#1 –DuckTales
(142 Points) 8 of 13 Lists - Highest Ranking - #1 - Johnny Unusual
Not ponytails or cottontails!
Release Date: 1987
Just the PlagarismDuckTales is an American animated television series produced by Disney Television Animation. Based on Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge comic book series, it premiered on September 18, 1987 and ended on November 28, 1990 with a total of four seasons and 100 episodes. An animated theatrical spin-off film based on the series, DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp, was released widely in the United States on August 3, 1990. The voice cast from the series reprised their roles for the film.
The series is a dramatization of the Duck universe comic series created by Carl Barks. The viewer follows the adventures of Scrooge McDuck and his three grandnephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie. Important secondary characters, that often take part in the adventures, include Donald Duck, Scrooge's pilot Launchpad McQuack and butler Duckworth, the inventor Gyro Gearloose, and the nanny Mrs. Beakley and her granddaughter Webby. The most notable antagonists in the series are the Beagle Boys, the witch Magica De Spell, and the industrialist Flintheart Glomgold. In a typical story, the villains are after McDuck's fortune or his Number One Dime; another common theme is a race after some sort of treasure. Although some stories are original or based on Barks' comic book series, others are pastiches on classical stories or legends, including characters based on either fictional or historical persons. The series is known for its many references to popular culture, including Shakespeare, Jack the Ripper, Greek mythology, James Bond, Indiana Jones, and Sherlock Holmes.
The show features the adventures of Scrooge McDuck and his great-nephews. The nephews, who were originally living with their uncle Donald, are left in Scrooge's care when Donald joins the Navy.
Though Scrooge is the richest duck in the world, he constantly tries to find ways to increase his wealth. Many episodes involve protecting his wealth from villains who want to rob Scrooge of all his money. The prominent recurring antagonists in the show include the Beagle Boys and Magica De Spell who are always finding ways to rob and swindle Scrooge and his nephews. Scrooge's nemesis in the show is Flintheart Glomgold, who always tries to devise plans to unseat Scrooge McDuck from his "Richest Duck in the World" title. A few of the stories also surround Scrooge's "Number One Dime" which is the source of Scrooge's good luck and wealth. Scrooge keeps the dime in a glass jar in his money vault, and constantly protects it from the villains on the show.
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. Episodes would feature either Bubba or Fenton but rarely both.
Although Scrooge and his nephews were the show's main characters, some episodes focused on other characters like Launchpad or Gyro. Some members of Scrooge's extended family (The Duck Universe), like Gladstone Gander who had extremely good luck, were also seen in the series. Characters like Gladstone were often seen in the early Carl Barks comic book stories.
The series is notable for being the first Disney cartoon to be produced for syndication, and paving the way for future Disney cartoons, such as Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, TaleSpin and Darkwing Duck, the latter of which is considered to be a spinoff of DuckTales.
A world broadcast premiere television movie (entitled "The Treasures of the Golden Suns") first aired during the weekend of September 18–20, 1987 (date and time varied by market). Since then, it has been shown in the series' regular rotation as a five-part serial. A feature-length movie was released in theatres on August 3, 1990. The hundredth episode (which was also the series finale) aired on November 28, 1990.
The 1987-1988 season of DuckTales consisted of 65 episodes (the standard length for a Disney TV show, as well as the standard length of many 1st season of 1990's TV shows). Two more five-part serials - "Time Is Money" and "Super DuckTales" - premiered as television movie specials in November 1988 and March 1989, respectively. The rest of the second season (fall 1989 - winter 1989) included an additional 18 episodes. In the second season, Bubba the Caveduck and his pet triceratops, Tootsie, and Fenton Crackshell and his alter ego Gizmo Duck appeared. DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp was released in August 1990. Seven final episodes premiered in the fall of 1990 (including three produced for season two but held back for airing, and four produced explicitly for season three), bringing the total to 100 episodes—making DuckTales one of the longest-running Disney shows in terms of number of episodes.
Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers was paired with DuckTales in an hour-long syndicated block during the 1989-1990 television season. In the 1990-1991 season, Disney expanded the idea even further, creating The Disney Afternoon, a two-hour long syndicated block of half-hour cartoons. DuckTales was one of the early flagship cartoons in the series.
On October 2, 1995, DuckTales began reruns on the Disney Channel as part of a two-hour programming block called "Block Party" which aired on weekdays in the late-afternoon/early-evening and which also included Darkwing Duck, TaleSpin, and Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers.
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).
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 investments for most of the history of TV cartoons up through the 1980s. Most of the 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 show was successful enough to spawn a feature film, DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp, and a spinoff series: Darkwing Duck. 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.
Quantum Vagina’s take - If you do not have AWESOME memories of this show, you need to get off the internet RIGHT now and watch the entire thing. This show is so damned cool, there’s just no way to put it into words. I kept the theme song on my friggin’ mp3 player for AGES, and now that I think about it, I have absolutely NO idea why i took it off. I need to put that shiz back on there so I can jam out to DuckTales the entire 8 hour drive to Kansas.