DuckTales

DuckTales
From left to right: Dewey, Huey and Louie, and Scrooge McDuck as seen in the show's opening.
Also known as	Disney's DuckTales
Format	Animated series
Created by	Carl Barks Jymn Magon Fred Wolf
Voices of	Alan Young Hamilton Camp Peter Cullen Jim Cummings Brian Cummings Miriam Flynn June Foray Kathleen Freeman Joan Gerber Chuck McCann Terry McGovern Hal Smith Russi Taylor Frank Welker
Country of origin	United States
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	2
No. of episodes	100 (List of episodes)
Production
Running time	22 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	first-run syndication 1987-1992 Disney Channel 1992-2001 Toon Disney 1999-2004
Original run	September 11, 1987 – May 6, 1990
Chronology
Related shows	Darkwing Duck (1991) Quack Pack (1996)
External links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

DuckTales is an American animated television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. The show premiered on September 11, 1987 and ended on May 6, 1990.

Premise

The show features the adventures of Scrooge 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' story "The Unsafe Safe."

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 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. (The longest-running Disney show is Dumbo's Circus). 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.

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 airs 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.

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, often shown to be a tightwad, who managed to earn a fortune so vast that he became the richest duck in the world. He claims to have succeeded by being "smarter than the smarties, and tougher than the toughies". Despite his harsh business ethics, Scrooge shows that he is also a caring man 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 the boys are fairly hyperactive, they are also shown to be rather 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.

Episodes

Main article: List of DuckTales episodes

Setting

Main article: Duckburg

Music

The series theme song was written by Mark Mueller, an ASCAP award-winning pop music songwriter who also wrote the theme song to Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers. Episode background music was written by composer Ron Jones.^[4]

Film

Main article: DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp

The film was released wide in the United States on August 3, 1990 by Walt Disney Pictures. The film follows Scrooge McDuck and his nephews as they try to defeat the evil warlock, Merlock from taking over the legendary magic lamp.

Merchandise

DuckTales had two series of comic books. The first series was published by Gladstone Publishing and ran for 13 issues from 1988 to 1990, and the second series was published by Disney Comics and ran for 18 issues from 1990 to 1991. Disney also published a children's magazine based on the show, which also featured comic stories, one of which was the only story written by Don Rosa without any illustrations. Subsequent comic stories were also printed in the magazine Disney Adventures from 1990 to 1996.

Home releases

Disney is currently in the process of releasing DuckTales onto DVD. So far, three volumes have been released in Region 1 (North America), while one volume has been released in Region 2 (United Kingdom). If the current pattern of release continues, the fourth and final DVD volume (with the last 25 episodes) will be released, but there are no plans for that as of September 2008.

The episodes are not in the order of their original airing (as can be seen by the amazon.com listing, imdb, and from viewer reviews on netflix.) Neither DVD sets contain any special features.

Video and computer games

Main article: DuckTales (video game)

Main article: DuckTales 2

Main article: DuckTales - the Quest for Gold

Comic books/trade paperbacks

On May 24 and July 19, 2006, Gemstone published a two-volume trade paperback, Carl Bark's Greatest Ducktales Stories. The trades contain reprints of stories written by Carl Barks which were specifically adapted into television episodes of Ducktales.

Both volumes start out with an introduction and compare the original comic story with its Ducktales episode counterpart. Volume 1 also includes a two page article delving into details on the adapting the show from the comic series.

In August 29, 2007, Disney released a trade paperback of Scrooge's Quest. The TPB reprints the first seven issues of the Ducktales comic series. They also published The Gold Odyessey which was reprinted from Duck Tales #s 9-15.

International

The success of DuckTales led to the translation of the show into many languages. DuckTales was the first American animated TV series to be officially broadcast in syndication in the former USSR. Featured together with Chip ‘n Dale’s Rescue Rangers in a Sunday evening program titled Walt Disney Presents, the show premiered in 1991.

The show’s theme song (written by Mark Mueller and originally sung by Jeff Pescetto) however remained in English for a number of episodes. The first Russian version of the song was replaced mid-way through the series with an alternate rendition that contained completely different lyrics. Similarly, the Swedish version changed the lyrics to the theme halfway through the series. The series aired in India, dubbed in Hindi.

The most known local singer of the Duck Tales song was in Finland, where it was sung by well-known singer Pave Maijanen.

See also

• Darkwing Duck
• Quack Pack

External links

• DuckTales at the Internet Movie Database
• DuckTales on TV.com

References