The Ducks Are Back

That’s right: after an almost unbearably long hiatus (for those of us who depend on this kind of thing for entertainment), everyone’s favorite Disney-founded duck franchise is back! Let’s take our first look at what the season has in store!

There are some significant differences here from the original DuckTales series that ran 100 episodes from 1987-1990. Huey, Dewey, and Louie are now all distinguishable, even to the color-blind. Only Huey still wears a hat! Louie wears a hoodie! Scrooge’s spats are black!

The new animation style is going to take some getting used to. It’s certainly not as attractive as what we were treated to at the height of Disney animation, but at least there doesn’t appear to be any of that cheap, three-dimensional, computer-generated awfulness that has been the scourge of children’s cartoons of the last decade. Have you seen the most recent iteration of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles?

Most obviously improved is the character Webbigail, whose voice, while it sounds like it belongs to a 45-year-old smoker, no longer suffers from the kind of wubbywubby baby-talk tone that makes you want to feed her to a giant, angry walrus. Also gone is the big, pink bow she wore, which thankfully seems to have been laid to rest at the end of the ‘80s along with every other headband. If the choice is between an immoderately infantile, clingy whiner and the manifestation of Jane Lynch as a kid-sister, you take the latter every time. No contest.

There was no sign of some the other characters of the series, such as inventor Gyro Gearloose, nemeses Flintheart Glomgold or the Beagle Boys, or Webby’s guardian (aunt? grandmother?) and Scrooge’s maid Mrs. Beakley. But even the ever-present Launchpad McQuack barely made an appearance in this short preview, so I think it’s safe to say that many, if not all, of those characters will have their place in the new series. The limited dialogue we hear demonstrates some promise, as well. I’m hopeful this program will be a worthy successor to one of my favorite childhood programs, one that I’ll always remember fondly.

On second thought, I may spend the rest of the day trying to forget this show entirely.