onsdag 15 november 2023

Ducktales (1987)

Woo-Hoo!

Well, what Disney show to continue with? Well, why not the best one of them all, the original Ducktales. Of course it's good, it came out in 1987 like every good thing ever. Basic plot is that Donald Duck has left his nephews Huey, Louie and Dewey at their great uncle Scrooge McDuck so they go out on adventures for more treasures or stoping the reacurring enemies of Flintheart Glomduck, the Beagle Boys or Magica De Spell.

The second season introduced the characters Bubba the cave duck and Fenton Crackshell and his alter-ego Gizmoduck while getting rid of supporting characters like Doofus Drake, Donald Duck and shrinking the different Beagle Boys into the 4 regulars. 100 episodes total and a movie to boot. Being an avid Donald Duck reader this was the best way of getting to see your favourite characters on TV. Of course, season one was the best one, which incidentally was the one we sporadically had a couple of episodes taped on VHS or even bought some of the official VHS. The official ones are a real rip-off I might add, 2 episodes on a VHS which you gotta pay full price for. 

The official ones we had was the Lost Crown of Genghis Khan and the Money Vanishes (which was my tape) and Hotel Strangeduck and Super-Doo (which was one of my sisters). I also recalls one time I was sick and mom or dad had rented the tape with the Phantom Blot stealing the invisible jet (and I think it was the Dr Jekyll and Mr. Hyde that was together with it, hard to remember as I was sick but a faint memory of a Sherlock Holmes parody appeared in my head). The taped one was the viking episode, the killer whale sub and Aqua Ducks, Double-0-Duck, Scrooge First Dime, the hypnotist that get Donald to steal the navy's sub and Nothing to Fear. They also showed season 2 and onward on the Swedish public channel from 1991 so we taped all those episodes (except Scrooge Last Adventure for some reason, don't know why we didn't have that). We had one episode in english which was the Valentine episode with Aphroducky so my parents had to have taped it when they showed the valentine special back in 1990. That episode is also a bit strange since it's from season 3, but it doesn't feature either Bubba or Fenton so I always assumed it was part of the first season and it fits right in there, and I assume the intro wasn't there on the recording we had cause I think I would have been extremely confused by seeing Bubba and Gizmoduck in the opening (they were there when they showed the Swedish version, but then I was accustomed to their presence). 

Overall, rewatching it now I find it to be more fun than I remember. Could be due to watching it in english and getting a lot more of the references, and realising it actually is references. Also having gotten a taste for satirical parody and political topics. You can see the quality dropped a bit after season 1 (the colours aren't popping like the first season for instance). Another good thing is that the voices are more coherent than the Swedish version, Glomgold, Launchpad and even the ducklings changes voices from season to season, and worst is probably Bubba that changed voice from his first episode to the second (and it's the same voice actor in Swedish). The Swedish version has its moment though, for example the Hotel Strangeduck had a great moment near the end when Strangeduck explains the plot and calls his assistant a "silly boy", in Swedish he says "what an idiot" which was really fun to me as a kid. Would love a physical blu-ray release so that I can future proof it. Also a big shout-out to Ron Jones that did the music, it was amazing as every cue heightened the action scenes, made you sad at the sentimental scenes and very scared for the intense thriller scenes. 

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