DUCKTALES (1987)
(Syndication, September 18, 1987-November 28, 1990)
Walt Disney Television Animation, Tokyo Movie Shinsha
(season 1), Wang Film Cuckoo’s Nest Studio
Disney
was seeking to make a new animated series that exhibited a high quality of
animation, after having found previous success with Adventures
of the Gummi Bears. They looked towards the world of Duckburg largely created by
comic book artist Carl Barks
for inspiration and came up with DuckTales.
Developed by Jymn Magon,
the series followed wealthy Scrooge McDuck (Alan Young) as he went on
adventures with his nephews, Huey, Dewey and
Louie (all Russi Taylor).
Often, these adventures involved discovering some lost treasure to increase
Scrooge’s fame and wealth, but other times it was protecting his businesses and
interests from rival Flintheart
Glomgold (Hal Smith), his
#1 dime from evil
witch Magica De Spell
(June Foray), or his beloved money bin from the Beagle Boys (Frank Welker, Terry McGovern, Chuck McCann and Brian Cummings), and sometimes one of
inventor Gyro Gearloose’s
(Smith) inventions run amok.
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From top: Gyro, Launchpad, Duckworth, Mrs. Beakley, Huey, Dewey, Scrooge, Doofus, Louie and Webby. |
While largely inspired by Barks’
comics, DuckTales did have some
differences. Scrooge wasn’t as much of a miser as he was thrifty, for example.
Other changes saw Donald
Duck (Tony Anselmo), who
played a large part in Scrooge’s adventures, only present for the first episode
to drop off his nephews; Glomgold, due to America’s tensions with South Africa,
had his nationality changed to Scottish, amongst others. New characters
included Scrooge’s butler Duckworth
(McCann), housekeeper Bettina
Beakley (Joan Gerber) and
her granddaughter Webby
(Taylor), accountant/superhero Fenton Crackshell aka
Gizmoduck (Hamilton Camp),
accident-prone pilot Launchpad
McQuack (McGovern), and the boys’ friend Doofus Drake (Cummings),
amongst others.
![]() |
The family that steals together... Ma Beagle and her Beagle Boys. |
DuckTales
premiered in syndication on September 18, 1987 with a 65-episode first
season. A second season of 10 episodes and a third of 18 followed. In 1990, the
series was given its own feature-length movie, Treasure of the
Lost Lamp, which while successful, didn’t quite reach Disney’s
expectations shelving any further entries. A 7-epsidoe fourth season, which
featured three episodes held over from the previous, aired as part of the
inaugural season of The
Disney Afternoon syndicated programming block and remained there until
1992. After its conclusion, Launchpad was spun off into the show Darkwing
Duck, and he and Scrooge appeared on Raw
Toonage. DuckTales, meanwhile, entered into syndicated reruns,
particularly on The Disney Channel,
between 1995-99.
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