DuckTales

DuckTales is an American animated television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. Based on Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge comic book series, featuring the adventures of Scrooge McDuck and his nephews, the show premiered on September 18, 1987 and ended on November 28, 1990.

Premise

The show features the adventures of Scrooge McDuck and his great-nephews. The nephews, who were originally living with their uncle Donald, are left in Scrooge's care when the former joins the Navy.

Though Scrooge is the richest duck in the world, he constantly tries to find ways to increase his wealth. Many episodes involve protecting his wealth from villains who want to rob Scrooge of all his money. The prominent recurring antagonists in the show include the Beagle Boys and Magica De Spell who are always finding ways to rob and swindle Scrooge and his nephews. Scrooge's nemesis in the show is Flintheart Glomgold, who always tries to devise plans to dethrone Scrooge McDuck from his "Richest Duck in the World" title.

The show's second season saw the addition of characters Fenton Crackshell and Bubba Duck. Along with them came stories that generally shifted away from the globetrotting plots of the first season, and revolved primarily in the contemporary setting of Duckburg. Episodes would feature either Bubba or Fenton but rarely both.

Although Scrooge and his nephews were the show's main characters, some episodes focused on other characters like Launchpad or Gyro.

Some episodes are based on Carl Barks stories or simply have elements from such stories. For example, the episode "The Unbreakable Bin" is based on Barks's story The Unsafe Safe.[citation needed]

[edit] Production

The series is notable for being the first Disney cartoon to be produced for syndication[1], and paving the way for future Disney cartoons, such as Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers and TaleSpin. DuckTales also spawned two spinoffs – Darkwing Duck and Quack Pack.

A world broadcast premiere television movie (entitled "The Treasures of the Golden Suns") first aired on September 11, 1987. Afterwards, it was later turned into a five-part pilot episode. The hundredth episode (which was also the series finale) aired on May 6, 1990. A feature-length movie was released in theatres on August 3, 1990.

The show was the most successful of Disney's early attempts to create high-quality animation for a TV animated series (earlier shows included The Wuzzles and Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears in 1985).[2] Disney invested a far greater amount of money into the TV series than had previously been spent on animated shows of the time. This was considered a risky move, because animated TV series were generally considered low-budget investments for most of the history of TV cartoons up through the 1980s. Most of the DuckTales episodes were animated in Asia by companies such as Cuckoo's Nest Studios, Wang Film Productions of Taiwan, and Tokyo Movie Shinsha of Japan.[3]

Many critics[who?] say that Disney's own animation studio had lost most of its luster during the period from Walt Disney's passing through the 1980s. However, the studio took a number of risks that paid off handsomely, and DuckTales was one of those risks that won big. The studio gambled on the idea that a larger investment into quality animation could be made back through syndication — a concept that worked well with live-action TV reruns, but which had only been used with inexpensive cartoon series that either recycled theatrical shorts from decades past or only featured limited, low-budget animation.

The 1987-1988 season of DuckTales consisted of 65 episodes (the standard length for a Disney TV show). The next season (1989-1990) included an additional 35 episodes, bringing the total to 100 episodes — making DuckTales one of the longest-running Disney shows in terms of number of episodes. In the second season, Bubba the Caveduck and his pet triceratops, Tootsie, and Fenton Crackshell and his alter ego Gizmo Duck appeared.

The show was successful enough to spawn a feature film, DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp, and two spinoff series: Darkwing Duck and Quack Pack. The success of DuckTales also paved the way for a new wave of high-quality animated TV series, including Disney's own The New Adventures of Winnie the Pooh in 1988.[citation needed]
Magica De Spell and three of the Beagle Boys.

The 1989 series Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers was paired with DuckTales in an hour-long syndicated show through the 1989-1990 television season. In the 1990-1991 season, Disney expanded the idea even further, to create The Disney Afternoon, a two-hour long syndicated block of half-hour cartoons. DuckTales was one of the early flagship cartoons in the series.

Huey, Dewey, and Louie all appeared in the drug prevention video Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue. Scrooge and Launchpad appeared in Disney's short-lived animated series Raw Toonage (originally aired on CBS in 1992 and 1993).

DuckTales was last seen on Toon Disney, a Disney-owned network that aired mostly animated cartoons. After the addition of Jetix in February 2004, the show left circulation along with a number of other shows, and as of 2006, it is currently being syndicated on the United Kingdom channel Disney Cinemagic. The Disney Channel reran the series in the late-1990s until their pre-teen lineup took over.

[edit] Characters
Main article: List of DuckTales characters

The main characters of the series, who appear in almost every episode, are Scrooge McDuck and his grandnephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Scrooge McDuck is a serious businessman, the richest duck in the world, a tightwad who accumulated a fortune by being "smarter than the smarties, and tougher than the toughies". Despite his harsh business ethics, Scrooge is caring to his family. Huey, Dewey, and Louie are Scrooge's great-nephews, who are left in his care during the entire length of the series. Although fairly hyperactive, the nephews are also clever and intelligent.

The series also features a mix of established characters carried over from the comics, as well as new ones created for the show. Scrooge's household also consists of his butler, Duckworth; Mrs. Beakley, a nanny hired to look after Huey, Dewey and Louie; and Webby Vanderquack, the granddaughter of Mrs. Beakley.

Initially, recurring characters included the absent-minded inventor Gyro Gearloose, the heroic but not too bright pilot Launchpad McQuack and the loyal but somewhat foolish Doofus Drake. During the second season, Bubba, a caveduck from the past, and an accountant, Fenton Crackshell, who had the dual identity of Gizmoduck, were added to the cast.

The show's primary villains consist of characters Magica De Spell, Flintheart Glomgold and the Beagle Boys. Although they are all financial threats to Scrooge in one way or another, they each have different motives: Magica wants Scrooge's Number One Dime to complete her magic spell, which will enable her to take over the world; Glomgold wants to replace Scrooge as the "Richest duck in the world"; and the Beagle Boys want to rob Scrooge of his fortune. New villains created for the show include Ma Beagle, mother of the Beagle Boys, and Poe De Spell, Magica's brother who has been transformed into a raven.

Other minor, but notable characters include Donald Duck, who left Huey, Dewey and Louie in Scrooge's care at the start of the series; Gladstone Gander, Scrooge's inexplicably lucky nephew; Scrooge's old flame, Glittering Goldie; Merlock, a powerful magician who served as the movie's main villain; and Dijon, a thief who worked for either Merlock or himself.

[edit] Episodes
Main article: List of DuckTales episodes

[edit] DVD releases

Walt Disney Studios Home Entertainment is currently in the process of releasing DuckTales on DVD. So far, three volumes have been released in Region 1 (North America), while one volume has been released in Region 2 (United Kingdom). It is unknown when the fourth and final volume (with the last 25 episodes) will be released.

The episodes are in the order of their original airing (except for the five-part serial "Treasure of the Golden Suns", placed at the beginning of Volume 2.) None of the DVD sets contain any special features.
DVD Name Ep # Release date
DuckTales: Volume 1 27 November 8, 2005
DuckTales: Volume 2 24 November 14, 2006
DuckTales: Volume 3 24 November 13, 2007
DuckTales: Volume 4 25 TBA