Super DuckTales
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| DuckTales episode | ||
| "Super DuckTales" | ||
 Fenton becomes Gizmoduck for the first time. |
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|---|---|---|
| Season | 2 | |
| Episode no. | 81-85 | |
| Airdate | March 26, 1989 | |
| Writer(s) | ||
| Director | ||
| Prod. no. | 76-80 | |
| Guest star(s) | ||
| Episode chronology | ||
| ← Previous | Next → | |
| "The Golden Goose - Part 2" | "Metal Attraction" | |
| List of DuckTales episodes | ||
Super DuckTales is a five-part serial from the second season of the Disney animated series DuckTales. Originally aired as a television movie on The Wonderful World of Disney, it served as the introduction to Fenton Crackshell and his alter-ego GizmoDuck.
Contents |
[edit] Synopsis
[edit] Part 1: "Liquid Assets"
Scrooge McDuck wakes up one morning to find a construction crew building a freeway around his Money Bin - and unfortunately for him, their plans say that they have to build it through his Money Bin. Scrooge complains about this to Mayor Hogwilde, but it does no good, and therefore he has to move the bin. Unbeknownst to everybody, the Beagle Boys re-routed the freeway's blueprints last night so that Scrooge would have to move the Money Bin - Ma Beagle's birthday is coming, and they plan to bring the bin to her as a gift. Upon remembering how much money he has, Scrooge realizes he'll need to hire an accountant to keep track of it all.
At a nearby bean factory, a (literal) bean counter named Fenton Crackshell is complaining about how he hates his job (making sure each jar of beans has 275 beans each) and wants a better one that will impress the object of his affections, Gandra Dee. Outside, he finds a poster advertising the position of Scrooge McDuck's accountant, and he figures that this is his big chance. The next day, he shows up in Scrooge's office, telling of his potential. Scrooge thinks he's nuts, but Fenton simply refuses to leave until he's hired. Scrooge then attempts to shoot Fenton, but when he does that, Fenton counts the bullets that fly at him with stunning accuracy. Scrooge, taking notice of Fenton's counting ability, tosses some coins in the air, and Fenton quickly counts them all up. Impressed, Scrooge hires him, and that night, he bursts into the trailer where he and his mother live, telling her that they have to celebrate. But Mrs. Crackshell won't take him seriously.
Meanwhile, the Beagle Boys set up a phony realty service, and Bigtime, disguised as a realtor, persuades Scrooge into buying a rocky high place (with which to put the Bin) for a rock bottom price. Scrooge doesn't notice anything familiar about this "realtor", so he signs the contract. The next morning, after one last swim in the vault before unloading it, he leaves the workers to pick it up, whilst telling Fenton that he likes his assets liquid. Taking that literally, Fenton has the money dumped into Lake Doughbegone. Needless to say, Scrooge is rather upset about this, but fortunately, as Fenton counts, the money's all there. Scrooge decides he'll just have to camp out here, so he tells Duckworth to return to the mansion and pick up some gear. When Huey, Dewey and Louie find out that Uncle Scrooge's going camping without them, they follow Duckworth to the site. When they show up, they get nabbed by Fenton, who has mistaken them for the Beagle Boys. Scrooge allows the boys to pretend to be camping, and instructs them to build booby traps.
Launchpad tries to move the Bin by driving it, but he leaves a path of destruction. Leaving Fenton to watch over the lake with the world's largest binoculars, Scrooge goes looking for him. Scrooge finds that although Launchpad ran into a lot of things, he still got the Bin to the rocky high place in one piece. Unbeknownst to them, the Beagle Boys are hiding in a cave below them, plotting to blow the Bin down into Ma Beagle's backyard. They do so, and Ma Beagle is quite pleased with this birthday present. That is, until she discovers the vault is empty! She orders her sons to go find the missing money. Scrooge then comes down, disguised as a tax accessor, telling Baggy that the Beagles will have to pay a very large fine or he takes the Bin back. While Ma Beagle fumes over this, Scrooge gives the signal to Launchpad to drive it to another mountain, and he'll meet him there as soon he gets his money out of the lake.
When Scrooge returns to the lake, he finds the nephews fishing his own money out of the lake and Fenton stuck in a net, but he doesn't notice the Beagle Boys hiding behind the rocks, though. Later that day, Scrooge finds Bigtime trying to set the dam on fire by way of magnifying glasses on balloons. Fenton tries to help, but he only succeeds in nearly breaking the dam more, so the nephews handle the problem. Next, Bigtime goes around pretending to be a termite inspector, tricking Fenton into letting termites loose on the dam. The coins start pouring out, and then Fenton uses a woodpecker call, believing "there's nothing woodpeckers like more than eating termites." Except pecking on wood. The dam now breaks.
[edit] Part 2: "Frozen Assets"
The money floods away, taking Fenton with it. Not far away, the Beagle Boys follow it all the way to Ma Beagle's cabin, where the money (and Fenton) lands. After this, Scrooge returns to his worry room and paces the floor, complaining about this nightmare. Fenton returns, suggesting that Scrooge freeze his assets. At first, Scrooge won't listen, but then realizes Fenton may have a good idea. Later that day, the Beagle family is enjoying themselves in the cash as if it were a beach when a sudden cold front blows through, causing the Beagles to duck into their cabin. Turns out the ducks have actually frozen the waterlogged money using fans blowing dry ice onto them. Now that the assets are frozen solid (hence the episode's title), Scrooge radios Launchpad to commence Operation Ice Tongs. Launchpad commands a troop of helicopters to use a giant claw to reclaim the lake.
Scrooge has his Money Bin moved to a safer mountaintop, and all the money is brought there, although he knows he needs something to protect it now since he can no longer see it from his mansion. Fenton calls him via pay phone to tell him that the cash is all loaded, except for the dime he used to place the call. Unfortunately, the dime he used happens to be the Number One Dime! Needless to say, Scrooge is furious.
After threatening Fenton into getting the Number One Dime back, Scrooge heads over to Gyro Gearloose's, asking for a security robot to protect the Bin. He also mentions that the robot "should not let anyone in." Later that day, Gyro introduces the indestructible jeep-like GICU2, which he then switches to automatic control. Then he makes the mistake of letting GICU2 destroy its own remote. GICU2 then turns against them and starts firing at them, because Scrooge said to make the robot one who wouldn't let anybody in. Upon finding a hiding spot, Scrooge tells Gyro to go home and make another security robot, this time one with a brain.
Meanwhile, Fenton goes hunting for the Number One Dime at the Phone Company. But he finds out that all the dimes deposited this morning have been transferred to the First Interfeather Bank. So he heads there, only to witness the Beagle Boys stealing the bag it's in. He follows them to Ma Beagle's cabin and asks for the proverbial cup of tea. When he asks for the bag of dimes, though, Ma Beagle gets suspicious and has him beaten and thrown out. Fenton makes several more attempts to get the dime out of their grasp in various disguises, all of which fail - he tries going in as the long-lost Bermuda Beagle, a candy machine, and a reverse tooth fairy (he tells Baggy that "if you give me that bag of dimes, I'll give you this bag of teeth").
Sometime later, Gyro introduces Scrooge to a human-controlled robot he calls Gizmoduck. But since it's human-controlled, Scrooge needs to hire someone to be Gizmoduck. And since they don't want it falling into the wrong hands, they need a ridiculous codeword that nobody uses. Gyro decides on "blatherskite". Outside, Fenton overhears the conversation and, figuring that this could save the Number One Dime, distracts Gyro with the inventor's popcorn fireworks. He hasn't heard the codeword, though, so he has problems getting the suit on until he utters his catchphrase, "Blatherin' blatherskite!", which causes the suit to fly right onto him (at this point, he still doesn't realize that his catch phrase triggers the transformation). Gyro comes back in and finds Fenton, who introduces himself as "the guy Mr. McDuck hired" and takes off, but not before Gyro reminds him to take the instructions.
Gizmoduck zooms on over to the Beagles' house and taunts them when they try to throw a bomb at him. Realizing they're overmatched, the Beagles jump into their car with the bag of dimes and zoom off into traffic. In the chase that follows, Gizmoduck at one point ends up in the Beagles' car, and as they try to throw him out, he drops the instructions booklet into their back seat. After a while, Burger, unable to control his appetite, jumps out of the car to take an order at a fast food restaurant, but he ends up handing over the bag of dimes to Gizmoduck. That job done, he delivers the Number One Dime to Scrooge, who, proud of him, tells him to bring it to the Bin. But there's still the GICU2 to worry about.
[edit] Part 3: "Full Metal Duck"
Gizmoduck picks a fight with the GICU2, but then realizes he's lost the instructions to the suit. The GICU2 puts up quite a fight, but after a big struggle, Gizmoduck eventually "pushes all his buttons" and reduces the robot to a merry-go-round. Scrooge likes how well done things went, so he hires Gizmoduck for the job of protecting the bin, not realizing he's already hired the guy for a different position. Estatic, Fenton greets his mother back at the trailer, and she's quite miffed at it. But when Fenton tries to go to bed, he can't quite get the suit off, so he has to sleep outside.
The next day, Gizmoduck is guarding the Bin when Huey, Dewey and Louie show up, saying they're members of the Gizmoduck fanclub, and they'd like him to autograph their posters. Then he gives them a ride home. But while HD&L think Gizzy's the greatest, the Beagle Boys have a different opinion; because of Gizmoduck, their goal of robbing Scrooge's Money Bin just got more difficult. So they form a plan to make Scrooge hand over his money - by holding the nephews (and several background extras) prisoner in the Statue of Duckburg and torture them with bagpipe music!
Fenton, meanwhile, ends up having his suit fall to pieces by his mom's TV remote. And this is incovenient for him, because at that point, Scrooge calls for Gizmoduck, telling him about Bigtime, Burger, and Baggy holding the nephews captive in the statue. Fenton has trouble getting the Gizmosuit back on until his mom says the trigger phrase herself and ends up wearing it. Fenton eventually figures out the phrase himself and heads off to stop the Beagles. He does that by having ice cream and chocolate syrup dumped onto the statue's torch, distracting bagpipe-blasting Burger. The nephews and extras are saved, and because of bad footing, Bigtime, Burger, and Baggy fall into a fountain and survive without any broken bones. Later, Gizmoduck is rewarded with a medal by Mayor Hogwilde and gets a lot of adoring female fans; however, he still feels that Gandra Dee is the only one for him.
Ma Beagle becomes furious about hearing the radio talking all about Gizmoduck's heroics; because of him; she now has to cook excessively in order to spring her sons from jail. Just then, she finds in her back seat the instruction booklet that fell in last episode! Realizing this could work to her advantage, she sends complicated equipment to spring out Megabyte Beagle, the genius of her offspring. Afterwards, he rigs up a remote control to take control of the Gizmosuit.
While that's going on, Gizmoduck heads off to the Money Bin for an interview with Webra Walters. Unbeknownst to them all, Megabyte takes control of him with his remote control, and he and Ma make the crimefighter do all sorts of crime in their favor. The citizens of Duckburg start protesting Gizmoduck by holding anti-Gizmoduck signs and chanting outside Scrooge's mansion, and even Scrooge and Duckworth fall for this trickery. The nephews, on the other hand, refuse to believe that Gizmoduck is a criminal, even though he's at this very moment bringing the Money Bin to the Beagles.
[edit] Part 4: "The Billionaire Beagle Boys Club"
While Scrooge goes looking for the Money Bin, the Beagle family realizes they'll have to hide it, and Ma Beagle decides on disguising it as a donut factory. Now that she has Scrooge's money, Ma Beagle goes out to buy everything she's always wanted. One of those things is Scrooge's mansion, which he has been forced to sell since he can longer pay his mortgage on it. When Ma Beagle shows up to buy it, Scrooge demands to know where she got the money, and she makes up some nonsense about recycling aluminum cans. After buying the place, the Beagle family throws a lavish party and invite everybody except Scrooge and his family. Scrooge, who's memorized the serial numbers on every dollar he's ever made, tries various attempts at crashing the party, but he keeps getting kicked out. When the guests object to the Beagles being rude hosts, Ma Beagle reacts by telling them that she and her boys now have the power to take over the town.
Meanwhile, Scrooge and the family are forced to stay at Launchpad's. While Scrooge weeps over losing his Money Bin, Huey, Dewey and Louie sneak out to the mansion to find proof that the Beagles have Scrooge's cash. Since they all disguise themselves in black, a running gag begins in which they're unable to tell each other apart. They sneak around the mansion, avoiding eyesight of the Beagles, until finally Louie (or Dewey?) catches sight of Megabyte controlling Gizmoduck. He makes off with some of Scrooge's cash, but Megabyte catches sight of him. Another chase ensues, and this time Ma, Bouncer and Burger get involved. Fortunately, the ducklings make a clean getaway.
Scrooge immediately recognizes the money that HD&L bring to him and says that he can't wait to see the look on Ma Beagle's face when she gets hauled off to jail. But the way things turn out, the only one who does get hauled away is Scrooge. Ma Beagles lies to the police chief that Scrooge stole the money from her, and because she's "very close" to the mayor (which could result in the officer being fired), the cop arrests Scrooge instead. HD&L and Mrs. Beakley try to pay his bail, but the cost is too high, and his trial's pretty much a no-win situation, because the Beagle Boys have applied for judge and jury duty. The nephews try sneaking a grenade-filled cake to Scrooge, but it only results in Mrs. Beakley getting arrested too.
While thinking of another plan, Launchpad ends up giving them an idea by way of his remote-controlled Gizmoduck toy. HD&L sneak over to the mansion, where they find the Beagle family relaxing by the pool. After having Gizmoduck serve lemonade, Megabyte puts down his remote control long enough for the nephews to grab it and replace it with the one for Launchpad's toy. After having him rebel against Ma Beagle, they take control of a forlorn Gizmoduck and head off to the jailhouse to rescue Scrooge. Even after being rescued Scrooge still believes that Gizmoduck is a bad guy until HD&L inform him that Gizmoduck was under the Beagles' control.
They then go looking for the Bin. They don't have to look far, because Ma Beagle and her minions (minus Megabyte, who has suddenly disappeared for no reason) destroy its disguise and start driving away with it. Scrooge and his family (including Gizmoduck) give chase after it. Gizmoduck pries Bigtime, Burger, and Bouncer off the Bin and battles with Ma Beagle over the controls. But they soon end up jettisoning off of the runaway bin, because it's heading for the ocean!
[edit] Part 5: "Money to Burn"
The problem of Scrooge's Money Bin sinking under the sea wouldn't be so much of a problem if they didn't have everyone in Duckburg going after it, including the Beagles. Scrooge, Launchpad, and Gizmoduck, on the other hand, take the McDuck submarine. Gizmoduck reveals that he's hooked up to the McDuck Enterprises Comquack Space Satellite, capable of finding metal for mining. Meanwhile, up in space, it's revealed that the satellite isn't the only thing detecting the Bin - there's a bunch of aliens out there, too!
Down under the sea, Scrooge & Co. find the Bin, but before they can reach it, their sub is suddenly snared by Ma Beagle's net. Just as Scrooge is ready to dismember the Beagle clan for all the trouble they've caused, the aliens show up, parting the ocean and causing the two teams to drop to the ground below, where the Bin is. The aliens then use a giant claw to abduct the Bin before departing. Scrooge, Launchpad, and Gizmoduck don space suits and give chase in the USS Jumpstart (a rocket that Launchpad happened to have lying around).
Thanks to the Money Bin springing a leak - giving them a trail to follow - the heroes make it to the alien robots' unnamed home planet. They suddenly hear the planet's ruler, the Master Electronic Leader, demanding that the non-robots that have just arrived be captured and destroyed. Gizmoduck finds out that the robots plan is to melt down the Bin to make more robots. He, Scrooge, and Launchpad sneak into the Master Electronic Leader's building disguised as robots. Scrooge and Launchpad then ditch their disguises, but while Launchpad heads back to warm up the SS Jumpstart, some of the robot minions show up and arrest the other two.
Scrooge and Gizmoduck are taken to meet the Master Electronic Leader (or MEL for short), who has a stuttering problem as well as the belief that metal is the only necessary substance in existence. MEL is quite surprised that Gizmoduck doesn't talk like a robot, but puts that aside when Gizmoduck admits there's a person inside him. So MEL takes the Gizmosuit apart (and away), revealing Fenton to Scrooge, who is shocked at this revelation. MEL orders the non-robots to be made into axle grease. As they're taken away, Fenton admits he had never believed that Scrooge thought this little of him, and he then escapes from the robot carrying him as the other one takes Scrooge to the burner. Scrooge hopes there's still Launchpad to count on, but it turns out that Launchpad's been captured too! How'd he get captured? Never explained.
Fenton runs up to issue a challenge to MEL to a duel, but MEL - who claims to be the smartest, fastest thing in the universe - simply laughs and tries to throw him out. But Fenton's as persistent here as he was at the very beginning. After Fenton bothers him with some silly questions, MEL accepts the challenge, which is to count how many ball bearings are in a jar until they're on the verge of giving up. MEL thinks he can win this easily, but as seen earlier, Fenton is very fast at counting, and since MEL keeps stuttering, Fenton easily beats him every time. After quite a while, and following one final trick by Fenton, MEL ends up short-circuiting out of exasperation, starting up a chain reaction leading to the planet's destruction. Fenton yells his catchphrase again to re-signal the Gizmosuit and, after blowing up the robots, rescues Scrooge and Launchpad; afterwards, Scrooge apologizes to Fenton for misjudging him.
While Gizmoduck fights off the robots, Scrooge and Launchpad get the SS Jumpstart working again. As they're taking off, though, they see the planet exploding behind them! Scrooge weeps, thinking Gizmoduck and the Bin have both gone to the big metal pile in the sky. Suddenly, the robots' ship turns up again, sucking their rocket in. But it turns out they're not being recaptured at all - a battered Gizmoduck comes in, showing them (and the viewers) that he saved the Bin, smuggled it into the ship, and got it off the planet before it exploded.
Just as our heroes are approaching Earth, Launchpad accidentally releases the Money Bin (though you can't really blame him, since it's an alien ship and the buttons obviously aren't labelled in English), and Scrooge dives into the vacuum of space just as it creates a comet effect. But instead of being burned up in the atmosphere, the Money Bin crashes right on its former spot, before this whole movie began, sending the construction crew running for their lives and the freeway they were building crashing right on top of Ma Beagle's cabin (but not killing the Beagles, obviously). Afterwards, Scrooge tells Gizmoduck to come early tomorrow, and "tell Fenton" that he's got important work too. With that, Fenton returns home and stands up to his lazy mother. Then he finally gets a date with Gandra, who it turns out had wanted to go out with him before but never did before because he never asked. (His mom goes with them, by the way.)
[edit] Trivia/Goofs
- At the very beginning, when Bouncer remarks "Yeah, [we're getting Ma] a nest egg for her retirement!", he speaks in Baggy's voice.
- When "Liquid Assets" is shown in syndicated reruns (such as on Toon Disney), the scene where Scrooge threatens Fenton by shooting him is cut out. Unfortunately, this edit led to some confusion among new viewers, because it also cuts out Scrooge testing Fenton's counting ability immediately afterward. Whether or not the scene will be restored on DVD remains to be seen.
- The ending of "Liquid Assets" (more specifically, the Beagles' attempts at breaking the dam) is based off of the Carl Barks story "Only a Poor Old Man".
- Given the problems that arose in "Armstrong" and "Robot Robbers", Scrooge should know better than to entrust a robot to guard his Money Bin.
- Fenton's quote, "Of course you know, this means a skirmish," is a parody of Bugs Bunny's catch phrase, "Of course you know, this means war!"
- When Fenton is disguised as "Bermuda Beagle", he wears a prison placard that reads "12345".
- When Fenton is kicked out of the Beagles' house after his "Bermuda Beagle" attempt, his disguise comes off to reveal that he's not wearing anything underneath. (In other words, you'll see a brief glimpse of him naked.)
- This is the only time Doofus Drake makes an appearance in the second season - he makes a brief, one-shot cameo while Gizmoduck is bringing the nephews home.
- Besides Ma Beagle and Megabyte, the featured Beagles are Bigtime, Burger, Bouncer, and Baggy. Babyface, Bebop, and Bankjob also make a few cameos in parts 3 and 4, but they have no lines. This is also their only second season appearance.
- One of the criminals in the jail Megabyte is in looks exactly like Maddog McGurk from "Duckman of Aquatraz".
- When the Gizmosuit's battery runs dead, Mrs. Crackshell repowers it by hooking it up to a car nearby. This experiment would be repeated in the Darkwing Duck comic story "Watt's the Problem!"
- Although Webra Walters claims that she's quitting in "Full Metal Duck", she would make several more appearances in later episodes as well as on Darkwing Duck.
- Webby only appears in "The Billionaire Beagle Boys Club", and she doesn't have any lines.
- "Full Metal Duck" is a reference to the movie title Full Metal Jacket.
