Editorial: DuckTales 2017 (TV First Impressions) (SPOILER FREE)

 

So, as of writing this I have just finished the 2017 DuckTales reboot series. The date is Wednesday, November tenth of 2021. For a family activity, my family and I watch some episodes of a TV show or a movie every Wednesday, something I want to watch. We started with Fraggle Rock after I got the complete series on DVD, then we watched a couple movies, and then we began the 2017 DuckTales series, as I started watching it as it was airing, but never got around to finishing it. Now, that it is all on Disney+, I have to ask, is this series any good? And more than that, is it a worthy reboot to a series as iconic, beloved and important as DuckTales?

YES!!!!

Okay, before I get ahead of myself, let's break it down into both questions. Starting with the easy one, is it good on its own? To which I have to say that yes, it is spectacular on its own.

Being a cartoon in the 2010s, DuckTales is a much more serialized show than the original was, and depending on your taste in cartoons, this can be a good or bad thing. Personally, I do lean towards the more episodic cartoons, because it is nice to have something to put on and not have to worry about continuity or call-backs, let's face it, some of us just don't have the time or energy to commit to a serialized show. However, I think the serializing was done rather well here. For the most part, the serialization is really only to tie in to a greater story arc towards the end of the third season, and aside from a few callbacks and minor characters that comeback, you can watch almost any random episode and follow it pretty well. I think Season 3 is the only time you can't do that, but even then it's mostly for the final twelve or so episodes. Still, I would say you got to start from the beginning of this show, and you might as well, you're most likely not watching it as it airs anymore, right? Right?

Still, story is useless if the characters are bad, and these characters are so lovable, so interesting and so amusing to watch. The triplets all have their own personality traits now, each a trait that can be represented in both their Uncle Scrooge and their Uncle Donald. Huey, like Scrooge, loves adventure, but also cataloguing the unknown and finding the truth, but like Donald is very prone to emotional outbursts and wishes for a more orderly schedule. Dewey, admires his Great Uncle Scrooge's fame and notoriety, and wishes for something similar, but like Donald can be a bit of a cheesy showoff. Louie admires Scrooge's wealth and fortune, but like Donald would rather take things easier, thought for Donald it is mostly because of stress rather than laziness. Speaking of which, Donald actually features in this show. Donald is probably my second favourite parental figure in animation, second only to Iroh from Avatar. Still, the list of characters keeps on going, Scrooge is just as fun as he was in the original show, Mrs. Beakley is a no-nonsense but loving person, Launchpad is still the big hearted dimwitted goofball we know and love, and with a bunch of extra Himbo energy. Plus, we get a bunch of more obscure characters from the comics like Gladstone Gander, Cousin Feathry, The Phantom Blot, and returning characters with new twists on their personalities like Fenton who is an eager young scientist at work, Gyro Gearloose who is cranky and foul-tempered (no puns), but a genuinely good person, and Magica DeSpell, who is just that perfect amount of vile that you just love to see. Glomgold is also a total man-child in this show, and I absolutely love it, he's just so fun to watch.

I think the only character that doesn't work for me is Doofus Drake, who is a very creepy and really uncomfortable to watch, most episodes that focused on him were usually my least favourites. However, they more than make up for that with the addition of plenty of new characters, like Lena, Violet, B.O.Y.D., Mark Beaks (Who is also just deliciously vile), and the introduction of a character very important to the duck family. (Yes, you probably know who it is, but I don't want to spoil it). However, my favourite character of the show has to be Webby, who is very excitable, eager to try new things, and also really kicks ass! She is a specially trained fighter, but they also don't forget that she's a little kid, and kids are excitable and emotional, which she is as well.

On top of all of that, there are a lot of callbacks to not just the Disney Duck Comics, and the original show, but also to other Disney properties, and let's just say, for a Dis-nerd like myself, spotting them all became an adventure in and of itself.

To top it all off, we have some absolutely amazing animation. One of the defenses I've heard for the Rise of the TMNT artstyle is that it emulates the comic style that the Turtles originated from, which is true, from the first few episodes I saw, it looked like a comic book brought into animation... Done badly. DuckTales also tries to emulate the comic book style of its origins, but does so successfully. You can see the comic style in the way the buildings are drawn and colouring and shading, but also with the title and how it's stippled to mimic the way a lot of old comics would be coloured. On top of that, I didn't notice any serious or awkward animation flubs, which is not to say there are none, but just that they weren't noticable.

So yeah, as a show on its own merits, it's fantastic, hands down one of my all time favourites. Yet, as with any reboot, sequel or spin-off, we aren't just looking at it on its own, we are looking at it as a reboot, sequel or spin-off, and how does this fare as a reboot?

Honestly, I think it's a lot better than the original series. Sure, the original isn't bad, and having watched a few episodes myself between episodes of this show, I can say it holds up a lot better than most eighties cartoons, but let's be real here, the show has aged. Now, aging is fine, it is a natural part of life for humans, most animals as a matter of fact, as well as wine, cider and cheese, and DuckTales, for the most part has aged fairly well, not exactly a fine wine, but still very well. A lot of the original shows short comings can be attributed to the original comics, as the triplets were still thought of as one entity to many of the people working on the show, in fact, in the comics they were thought of as one entity so much, that when they had to draw one of the three on a chair and the other two on the floor, they would draw one triplet on the chair, and three on the floor, an artist flub that fans have taken to calling, Phooey Duck!

However, in other places the original show has aged rather poorly. These is a lot of stuff that would not be rather PC by todays standards, not that the depictions of natives are all negative, but even the more neutral ones are very "of their time".

Even still, comparing the two shows is just sad. The Reboot is better in almost every way, and it really is not fair to the original. It's like comparing the original 1966 Grinch special to the 2018 Grinch movie. Like, yeah, on its own the 2018 movie isn't awful, but when you compare it to the original, it's just lesser in almost every way. Back to DuckTales, the artstyle is better, the characters are better, the writing and adventures are better, it really is no comparison. By all means, watch the original, but if you start with this series, lower your expectations a bit.

Really, I think that is all there is to say, on its own it is a fantastic show, and as a reboot it improves on the original in every way. So, really what else is there to say? High Recommendation!

The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie (1979) - An enjoyable, but outdated way to enjoy classic shorts

 

It's weird to think in the era of streaming services and independently created content that there was ever a time that you had to hope and pray that the movie or show you wanted to watch was going to air on TV that night. Home media didn't really take off until the 1980s, so what was someone supposed to do then? Well, someone at Warner Bros decided to take some of the classic Looney Tunes segments and put them into a movie. However, this wouldn't be any old compilation movie like the Fantastic Animation Festival movie from 1977, this was going to have some semblance of a narrative. Even still, in the age of Streaming and DVD boxsets, is a movie like this worth coming back to?

Much like with the Fantasia review, there really is not much else to this movie other than a collection of shorts with a few wrap-around segments. However, unlike Fantasia, the wraparounds do give this movie somewhat of a narrative. Essentially, we drop in on Bugs Bunny, as he talks to us about his life, which are shown as various Looney Tunes shorts. These range from shorts starring his cohorts, to shorts all about him. I will talk about the segments, but not as individually as I did with Fantasia. There are a lot of shorts in this movie, and I have varying opinions about them. So, other than any new segments and the ending segment, most of the Looney Tunes shorts I'll be talking about in groups.

The first segment is, from what I can tell, an original segment about the history of chases. It's told as you'd expect a joking cartoon character to tell a joking history. It's not that funny, and is rather slow. Probably due to the fact that at this point, everyone behind the Looney Tunes was much older, although I will give credit that there may be some actual true information in this segment. See, sometime in the early 2010s, researchers discovered that when lit up in certain ways, some paintings in the Chauvet Cave would actually form the illusion of movement. So, in a sense, this segment was correct that animated pictures began on cave walls. I find that kind of amusing, but then again I am a media history nerd.

After this we get out first Looney Tunes short, "Hare-way to the Stars", this short has some cute gags, but I don't think this was the best short to start off with. Thankfully, after this we get three Daffy Duck shorts in a row, starting with "Duck Dodgers in the 24½th Century", an all time classic short, "Robin Hood Daffy", which is funny even in this shorter state, and "Duck Amuck", one of my all time favourite animated shorts. I've talked about this one before, so if you want my detailed thought on it, here's a previous post to check out.

Next are three shorts that focus on Bugs dealing with a more intimidating adversary, starting with "Bully for Bugs", a great short, but maybe not the best way to start this stretch of shorts. The rest of the three also feature Daffy, so maybe if they reversed the order of these three, it would have worked better. Our next short is "Ali Baba Bugs", which I am skipping right past because I don't want to get into a discussion over whether this short is problematic by today's standards or not. It was never one of my favourite shorts in the first place, mostly because of its ending, I never really found it that funny. Thankfully, the next short is "Rabbit Fire", which is probably my favourite Bug and Elmer short.

Our next three shorts start off on a bad foot, because it starts with "For Scent-imental Reasons", a Pepe Le Pew short. I never liked Pepe Le Pew, I never really found him to be that funny, not that there weren't some neat gags in his shorts, but the main joke was never that amusing. Next is another shortened cartoon, "Long-Haired Hare", which is still funny in this shortened form. Along this theme, the next short is the iconic "What's Opera, Doc?" one of the most recognized, beloved and remembered Looney Tune segment out there. I like it fine.

The final Bugs Bunny short is "Operation: Rabbit" which is the perfect segue into the final portion of this movie, the Road Runner shorts, which are just played as one big segment. They include a lot of the iconic moments from many of the shorts, such as the Bat-Man's Outfit from "Gee Whiz-z-z-z-z-z-z", the Earthquake Pills from "Hopalong Casualty" and a couple trampoline gags. Road Runner cartoons were always my favourite of the Looney Tunes shorts, so I do really like this big mesh of iconic and hilarious Coyote gags.

Other than all of that, there are the wraparound segments, which don't really serve to tell jokes, but more to introduce each short. All in all, these were fine, but that brings us to a very interesting point. These are the reasons you would want to watch this movie nowadays, because we can get the full version of all these shorts on multiple different DVD releases, so the question remains, are these wrap-arounds worth it? Honestly, I would say no. Though I love a lot of these shorts, a part of me just wishes I was watching the shorts separately rather than the movie. I have a couple Looney Tunes compilation DVDs, and I think I'd get just as much entertainment out of them as I did from this movie. So, how would I recommend it?

As a movie, I'd probably put it in the Slight Recommendations category. Someone might really like seeing this laid back and more casual kind of Bugs Bunny. Then again, we don't spend much time with that Bugs Bunny, we spend a lot of time with the classic shorts, and that is the movie's biggest problem. There is no need for it anymore, we can get the entire series run on DVD now. Remember, this was made before home media really took off. In a way, it's very archaic and a relic of a bygone era where we couldn't just put on our favourite episode of our favourite show with the click of a button. If you are a collector of all thing Looney Tunes, you might have this in your collection, but even then I don't think it's worth watching. Grab a compilation DVD and enjoy.