#or maybe a series of posts since I'm limited to 10 images per post

[phoenixiancrystallist]

You ever take a screenshot of something happening in-game and you're like "damn, this looks like it came out of a cutscene"? Because damn, this looks like it came out of a cutscene :D

[fly-pow-bye]

DuckTales 2017 - “The Lost Cargo of Kit Cloudkicker!”

Story by: Francisco Angones, Madison Bateman, Colleen Evanson, Christian Magalhaes, Ben Siemon, Bob Snow, Tanner Johnson

Written by: Colleen Evanson & Tanner Johnson

Storyboard by: Vince Aparo, Kristen Gish, Victoria Harris, Ben Holm

Directed by: Tanner Johnson

Spin it!

Before doing research when Don Karnage first came to the series, my knowledge of TaleSpin began and ended with me having that awful Genesis game as a kid. I do know that the show took place long before the modern day, which is when DuckTales 2017 takes place, and it appears that the events of TaleSpin in this universe still goes with that. Why do I know this? Because this episode does not start with Baloo piloting the Sea Duck...

...but a grown-up version of his surrogate son, Kit Cloudkicker, who is now running Higher for Hire by himself. However, while things have definitely changed for Higher for Hire since Baloo's apparent retirement, mostly for the worse, some things remained the same. Namely, he is still being tormented by the nefarious Sky Pirate of the Skies, the corsair of the air, Don Karnage. Or Dan, as he calls him much to Karnage's annoyance. The good news is that Kit is now an ace pilot who can easily fight off sky pirates like he did back in the glory days. The bad news is that he can still do what he did as a kid with a giant cargo plane. He even says it, and with most of his dialogue in this cold opening suggests this is going to make him look foolish.

Even worse news for the business is that the fragile box addressed to F.O.W.L. is just sitting in the center of the cargo bay with no security whatsoever aside from a caged chicken and a goat. After rocking back and forth due to Kit fending off against Don Karnage, the box breaks to reveal a rock with a blue lion carved into it, and when that aforementioned chicken and goat touch it, they both turn into some sort of chicken-goat hybrid that Kit has to fight. How is able to fight this goat-chicken while piloting the plane? Simple: he puts a crowbar in the steering wheel, just like Baloo did in the original. Here, the idea is played as silly as it would be to someone who had never heard of TaleSpin. It is doubly sad when one considers Kit treats this crowbar like his only crewmate, because it is.

I do like that this first scene introduces this show's version of Kit very well. He's obviously an incompetent pilot, and not one that is lovably incompetent like Launchpad, and this incompetence is pretty well known among his customers judging by this line:

Kit Cloudkicker: Who's the terrible pilot now, everyone?

He's surprisingly cheerful about that, which, again, makes him look foolish. Despite all of this foolishness, he does appear to still be competent at coming up with plans to defeat his enemies, whether they be sky pirates or mutated goat-chickens, even if those plans end up putting the cargo he was supposed to deliver into the water. This includes that lion stone. He looks onto this and says "my bad" in a way that shows that his business is definitely going to be in the red in a few years.

A few years later, we see that Della is taking Huey, Dewey, and nobody else to Cape Suzette, and she's even allowing Dewey to fly the plane along with her. It is easy to see why Huey is extra prepared even if Dewey is doing surprisingly well, as Huey is not only using extra seatbelts, but having a Safety Boy helmet as well. Huey's also prepared with the knowledge of that Lion Stone we saw go into the ocean in the previous scene, which, you guessed it, is a Missing Mystery of Isabella Finch. Specifically, it's the Stone Of What Was, which was described with the mysterious phrase "what was once two becomes a-new." Huey does not seem to figure that one out. The good news is that it was found, but the bad news was that it was found by F.O.W.L, but the better news is that they lost it, but the worse news was that the stone was made of potassium benzoate. Okay, that last one was made up. There's a few throwaway lines to fill in how Huey even knows F.O.W.L. had the stone in other scenes, and those plot holes are really not that important.

After nearing their destination, which we learn was based on a clue from an intercepted F.O.W.L. transmission from a throwaway line from Huey slightly later in the episode, Della has the bright idea to let Dewey land the plane. Letting a little kid fly a plane? Not a good idea. Letting a little kid land a plane? Also not a good idea. Telling that little kid that there's nothing wrong with a basic landing? May be a good idea in the off chance it could even come up, but definitely not a good idea when it comes to Dewey. To Della's credit, at least it was Huey that did that last one.

After the crash landing, and not a Launchpad-type one, they arrive at Higher for Hire, which shows an advertisement showing its legacy playing on a television screen with plenty of TaleSpin references. This includes one shot of Baloo and another shot of a younger Kit and Molly Cunningham riding on an airfoil done in the style of the original show. This is great for people who were not aware of TaleSpin, which the target audience for this show may not have seen unless they have Disney Plus. Kit, still shown to be the sole employee years later, assumes anyone knocking at his door is the bank demanding payments, but he's delighted to see one of his former classmates at pilot school. He constantly has to tell Della that he is an ace pilot now. Most likely, he's telling that to himself too, as we'll see in the next scene. He at least has reason to believe he's a better pilot than his former classmate, as it doesn't look like her plane is in good shape. Della could have explained that this state was because she let one of her less competent sons fly the plane...and that would have probably made her case about a thousand times worse.

That television commercial also inspires a sort of B-plot that also ties into Kit's character arc, as seeing young Kit cloudkicking makes him want to do it, too. Despite his failure at even mimicking it, Kit is happy to see a fellow cloudkicker and would be glad to teach him the ropes. Della is not too excited by this prospect, but ends up allowing it, because she doesn't want to be the mother that does not support her kid. They aboard the plane, which ends up being a very bumpy ride, and Della goes to investigate, only to find that Kit was in the bathroom, letting his only other employee, the crowbar, be his substitute.

Kit tries to stop what he calls "mutiny" by saying that he's the only one who knows where the cargo could be, only for the crowbar to slip and reveal that he's been keeping a map in the glove compartment. The map actually has some Xs and a circle on it, which suggests that Kit may have been trying to correct his previous mistake, but either never getting the motivation to go through with it, or, more likely, he isn't competent enough to deal with whatever is on that island he circled. Maybe I am thinking about this too hard, but I would say it would be fitting.

Kit decides to distract everyone from him getting kicked out of the pilot's chair by giving Dewey his airfoil and the cloudkicking rope for him to hold onto, and a shot of Dewey's excitement instantly cuts to Dewey screaming for his life, holding on for dear life as he can't seem to. The parallel between a former cloudkicking guy who isn't really a good pilot, and a kid who can actually fly a plane who isn't really a good cloudkicker is easy to notice, and the episode plays around with this. For starters, similar to Kit and his not-so-ace piloting skills, Dewey also tries his hardest to hide how terrified he is at the cool new thing he wanted to do. Of course, it is very possible that Kit is acting the way he does because he's in a certain someone's shadow. Dewey just does it because that's how he is.

Despite that difference, this parallel is enhanced even more when they get attacked by the Sky Pirates, and Kit has to intervene and show that he, at the very least, can get Dewey out of the danger that Kit himself has caused. And yes, Don Karnage's Sky Pirates are now working for the very organization that they indirectly harmed years before by attacking that cargo plane and making them lose that precious stone. That does not come up at all, not even as a throwaway line. What does come up is that Don Karnage is delighted that one of the people after the Stone of What Was is his new arch-nemesis, Dewey. It's a long story that started all the way back in Don's debut in Season 1. It's neat to see these old references. After they all make a landing on the circled island, some more safe than others, they get to meet the wildlife of the island. Let's say there's a good reason why this island was circled, and why Kit could not handle it by himself.

It's a rhino and a gorilla crossed together, either a rhinosorilla or a gorillanoceros depending on whether one likes Dewey's word for it or Kit's. Clearly, this is the result of the Stone of What Was...what was...Wuz...Wuzzles! Admittedly, the Wuzzle was also not a show I grew up with, though that could be because it lasted only a season. In fact, I just now notice the lion carved into the Stone of What Was happens to have bumblebee wings. These animals are a little more realistic here, as they don't talk, and they're not cute or fuzzy like the original Wuzzles were. In fact, the character this gorillanoceros was based on was actually a monkey-rhino. There is a difference, even if they are very similar species genetically!

They eventually get to the stone, only to see that Don Karnage and his crewmates have found the stone first. Hiding, they see Don Karnage command Hardtack Hattie, his strongest crewmember, to lift it up. Unfortunately, she happened to lift it as a bunch of ants were crawling on it, turning her into an ant centaur to her and Don's horror. Despite that horror, and fitting for someone who just wants to finish his mission, he tries to get some of the other crew members to lift it...

...leading to these freaks of nature, which is what Don Karnage actually calls them. DuckTales 2017 isn't too afraid to show the horrifying nature of some of these fusions, continuing with the theme of how they portray the Wuzzles as these monstrous beasts. I would not call it nightmare fuel, but I would not be surprised if it already has an entry on TV Tropes. What makes these even worse is that there is no way for these guys to revert back to their normal forms. There's no "if the stone feels like it, it'll separate you" clause here, that snail-dog is permanently a snail-dog, and that pirate will have to live with a hand for his head for the rest of his days. These guys just end up getting forgotten.

Della tries to sneak by climbing around this horrific scene, only to be caught on some sort of sticky rock. Dewey decides to try to save her with his airfoil-riding skills, much to Huey's disagreement. Dewey's got to Dewey it! Oh yeah, I forgot, Dewey ends up doing "Dewey" puns for most of the episode. It's not funny, but I have a feeling it wasn't meant to be funny, and it's certainly not funny when he ends up falling down near the pirates. Face to face with someone who considers him his arch-nemesis, he tries to save face when he notices Kit stole Don Karnage's plane...which he immediately crashes into a rock.

As for the rock that Della was stuck on, it turns out it wasn't a rock. Nor was it a rock lobster, either!

It hatches into another classic Wuzzle character: the Butterbear, or the Bear-terfly as Don Karnage calls it. They never quite match the original Wuzzle names, and it is not like they would know them. There is one part of this where Kit and the Bear-terfly cross paths, and it almost seems like they're going to bond because they happen to be a similar race. Then, it instantly cuts to Kit running away from a rampaging Bear-terfly. How are they going to continue from this? Have the Bear-terfly get caught in some rope, and have it run in a way that ties up the stone, and have it fly away with Della still on its back. It is a bit convoluted, but it works in the end as it is a way for the stone to travel without it mutating even more people. Whether any of these fusions can use the stone to combine into other fusions is left unanswered, which is for the best.

One may notice I didn't talk a whole lot about what Huey did, and that's because he really didn't do much for most of the episode. He delivered the exposition, he tries to stop Dewey from "Deweying it", and that's about it. However, he does have a major part in the episode: he gets to take part in the scene where the two bumbling fools realize what they have been doing was foolish. Namely, they needed to realize that they should do what they were good at: Kit should cloudkick and Dewey should fly the plane. It is a good lesson that had some good buildup. Sure, they were pretty much failing throughout the episode, but there were scenes where they were surprisingly competent, like the scene where Kit rescued Dewey with his Cloudkicking skills, and Dewey managing to fly the plane in the beginning before he decided to "Dewey it" and crash it. It does not come out of nowhere. Speaking of which...

Dewey: Okay, let's do it.

What would be an unremarkable line actually works really well here, mainly because he decided not to make a pun on his own name, which he did way too much. It does show development, as if this fun-loving showboater is actually learning his lesson throughout the episode. I expect this from DuckTales 2017, and there are certainly cartoons where I don't.

Fittingly for a TaleSpin episode, this all ends with a flight chase scene. No, not the usual DuckTales 2017 fight scene, though there are some fights here and there, especially with Kit and Don Karnage, armed with that crow bar and sword, respectively. The scene actually manages to make Dewey keeping the plane steady an action packed scene, as he has to save his Mom while trying not to let the stone fall into the ocean and make an octopus-fish-squid hybrid that would rival the Eldritch horrors. Again, whether any of these fusions can use the stone to combine into other fusions is left unanswered, which is for the best.

It's not really a spoiler to say the good guys win, but I will say the TaleSpin part of the plot is very much all tied up in the end. If Kit only makes a minor appearance in the finale, and I'd actually be surprised if he didn't appear considering how packed the clips were, it would be completely understandable. Also, there's a cliffhanger and we finally get to hear Don Karnage sing another song, if a very short one. It seemed like he just couldn't do it in his other appearances.

How does it stack up?

With the genius way of using not just one Disney show's legacy, but another Disney show as well, there's a lot to love about this episode, though I wouldn't say it's among the absolute best. Four Scrooges.

Next, Scrooge gets indicted.

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