Beth and her son look at the DuckTales reboot.
I have been waiting for the new DuckTales to premiere since February 2015 when Disney announced the reboot of the 1980s cartoon following the adventures of Scrooge McDuck and a cast of characters including his grandnephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie.
In a nostalgia-filled afternoon, I watched the reboot with my thirteen year-old son, who is the age I was when the original premiered. I sang the theme song. I clapped when Scrooge swam in his money bin and when the show was over, my son looked at me and said “this is good.”
It is. Disney has modernized and rebooted DuckTales for both those who loved the original and the generation growing up on Phineas and Ferb and Gravity Falls.
A Look Back
I loved the original as a child. The first comic book I bought was Uncle Scrooge Adventures. Scrooge McDuck remains my favorite Disney character.
The reboot was my excuse to introduce Duckburg to my children. I made sure they watched the original DuckTales before premiere, but it is definitely a product of the 1980s. Sure, it’s aged better than lots of things from the time period, but my son would (rightfully so) groan when an episode focused on the other characters protecting Webby Vanderquack, the young female peer to the nephews. “Is she really so helpless?” my son asked. And Scrooge, who prided himself on his intelligence, fell for a lot of stupid tricks, especially in the interests of being almost criminally cheap. “Oh, come on,” my son said at least once when Scrooge accidentally gave away his fortune.
A Look Ahead
The original’s main themes, however, are timeless. The main messages that “family takes care of each other” and “work smarter, not harder” are certainly on point today. But could Disney modernize the story of the world’s richest duck who bragged about being “smarter than the smarties and tougher than the toughies” successfully?
The verdict from the two of us is yes. Not only could they, but they did.
First Look
If you saw the first look footage, you knew the animation looks different. It is much more like Carl Bark’s drawings than the original cartoon, including Scrooge’s red wardrobe. The manor shows some signs of neglect. It reminded me in parts of Gravity Fall’s Mystery Shack. There are plenty of call outs to the original. I missed as many as I caught. My son caught several, including a genie lamp (which could be either an episode or the 1990 movie), and Webby’s quckypatch doll.
But Disney did not just rehash the original. They hired top voices. David Tennant is Scrooge McDuck (the original voice actor, Alan Young, died in 2016), Danny Pudi is Huey, Ben Schwartz is Dewey, Bobby Moynihan is Louie, Kate Micucci is Webby Vanderquack, Beck Bennett is Launchpad McQuack, Toks Olagundoye is Mrs. Beakley and Tony Anselmo is Donald Duck. Not in the premiere, but promised in the future are guest stars like Lin-Manuel Miranda (Gizmoduck aka Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera), Allison Janney (Goldie O’Gilt), and Margo Martindaleas (Ma Beagle).
I was unsure how I would feel about Tennant as Scrooge. Having seen Tennant play the Purple Man in the Netflix series Jessica Jones, I was concerned about having that voice come out of my favorite character. I did not give Tennant enough credit as an actor. There is clearly a difference in stationary Scrooge and adventuring Scrooge, which gives him some emotional complexity, or at least as much as one is likely to give a talking duck in a Y7-rated cartoon.
Different voices for the nephews mean I have a new challenge. For decades, I knew how to tell the nephews apart by their shirt color, but now, I need to learn how to tell them apart by voice. Challenge accepted.
The Premiere
In the original, Donald Duck joins the navy and brings his nephews to Scrooge McDuck so he can report to his ship. In this new version, Donald needs Scrooge to provide a few hours of supervision. Although Scrooge “owes him,” Donald makes it clear taking the boys to McDuck Manor is a last resort. The conversation where Scrooge and Donald reunite is one of my favorite scenes. But part of my enjoyment of it is that transcribing it ruins it. Whatever caused the rift is unresolved.
There are several suggestions of the cause, including a ripped newspaper headline which reads “McDuck Hangs Up Spats After…,” a damaged painting, a reference to “the spear of Selene,” and some notes on Webby’s board. It has been a long time since either Scrooge or Donald had an adventure. The entire family returns to treasure hunting because of a freak snow storm and a new job, the entire family gets pulled back into treasure hunting.
What’s Changed?
The writers modernized the characters. There are differences between the three nephews. Huey is the optimist. Louie is called the “evil” triplet but is more of a troublemaker. Dewey is the action junkie. Scrooge is a “recluse adventurer capitalist” proud of his past and bored in his present. He is much happier climbing a dragon than sitting in a meeting hearing about all the money he is making.
My son was happy that when Scrooge and the nephews first interact, Scrooge isn’t immediately smitten with the boys nor does he hate them. They are temporary visitors and he treats them as such. He said the show gave the characters the right amount of time to get used to each other, although he and I both suspect there will still be some more adapting required as the series continues. My son thinks all the characters, especially Scrooge, got a lot smarter. Scrooge also seems much less dependent on his money and, in fact, leaves a lot of treasure behind during this first episode.
The biggest changes are to Webby and her grandmother, Mrs. Beakley. Both of them benefit with a welcomed attitude adjustment. Webby is trained to take care of herself but doesn’t leave McDuck Manor, which during the premier meant she could handle herself during a fight but didn’t know how to talk to her grandmother about traveling with the group. Mrs. Beakley is still Scrooge’s housekeeper who clearly admires her employer but also is happy to tell him off (in the original, Beakley had an exasperated “Mr. McDuck” cry she would make when Scrooge asked her to do something she didn’t want to do but would promptly do it anyway).
Launchpad McQuack, Scrooge’s pilot, probably changed least. He may be weirder but remains the physical humor of the show. He got the biggest laugh from my children during the premiere.
More Complex Plot Lines
The plot is more sophisticated, with both an A (creating the family dynamic) and a B story (Donald’s new job) which come together within the hour-long episode. The humor is more meta. As the characters overcome some issues in order to survive, Dewey remarks “this is a surprisingly insightful death trap.” The characters were more self-aware and clever, rather than flat out funny. The characters reacted to the humor and the jokes were for the characters, plot movement and the enjoyment of the audience. The original show would have had snakes fall on Launchpad to be sure, but would never have been as clever as this new version is with handling Launchpad once the snakes were removed.
Scrooge is Right. He’s Back.
The great stuff from the original is still here. The character names are still ridiculous (Gabby McStabberson is a sword-carrying mercenary). The theme song is the same even if the opening is different. Scrooge McDuck still prides himself on working smarter, not harder. At one point he says “why wouldn’t you want to do it the easy way?” and, in a preview of an upcoming episode,” if you want something, you have to work hard to get it.” The theme of family is still very present, even if it acknowledges family isn’t always easy. And yes, Scrooge says he got where he is by “being smarter than the smarties and tougher than the toughies” but the artwork around the manor suggests he knows he didn’t do it alone.
The second half of the episode is much more even than the first half. The first segment is all about set-up with a flurry of action towards the end. The second segment, which begins after the theme song, has the same family bonding with Scrooge and the kids doing what they do best—treasure hunting. I could watch a lot more shows like the second half of the premiere.
My son says the show has a bright future. I agree. Now we have to wait until September 23 for new episodes to see if we are correct.
Beth Keithly is a graduate from The University of Missouri’s School of Journalism and works on grant development at a North Texas university. She is a fan of most science fiction and fantasy, especially Star Wars, Star Trek, Supernatural, DC comics and the Arrowverse, and the Marvel movieverse. When she is not teaching her children about her fandoms and the importance of a quality pen, she is reading, running or discussing fictional universes and their impacts on reality with her husband. She is @beth_keithly on Twitter.