Launchpad McQuack
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| Launchpad McQuack | |
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Launchpad McQuack, as seen in DuckTales, with his lucky scarf on fire. |
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| First appearance | Treasure of the Golden Suns |
| Created by | |
| Voiced by | Terry McGovern |
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| Notable aliases | Darkwing Decoy |
Launchpad McQuack is a character created by the Walt Disney Company who first appeared as Scrooge McDuck's pilot on DuckTales, and later in the series Darkwing Duck as Darkwing's sidekick. He was a brave, good-hearted, if somewhat naive pilot with a spectacular history of crashing. As one of his mottos went: "If it's got wings, I can crash it!" He was voiced by Terry McGovern. He sometimes appears in Walt Disney World's Magic Kingdom and Disney's Animal Kingdom for meet-and-greets.
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[edit] Launchpad in DuckTales
Through the course of the DuckTales series, Launchpad's character was fairly well developed. As revealed in the episode "Top Duck", he came from a family of barn-storming stunt pilots known as the Flying McQuacks, but he left home when he was a teenager because he felt his constant crashing was too much of an embarrassment to the family name.
Not long after setting out on his own, he met Scrooge McDuck (or, as Launchpad usually addresses him, "Mr. McDee"), when Scrooge came to the airfield looking for a cheap pilot. The plane from Scrooge and Launchpad's first adventure was a rickety bi-plane Launchpad built called 'The Sunchaser' which ultimately ended up in an aviation museum for being the first plane to fly through the Earth. The account of this adventure (since Launchpad was drawn as a skinny teenager) places his series age in the mid-20's.
In the episode Launchpad's Civil War, it is learned he is of direct lineage to the (in)famous American Civil War General Rhubarb McQuack (who bore a striking resemblance to Launchpad, although the General had a bushy handlebar moustache) who Launchpad, for much of his life, believed to have been the hero of the Battle of Duckridge. This illusion was shattered during a recreation of the battle when he encountered surviving Civil War soldiers who informed him that "that lousy, rotten, bungling, polecat McQuack lost us the Battle of Duckridge." He subsequently helped the Civil War survivors get even with the townspeople for making fun of them for so long.
Launchpad also tangled with the forces of F.O.W.L. (Fiendish Organization for World Larceny), a criminal organization that would later carry over into the universe of Darkwing Duck. Launchpad thwarted a F.O.W.L. plot to destroy the world's money supply after the D.I.A. (Duckburg Intelligence Agency) and Scrooge McDuck persuaded him to impersonate an enemy agent who was his exact double. This is shown in the episode Double-O-Duck.
In the episode Armstrong, Launchpad is pitted against a robot in an air-race. The announcer refers to Launchpad as a famous adventurer. In some other episodes, the public seems to know him by this description, totally unaware that his achievements were only possible through his dimwittedness, such as getting his scarf tangled on a wing propeller, thus causing his plane to loop and swerve in what seemed like an incredible stunt. See Top Duck.
Launchpad has also served as a youth baseball coach and a scout master for the Junior Woodchucks. Launchpad holds this organization's record for earning merit badges.
When DuckTales spun off into its own comic book in 1988, Launchpad made the jump to comics along with it. His first comic appearances lay in the form of stories produced by the Walt Disney Studios, featured in Gladstone Publishing's DuckTales comic book. But Launchpad was written weakly in these stories, to the point that one reader wrote that in them, "the pilot resembles a weak carbon copy of Donald rather than a character in his own right." In the same comic book, however, a more characteristic Launchpad starred in stories written and illustrated by William Van Horn.
[edit] Launchpad in Darkwing Duck
Launchpad's character was altered somewhat for Darkwing Duck, falling out of the roll of independent hero/jack-of-all-trades, to that of a more comical sidekick. Many of the heroic qualities he displayed in Ducktales became generally muted, whereas other features, such as his clumsiness or lack of intelligence, were made stronger. His physical appearance also changed, being re-drawn with a much larger beak and a more muscular torso. At times he is seen without his aviator's cap, and as in Ducktales, his appearance without it varies, from having short, red hair that matches his signature forelock, to being drawn with the forelock as his only hair and the rest of his head covered with feathers (in the fashion of other Disney ducks).
In the series premiere, "Darkly Dawns the Duck," Launchpad and Darkwing meet after Darkwing bodily crashes through the roof of an airplane hangar during his pursuit of Taurus Bulba and surprises Launchpad, who is there working on his bi-plane. Upon learning Launchpad is a pilot, Darkwing demands he fly him up after Taurus Bulba's henchmen. Launchpad obliges, claiming to be Darkwing's biggest fan. Launchpad then volunteers his services as a sidekick, but Darkwing refuses, insisting that he works alone (and annoyed because he failed to catch Bulba's henchmen). Launchpad continues to offer his help, even bailing Darkwing out of jail to prove how handy he can be. Eventually, his persistence pays off and he wins the caped crimefighter over, perhaps sealing the deal by unveiling the Thunderquack, a high-tech airplane he built specifically for Darkwing. Oddly, despite Launchpad's reputation for crashing planes, he never had problems flying the Thunderquack and often landed smoothly (a possible sign of Launchpad's flying skills improving).
Although Darkwing has a secret identity (Drake Mallard), Launchpad is always called Launchpad, and has no crimefighter disguise, except on rare occasions where he serves as a decoy for Darkwing. Following their initial adventure, Launchpad appears to live with Drake. Throughout the series he was occasionally reunited with fellow DuckTales character (and rival to Darkwing), Gizmoduck.
Launchpad remained a regular player in Darkwing's life in the animated series as well as the comic stories based on the series, most of which were published in Disney Adventures. Although the DuckTales comic book had been cancelled around the time Darkwing Duck premiered, Launchpad still showed up in new DuckTales stories published in Disney Adventures, even occasionally mentioning Darkwing to his old co-stars.
Although no products bearing Launchpad's likeness can currently be found at Disney Stores, the character turned up again in new stories written for the Disney Comics published by Gemstone Publishing. These new comic books have also occasionally reprinted Van Horn stories starring Launchpad.
[edit] Launchpad in TaleSpin
In the late 1980s Launchpad was nearly given a starring role in the series TaleSpin. As originally pitched, TaleSpin was to have been a DuckTales spin-off featuring Launchpad as the operator of a cargo service.
However, the producers decided to instead cast popular Jungle Book character Baloo the bear in the role. Additionally, the series was now set in the mid-to-late 1930s, rather than the 1980s and 1990s.
[edit] Foreign translations of Launchpad's name
Launchpad is known as Turbo McQuack in some European translations. In other European translations, he is known by a plethora of names:
- Czech: Rampa McKvák
- Danish: Max Motor
- Dutch: Turbo McKwek
- Finnish: Heimo Huima ("huima" could be translated as "greatly daring" or "amazing")
- French: Flagada Jones
- German: Quack der Bruchpilot (Quack the Crashlander)
- Hungarian: Kvákk kapitány
- Italian: Jet McQuack
- Polish: Śmigacz McKwak (Flitter McQuack)
- Portuguese: Capitão Boeing
- Norwegian: Rotor McKvakk
- Russian: Зигзаг МакКряк (Zig-Zag McCryak)
- Spanish: Joe McQuack
- Slovak: Tryskáč McKač
- Swedish: Sigge McKvack
[edit] External links
| Darkwing Duck view • talk • edit |
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|---|---|
| Characters | |
| Main Characters | Darkwing Duck/Drake Mallard | Gosalyn Mallard | Launchpad McQuack | Honker Muddlefoot |
| Villains | NegaDuck | Megavolt | Bushroot | Quackerjack | The Liquidator | F.O.W.L. | Splatter Phoenix | Taurus Bulba | Hammerhead, Hoof and Mouth | Dr. Fossil | Phineas Sharp |
| Minor Characters | Herb, Binkie and Tank Muddlefoot | J. Gander Hooter | Vladimir Goudenov Grizzlikof | Gizmoduck | Morgana Macawber | Stegmutt | Dr. Sarah Bellum | DarkWarrior Duck |
| Other | |
| Misc | St. Canard | Calisota | Darkly Dawns the Duck | Characters |
| Media | Episodes | DVDs | Darkwing Duck video game |
| See also | Tad Stones | DuckTales | Double-O-Duck | The Disney Afternoon |
