Related Directory Categories
- DuckTales (2)
Sources
Help build the largest human-edited directory on the web.
Submit a site - Become an editor
Wikipedia. Licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License.
Are you an expert in this subject? Join the discussion and share your knowledge at Wikipedia.org.
DuckTales
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
| DuckTales | |
|---|---|
 From left to right: Huey, Scrooge, Louie and Dewey, as seen in the show's opening sequence. |
|
| 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 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 | Disney Channel/Syndication |
| Original run | September 18, 1987 – May 6, 1990 |
| Chronology | |
| Related shows | Darkwing Duck (1991) |
| External links | |
| IMDb profile | |
| TV.com summary | |
DuckTales is an animated television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation. The show premiered on September 18, 1987 and ended on May 6, 1990.
Contents |
The general premise of the show was about the adventures of Scrooge and his nephews. The nephews, who were originally living with their uncle Donald, were left in Scrooge's care when he went off to join the Navy.
Although already the richest duck in the world with no want for anything, Scrooge constantly came up with ways to try and increase his wealth. Other plots involved protecting his wealth from villains who wanted it for their own greed.
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. Interestingly, episodes would feature either Bubba or Fenton and rarely featured both. This season had significantly less appeal with the viewers than the first season.
Although Scrooge and his nephews were the show's main characters, some episodes focused on other characters like Launchpad or Gyro, and there were even some in which Scrooge or his nephews didn't appear in at all. (Sir Gyro de Gearloose, Robot Robbers)
Some episodes are based on Carl Barks stories or simply have elements from such stories. (The Unbreakable Bin is based on Barks' The Unsafe Safe)
The series is notable for being the first Disney cartoon to be produced for syndication, and for paving the way for future Disney cartoons, such as Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers and TaleSpin. It also spawned a spinoff series – Darkwing Duck.
A world broadcast premiere television movie (entitled "The Treasures of the Golden Suns") first aired on September 18, 1987. Afterwards, it was later turned into a five-part pilot serial. The 100th and final episode aired on March 11, 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). 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, throwaway investments for most of the history of TV cartoons up through the 1980s. Most 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.
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 episode-wise. (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 new-for-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 and will be on BBC2 in 2007. It is unknown if the show will ever return to other networks, although three DVD sets are currently available. The Disney Channel reran the series in the late-1990s until their pre-teen lineup took over.
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 has shown 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 throughout 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, other characters include the absent-minded inventor Gyro Gearloose, the heroic but not too bright pilot Launchpad McQuack, the loyal but somewhat foolish Doofus Drake. During the second season, Bubba, a caveduck from the past, and 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 so she can take over the world, Glomgold wants to have more money than Scrooge, and the Beagle Boys want Scrooge's fortune. New villains created for the show include Ma Beagle, mother to 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 O'Gilt; Merlock, a powerful magician who served as the movie's main villain; and Dijon, a thief who worked for either Merlock or himself.
DuckTales was largely based on Carl Barks' classic Scrooge McDuck stories which ran in various Disney Comic publications. Scrooge was originally introduced as a supporting character in Donald Duck's stories but soon became so popular that he was given his own spinoff series, and soon became the center of what was eventually dubbed "The Scrooge McDuck Universe" by fans. Many DuckTales episodes, especially in the first season, are directly adapted from comic stories by Barks. Other major elements, such as Scrooge's money bin, the Junior Woodchuck organization, the city of Duckburg and many of its inhabitants, are culled directly from the comics.
However, there were a number of changes made to adapt the stories for television. Scrooge, while still miserly, is generally more soft-hearted and less ruthless in the cartoon. The initial pilot movie depicts him as closer to the comics version, but later episodes imply that his rough edges have been softened by having the nephews, Mrs. Beakley, and Webby around, thus making Scrooge much more jovial. As he himself puts it in an early episode, "For the first time since I left Scotland, I have a family." While Scrooge is far from heartless in the comics, he is rarely so openly sentimental.
DuckTales had two series of comic books. The first series was from Gladstone and ran for 13 issues from 1988 to 1990, and the second series was from 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 Don Rosa wrote without also illustrating. Subsequent comic stories were printed in the magazine Disney Adventures from 1990 to 1996.
In May 24 and July 19, 2006, Disney released 2 volumes of a trade paperback Carl Bark's Greatest Ducktales Stories. The trades contain reprints of stories written by Carl Barks that were specifically adapted into episodes of Ducktales.
Both volumes start out with an introduction, compared the original comic story with it's Ducktales episode counterpart. Volume 1 also includes a two page article going into details on the adapting the show from the comics.
| Volume 1 | |
|---|---|
| Issue Number | Story |
| Four Color #456 | Back To The Klondike |
| Uncle Scrooge #13 | Land Beneath The Ground (The episode was titled Earthquack) |
| Uncle Scrooge #65 | Micro Ducks From Outer Space |
| Uncle Scrooge #9 | Lemming With The Locket (The episode was titled Scrooge's Pet) |
| Uncle Scrooge #14 | Lost Crown Of Genghis Khan |
| Uncle Scrooge #29 | Hound Of Whiskervilles (The episode was titled The Curse Of Castle McDuck) |
| Volume 2 | |
| Issue Number | Story |
| Uncle Scrooge #58 | The Giant Robot Robbers (The episode was titled Robot Robbers) |
| Uncle Scrooge #12 | The Golden Fleecing |
| Uncle Scrooge #3 | The Horseradish Story (The episode was titled Down And Out In Duckburg) |
| Uncle Scrooge #41 | The Status Seeker |
| Uncle Scrooge #38 | The Unsafe Safe (The episode was titled The Unbreakable Bin) |
| Uncle Scrooge #6 | Tralla La (The episode was titled The Land Of Tra-La-La) |
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.
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 simply called Walt Disney Presents, the show premiered for millions of excited Soviet children in 1991. Some of the show’s characters were dubbed by popular veteran voice actors of Soviet animation.
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 inexplicably 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.
- Official web page at the Toon Disney Channel
- DuckTales at the Internet Movie Database
- DuckTales: Volume 1 DVD Review at UltimateDisney.com
- DuckTales on TV.com
- DuckTales on The Big Cartoon Database
- DuckTales on Retro Junk
- All about DuckTales (Russian) In English
Categories: DuckTales | Television series by Disney | Donald Duck television series | 1987 television program debuts | 1990 television program series endings | 1980s American television series | 1980s American animated television series | 1990s American television series | 1990s American animated television series | Disney Channel shows | Animated television series | Gladstone Comics titles | Disney Comics titles | Television programs featuring anthropomorphic characters | First-run syndicated television programs