ANIMATIONLAND Farewell, DuckTales
After three seasons, the reboot of the beloved 1987 series has come to an end.
Life is no longer like a hurricane, at least not in the US, where DuckTales has ended its run after three seasons (international viewers can still look forward to seeing the entire third season on Disney+ in the near future). No more mysteries, no more tales of derring-do: it’s over. At least for now - I recently interviewed Danny Pudi (the voice of Huey) and asked him if there had been any talks about “three seasons and a movie”, similar to the original show. He said there hadn’t, but he’d be up for it. Here’s hoping.
When the new show was first announced, people were excited and nervous at the same time. How different was it going to be? Who was going to be involved? Were they going to change the theme song? All legitimate questions, given how important the original series was, and not just because of the song (which remained the same, although some foreign markets took the opportunity to update the lyrics: the German version, for example, no longer mentions Pluto and Goofy, even though the latter does appear in the reboot).
The original DuckTales was a groundbreaking show, especially from a technical standpoint: up until the early 1980s, TV animation was produced with modest budgets, which resulted in characters having limited movement: what really turned the output of Hanna-Barbera and Jay Ward into hits was clever writing and impeccable voice acting, courtesy of people like Daws Butler, Mel Blanc, June Foray, Frank Welker and others.
Disney had the same elements, but when they started contemplating a television branch for the animation department it quickly dawned on them that the brand name carried a certain weight, and people would expect the highest quality. As such, shows like The Wuzzles and Adventures of the Gummi Bears had bigger budgets, which resulted in more fluid animation. DuckTales, which was the third series produced but the first to feature recognizable characters, helped establish that aesthetic as the new normal for TV animation (Warner Bros. quickly followed suit with Tiny Toon Adventures and Batman: The Animated Series).
The cinematic element was also present in other ways: given the show’s adventurous tone and settings, composer Ron Jones looked to Raiders of the Lost Ark for inspiration – a neat case of coming full circle, since Steven Spielberg and George Lucas have often cited Carl Barks (the author who defined the Duck universe in the comics) as one of the influences for Indiana Jones.
The reboot embraced that in a very different manner: in an age where expanded universes are all the rage, showrunners Matt Youngberg and Frank Angones (the latter a priceless resource for the behind-the-scenes info on Twitter) decided to think much bigger than the original ever did. As recounted by Angones, the clearance department was tasked with obtaining the rights to three sets of characters: everyone who appeared in the original DuckTales (duh!); everyone who appeared in the Duck universe comics; and everyone who appeared in the Disney Afternoon shows.
The third aspect proved a bit tricky (the Rescue Rangers were initially off-limits), but the ambition was repaid by a show whose scope had something for everybody: clever throwbacks to the original (I especially enjoyed how the writers reconciled the 1987 version of Flintheart Glomgold, who was changed from South African to Scottish because of the Apartheid regime, and the original comic book incarnation), crossover episodes (most recently, TaleSpin), pop culture sendups (using Darkwing Duck – soon to receive his own reboot - to make fun of superhero movies, with Edgar Wright voicing a Christopher Nolan-inspired director, was a masterstroke), and more.
But at its core it was a show about the Duck family, with Barks and his spiritual successor Don Rosa as the obvious inspirations, although there were some European touches as well: the second season introduced characters such as Donald’s cousin Fethry and Scrooge’s adversary Rockerduck – obscure in the States, hugely popular in other parts of the world (especially the Nordics, where the Ducks are so beloved that Rosa once quipped he could realistically run for president in Finland and win the election).
And then there was Della: Donald’s twin, mother of Huey, Dewey and Louie, the previously unseen character (save for a cameo as a child in Don Rosa’s The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck), who made her animated debut on the show and quickly added to the emotional powerhouse. For while there was a lot of fun and adventures, the show also had a gift for making people cry, thanks to a commitment to long-term storytelling and character arcs that were generally no-shows in the ‘80s.
So here’s to you, DuckTales: you brought back a piece of my childhood with heart, wit and creativity. You made Donald Duck the hero he clearly deserves to be on the screen (the explanation for his foul temper was brilliant). You found the perfect modern-day Scrooge in David Tennant. And you kept the best TV theme song ever written. Woo-oo!