It only took four episodes for the newDuckTalesto do an homage toThe Warriors.
(He wants to know if they candigit.)
OnDuckTales,Ma Beagle assembles differently costumed Beagle Boy gangs in the junkyard.
Disney XD
(Its her birthday.)
Webby had some trouble with the Beagle Boys a couple episodes back.
And Webbys sorta family to Beagle nemesis Scrooge McDuck, richest being in the talking-animal world.
So Webby and Lena run afoul of and have to run away from the pack of Beagles.
At another point, Ma Beagle chases them with a truck-throne down an alleyway.
You wanted to believe that this newDuckTaleswould be good.
Did I mention Ma Beagle has the voice of Margo Martindale?
Theres a Beagle Boy mythology now!
So, some news: The newDuckTalesis better than the original show.
Disney XD
Funnier, more ambitious.
(Its on Disney XD on Saturdays.)
Call this a labor of tough love.
The fifth episode airs this Saturday.
A second seasons been greenlit.
You get the sense the writing staff has big plans.
At one point, Webby reveals her Carrie Mathison vision board, a feast of fan-ish arcana.
(Webby,cest moi!)
But WHAT LOOMS LARGER THAN McDUCKS SHADOW?What the hell does that mean??
?WHEN IS CASTLE McDUCK?Screech.
Thats some Deputy Hawk Reveals a Map of theTwin PeaksCosmo-geology-level eerie throwaway teases.
Im not making theseTwin Peaksreferences accidentally: TheDuckTalesreboot is just as re-inventive as the recent Showtime revival.
And also, Della Duck is a total Laura Palmer.
Oh yes Della Duck!
Della, Donald, and Scrooge were a trio, it seems.
Della left, for reasons mysterious; Donald and Scrooge had a falling out, for reasons related.
(Does even Donald Duck need a secret origin now?)
But it enriches this whole endeavor, bestowing uponDuckTalesa generational ambition, a sense of lost time.
Della-Donald-Scrooge had their fun long ago.
Then things turned sour.
Maybe the 90s ended.
Maybe they met Bubba the Caveduck.
Thats how I feel about the originalDuckTales, a cartoon created not long after I was.
Theres something self-deniably priest-like about him hes devoted to pursuing wealth he will never spend.
To tell the truth, Scrooge tells a journalist early in Part 1, My life is pretty lonely.
(Go readThe Life and Times of Scrooge McDuckif you havent.)
And there were tie-ins toDuckTales: a great video game, a legitimately strange movie.
By season 2, they were adding characters who felt like connection notes.
There was the aforementioned Bubba and there was GizmoDuck, because it was the 80s and everyone was cyborgs.
Nothing wrong with that but that just heightens the real achievement of this newDuckTales.
This new series, conversely, suggests a wild clash ofmultipleeras.
But it also casually integrates modern technology.
Theres an upcoming episode set in an elaborate parody of a Silicon Valley tech company.
Just when youre crediting the timely goofery trampolines in the office!
the plot turns into a dissection of tech industry practices.
Its a paradoxical achievement: a laceration of social media values full of GIF-ably tweet-worthy moments.
Theres another episode coming up set in a casino, but I dont want to talk about that.
Ive wasted my life!
Old characters have been updated in surprising ways.
Gyro Gearloose (Jim Rash), once a hayseed inventor, is now an ego-crazy angry-nerd mad scientist.
The show has tried hard to differentiate Huey, Dewey, and Louie.
This is both an obvious idea and one that was already pre-doomed.
But I respect that the showstryingto carve them into separate arcs.
Meanwhile, David Tennant is doing longtime Scrooge-voice Alan Young proud.
Some intriguing guest stars loom on the horizon.
The shows not there yet.
At times, the sheer kinetic blitzkrieg and cultural self-awareness can seem cutesy, or DreamWorks-ish.
And two episodes have ended with twists that require some vague-but-precise knowledge of the original show.
This represents the absolute least interesting reboot instinct lets tease em with something theyve already seen before!
and it makes me wonder if this show plays better with oldsters than youngsters.
There was a pleasant simplicity to the original series, a leisure to the static animation.
This newDuckTalesmoves ultra-fast, suggesting whole C-plots of mythology in three-second visual gags.
But one of those gags works on me, man, every time.
Its in the opening credits sequence, which features a new version of the theme song by Barton.
(Bartons tune is ecstatic and a bit droid-ish, suggesting some midpoint between Kidz Bop and EDM.)
The assembled Ducks are in some lost golden cavern of buried treasure.
Suddenly, theres a giant lobster!
And then Barton sings Woo-ooo!
Theres a word for that: Antidisestablishmentarianism!
No, no, no: Great!
And now, in 2017,DuckTalesis finally great.
