Micro Ducks from Outer Space (DuckTales episode)
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| DuckTales episode | ||
| "Micro Ducks from Outer Space" | ||
 The shrunken forms of Scrooge and his kids look up at Gyro. |
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|---|---|---|
| Season | 1 | |
| Episode no. | 42 | |
| Airdate | November 3, 1987 | |
| Writer(s) | Jack Hanrahan Eleanor Burian-Mohr |
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| Director | Alan Zaslove | |
| Prod. no. | 27 | |
| Guest star(s) | Tress MacNeille (Female Micro Duck) Will Ryan |
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| Episode chronology | ||
| ← Previous | Next → | |
| "Double-O-Duck" | "Robot Robbers" | |
| List of DuckTales episodes | ||
"Micro Ducks from Outer Space" is the forty-second episode of the Disney animated television series DuckTales.
[edit] Synopsis
One night Gyro is on his roof, setting up a powerful antenna which will be able to pick up television signals from around the world. When Gyro trips over a cord, it points the antenna in another direction, where it transmits a broadcast signal to a mother ship of alien ducks. Believing that there are intelligent life forms on Earth, the aliens prepare to contact Gyro.
The next day, Scrooge is at one of his farms, trying to solve the problem of what to do with all the excess wheat that’s lying around. Since they have more wheat then they can sell, the farmer explains that the wheat will just rot if it doesn’t sell. Scrooge decides to have the surplus wheat to be shipped to his house where he’ll search for a buyer. When Scrooge is unsuccessful at selling the wheat, Huey, Dewey, Louie and Webby show off their ant farm, but Scrooge could care less, as they leave the ant farm on his desk.
Scrooge then receives a call from Gyro, as he accidentally tips over the ant farm and spills it out. Gyro explains that he’s been contacted by the aliens, and that the aliens are in need of food due to a food shortage on their home world. As such, they want to buy all of Scrooge’s wheat, so Scrooge agrees and awaits the aliens’ arrival. A flying saucer comes down to Earth from the mother ship, while Gyro and Launchpad set up a large “X” on Scrooge’s roof for the aliens to find by gluing on long sheets of paper. Although Scrooge is excited about the aliens, Webby is upset because one of the ants; Twitchy, is missing.
The UFO, which is actually very small in reality, flies down to McDuck Manor, where Launchpad mistakes it for a bug. He swats at it, but he gets caught in some of the sticky paper and falls off the roof into the bushes. The UFO flies into Scrooge’s office, and he too mistakes it for a bug, which he tries to kill. Right before he can smash the UFO, Webby convinces him to stop, and they discover that the aliens, who are roughly the size of ants themselves, are inside of it.
The Micro Ducks, who have to use a megaphone in order to be heard by Scrooge and the kids, introduce themselves, and agree to pay with several crystals. Since the crystals are far too small for Scrooge, the Micro Ducks bring out their molecular manipulator, which they use to enlarge the crystals to a reasonable size for him. After shrinking the wheat and loading it into their UFO, the Micro Ducks take off and leave Earth, while Gyro is still awaiting their arrival.
While examining the crystals, Scrooge discovers that the Micro Ducks left their molecular manipulator on his desk, and gets all excited. He decides to enlarge his first gold nugget, and uses tweezers to work the manipulator. Unfortunately, Scrooge breaks the tiny lever, and accidentally ends up shrinking himself and the kids down to the size of ants on his desk. As if things couldn’t get worse, the boys are unable to get the manipulator working again. Gyro enters the office, and the shrunken ducks try to get his attention, but are too small to even be heard, so he leaves. Scrooge suggests calling for help, but the boys point out that they are too small to even use the phone.
Twitchy shows up, but Scrooge and the kids need to enlarge themselves, so they run off to find Gyro, and slide down the phone cord to the carpet flooring. Duckworth, who is vacuuming the rug, unknowingly vacuums up the group and dumps them into the garbage, which is then poured into a garbage truck. The truck brings them to downtown Duckburg, where they escape by drifting away on a dandelion down to the curb. A street sweeper drives by, but the ducks manage to hide in a matchbox, which they use as a boat, before getting washed away into the sewer.
Scrooge and the kids are then spotted by two rats, but Scrooge manages to scare them off by lighting a match and torching the entire matchbox. After climbing out of a manhole, the group almost gets run over before reaching the sidewalk. Webby suggests that they catch a ride on a skateboard, and let the skater give them a ride to the park. The skater crashes, causing Scrooge and the boys to land in the grass. Webby, however, landed in a web, and the spider it belongs to gets ready to eat her. Thankfully, Scrooge and the boys manage to save her.
After walking around for a while, Scrooge and the kids are tired out, and are still in the park. They then notice that someone on a bench is feeding popcorn to the pigeons, so the boys use a piece of string from a garbage can to slip inside a pigeon’s beak as it eats a kernel. They climb onto the pigeon’s back, and allow it to fly them out of the park. Huey and Louie use the string to help steer the pigeon towards Gyro’s house, where it lands on the roof, and they ride one of the pigeon’s dropped feathers to drift down to the ground
Scrooge and the kids go inside, where Gyro is taking a nap. Scrooge suggests waking him up with force, but Dewey decides to set off Gyro’s alarm clock, by having him and his brothers pull the switch with some string. They set off the alarm, waking up Gyro, and Scrooge, who was on Gyro’s beak, goes flying into Gyro’s glass of water. Gyro almost drinks Scrooge, but the kids finally manage to get his attention and stop him.
While Gyro brings the shrunken ducks back to the mansion, the Micro Ducks have returned to Scrooge’s office, where they’ve already repaired the machine. The Micro Ducks leave, taking their machine with them, just before Gyro enters the room. When Gyro searches the desktop for the machine, he comes up empty handed. Webby is worried that she’ll be little forever, but Scrooge tells her that Gyro will eventually find a way to get them back to normal (as well as himself). Gyro is saddened that he’ll never get to see an alien.
Launchpad, who is wrapped in sticky paper, shows up at the window, and Gyro discovers that the Micro Ducks have gotten stuck to the paper. After being removed from the paper, the Micro Ducks restore Scrooge and the kids to their proper sizes and leave. Later on, Duckworth brings Scrooge some tea, just as he spots Twitchy walking on his desk. But instead of squashing him, Scrooge gives the ant a sugar cube, telling him that it will be their little secret.
[edit] Trivia
- This episode is based very loosely on the Carl Barks story of the same name. The big difference between this episode and the original story is that the Micro Ducks of the title played a bigger role in the comic story; here, their appearance serves as little more than a plot device to lead up to the central problem (the main characters being shrunk).
- The scene in which Webby gets caught in the spider web is a reference to the movie The Fly.
- This episode contains a few similarities to the movie Honey, I Shrunk the Kids, even though the movie came out later.
