Continuous Spinning, what with the double deck being so confining and the heat coming off the drums to the yarn dryers. Like Homer, Louie has been around a long time, thirty-three years seniority. He’ll get up in a little while and putter for fifteen minutes with his broom and dust pan, then he’ll be back on the bench. He has all the accouterments of a subordinate, but an attitude of nonchalance washes over what is material. “It’s taken me a long time,” he says, as he watches Homer scurry back with two empties, ready to grab another haul, “to get to where I am.”

Every time I see Louie I get reminded of the song, “Louie, Louie.” I think part of the lyrics are, ‘why dontcha sit yourself down now...’ Homer doesn’t remind me of any song. Homer is like a grand old relative one remembers from childhood, greatly admired, probably single, fondly thought of every once in a while.

A person must haunch over while walking down the aisles or between the machines of the bottom deck if he or she is more than five foot eleven since pipes and conduits and structural members hang or protrude everywhere. Every so often, when someone’s new, when a trainee, they forget. The machines here run silently, effortlessly. The intercom speakers above crack to life; “C14, Ethel, coming down the hole.” Ethel, on her way to aisle C, fourteenth machine row, smiles as she passes. There are massive tanks on the upper deck. The cellulose xanthate is formed to a solid and a spinning jet carries it below, where the filament is washed with a finish and wound about the heat drum by an operator, and after a few minutes this end is snipped off and wasted, and the regular yarn, flat in its youth, is laced onto tubes or cones.

Continuous Spinning is the procreator of rayon industrial and tire yarns. The machines never stop, except for the once a month washdown maintenance or during production curtailment. A doff is made every eight hours, three times a day, seven days a week. When it runs full blast, fifty-six machines spin, eighty-six ten pound cakes to a machine.

The lead truck is rolling freely, but the rear one is fouled with lint and stray ends and it drags. “Click,” goes the electrical box, the lead truck having been turned from the hall, the light beam between eye and reflector broken, and the doors to Warping begin to swing open. A roar from sixteen twisters, seven to one side and nine from the other, and dead center ahead is a spray booth through which the buggies are shoved, what it sprays most of us don’t know except that it’s yellow; the protective hoods are lifted off the buggies, a red spot on the yarn indicates acid. The buggy is put aside if acid shows. One of the uses for the defective yarn is the stuffing put in coffins.

In Warping the flat double deck yarn is given a ‘Z’ twist, 2.3 turns to the inch, or 2.0 or 3.4; it could be put right on beams, the creels on the far side of the shop in lazy motion compared to the crazy, buzzing twisters. Or it could be hauled another three point six four minutes worth, the figure is from a man with a clipboard and stopwatch who charts such things, farther up the hall to Twisting, ring twisting as opposed to Warping’s up-twist; different machines but with the same noise, there to be plied or re-coned or twisted as in Warping, then possibly to be processed with adhesive dip, and packed, weighed, and shipped out. Thousands of pounds an hour, millions of pounds a month.

The primitive sound of metal rapping metal is continuous too. The very space overhead drones and at regular intervals throbs with the thudded drumbeat of a multitude of pipes pressurized from afar. Running their own course are row upon row of fluorescence, obscuring the time of day, while above all of it is steel or concrete.

Hundreds are tucked away where the chemical process begins in Viscose and other hundreds labor in Waste Treatment and Water Softeners and Acid Reclamation and the power plant, hundreds more in Staple or Coning or the Box Shop and scores of others from Engineering sashay through the halls behind their tool push carts. Very slowly fork trucks vie for the right of way and pedestrians always win by default, usually because they step aside. Every so often one passes a soul that is straining, eyes bugged and glazed and face a frozen daze. Hurrying executives in ties and button down collars weave through the traffic on bicycles while ringing their bells. In its heyday the plant employed eight thousand people.

Each has a part, isolated but synchronized, vital, compromised by the sheer weight of the place. Sixty-two acres are under roof, more mill than all the mills in New England during the time of John Stuart Mill. No one truly comprehends this creature of mass production. Homer’s vision is one of sweat, Mr. Kittel in .861 deals with it in pounds, the plant manager issues directives. The plant doc conducts ten physicals a week as he welcomes and examines newcomers. Accountants do their thing, the girls in shipping track cases and pallets on their computer screens. Each is obsessed by his own little function. And so it is with the good folk in Industrial Relations entrusted with image stewardship, and Research and Development enmeshed in routines of inspection, and Human Resources weeding out bad apples, and the nurse in the Dispensary doing her nails so pretty, and the guard force doing spot checks for pilferage, and Mr. Duke, the Plant Safety Director, spearheading the drive toward renewed safety awareness with a plant wide bingo contest, each space carrying a message on how to be safer.

I have to push two trucks of .056 twisted yarn which is always on the small solid green tubes through the spray booth and up to the .861 finishing area and while I’ve been doing it for a while I still don’t know what .861 means, and as I weave through Warping one of the girls careens out from between the twisters on the little one cubic foot box with wheels on the bottom that she’s sitting on, and I have to dig the heels to my safety shoes against the concrete to stop the first buggy from colliding with her. She’s cute and soft looking and it reminds me of baby fat yet remaining and she looks up at me in a dreamlike way and all of a sudden I’m thinking of Mr. Willis the Department Head’s favorite saying, “The longer you wait the harder it gets,” and I make my beeline for that gray area of safety, the one that shows preoccupation with business at hand, and now “Taking Care of Business” by BTO pops into my head, and then I’m hustling my buggies out of Warping with an exaggerated determination.

It’s the graveyard shift, midnight to seven, usually the quietest one, but the foreman’s been breathing down my neck all week. My job is authorized to make the adhesive dip and this shift is the one scheduled to do that, though lately that’s become more of a retreat than a chore for me. The dip room is a cubbyhole adjacent shipping, which is outside the main part of the plant. A pair of double doors snap open as their light beam is broken by the fork truck I’m operating. You don’t drive it or ride it or run it, you operate it. The doors snap shut after a time delay switch somewhere is activated, jaws snapping shut on the mechanical monster that is within.

Up in the dip room, alone, out of the way, I am doing my thing making dip. Sometimes I feel like Homer, sometimes like what’s his name, Louie. Sometimes I wonder what other factories are like, if things are different or the same further up and down the chain.

Water, liquid latex, resin, water dispersion (which sounds like soap), formaldehyde (which definitely does not), soda and ammonia get dumped together by the drums and by the buckets full to create a batch. A single large vat, one smaller that’s higher and off to the side, both elevated on a steel platform so that gravity drains the batch into the two hundred fifty gallon tank that is carried by fork truck out to the floor where the women can fill their five gallon pails for the dip pans located in front of their spindles. Some of the ingredients are mixed in the large tank, some in the small, the formaldehyde is added as a catalyst, a valve is opened, and for thirty minutes everything is mixed together. When it’s done it has a froth on top and looks like a giant strawberry milkshake. There’s noise from the overhead exhaust and hardened dip slung all over, even on the walls, testimony to the labor of decades of dip making by us dip makers, and the bright light from the spots casts weird effects on everything. Sometimes I can all but see ghosts flit by, so loosely does this place fire my imagination. But the eerie sense of working among dwelling spirits is somehow uplifting.

I only have four years seniority. Last week a man retired from Continuous Spinning.

“Everything okay? Good.”

Those were the last words he said to me. Three cakes, I mean the real kind, homemade were baked for him. Everybody in the shop signed the card. And in Warping, another cake was brought in for a lady who is to retire at the end of the month.

It’s a unique achievement, this synthetic, creating a fiber out of chemicals. It seems almost like getting something for nothing. This dip that I’m making tonight, it could be the coating that goes over the yarn that’ll go into the tire that will go on a jet plane. Maybe Air Force One, for all I know. Sometimes I haul the carbonized yarn which is patented, the heat resistant fiber that has made the space shuttle possible.

So what is success, anyway? A means or an end? Independence or acceptance of responsibility? Subjective? Objective? Is it conditional and varied, or in compliance to permanent moral standards? Is it found in the tangibles of life, like mazuma, or is it intangible? Does it lie in a reputation, or in selfish satisfaction, or in helping others? Is expediency, advantage and privilege more worthwhile than trust and honesty? Is the long run the sum of all short runs, or more? The very word conjures enigmas in my mind.

I don’t believe it necessarily has to be a regimental tie around one’s neck, or being the leader of a regiment, or regimenting one’s life to a bank account.

Hey! Last Wednesday night, I had to vote, down at the Union Hall, and the sensation of waiting and standing in that line I would be hard put to define. But it definitely had a lot to do with being with brothers and sisters.

But those snapping doors scare me.  Makes a person wonder.

(1982. Avtex Fibers, Front Royal, Virginia.)                                                            Last production run completed, July 9, 1989.