Hilarious In Hindsight / DuckTales (1987)

• In "Where No Duck Has Gone Before", Major Courage briefly calls Launchpad "L.P." During the later show, Darkwing adopts "L.P." as an Affectionate Nickname for Launchpad (probably in response to Launchpad calling him "D.W.")
• In "All Ducks on Deck," the Phantom Blot was boasting about how evil he is by saying, "I am the Phantom Blot! I make Darth Vader look about as scary as a hood ornament of a 53 Buick! Compared to me, Dr. Doom is a wimp!" Guess what franchises Disney eventually came to own?
• In "A DuckTales Valentine", Scrooge is struck by a curse that is only broken by the power of true love, of the platonic variety. To some degree, it seems like an early attempt to write a story with the Aesop of Frozen.
• In "Ducky Horror Picture Show," Scrooge (unknowingly) allows his mansion to be used as a hotel for famous monster movie characters like Drakeula, the Wolfduck, and Quackenstein, as well as the Mummy and the Invisible Man. Even more hilarious is both have heartwarming moments where the monsters learn that normal people not only don't fear them but think they're awesome.
  • In the same episode, the classic horror monsters protest against the movies for making people fear them. The Halloween Episode of the reboot has the same kind of monsters resenting the fact people do not fear them anymore due to the horror genre having evolved.
• In "The Land of Trala La", Fenton introduces the concept of money to primitive islanders by using bottle caps as currency. A decade later, a video game franchise would feature the same concept.
• In this series, Gizmoduck is voiced by Hamilton Camp. In the reboot, he's now voiced by an actor best known for playing a character named Hamilton.
• The episode "Dinosaur Ducks" features Scrooge intending to keep live dinosaurs in a zoo and eventually opening a safari attraction where people can see the dinosaurs. The '90s saw the birth of a franchise in which another Scottish billionaire intends to open a theme park with real, live dinosaurs.
  • In the Brazilian dub of their respective series and movie, both Scrooge and John Hammond were voiced by Jorge Pires.
• The episode 'Robot Robbers' features Scrooge giving Launchpad a lift home but warning him, "Don't ask to do the driving". Come the 2017 iteration of the show and Launchpad is Scrooge's limo driver (among many other vehicles, granted).
• In "Home Sweet Homer," Scrooge, after the effects of the Sirens' song wear off, asks, "Ever hear a song you can't get out of your head?" Now that the DuckTales theme song is considered one of the most relentless earworms in the history of television, it sounds like a self-aware joke.
  • Also from the same episode, Tress Macnelle voices the Greek sorceress Circe. She would do it again in another animated parody, The Simpsons episode "Tales from the Public Domain".
• "Dime Enough for Luck" has Magica De Spell trick Gladstone Gander into stealing Scrooge's Number One Dime using the illusion of a game show host voiced by Corey Burton and Gladstone losing his good luck because of unwittingly using it to help Magica. The video game Donald Duck: Goin' Qu@ckers would later have Gladstone become the game's Butt-Monkey by constantly being injured for comedic effect and had him voiced by Corey Burton to boot.
• In "Sir Gyro de Gearloose" Gyro builds a time machine out of an old bathtub. Over two decades later, a film featuring a time-travelling hot tub would be released.
• In "New Gizmokids On The Block", Ma Beagle's last appearance, she and her boys grab the triplets and she tells her sons to tie them up for ransom. Her debut in the reboot has her call out her sons for doing the exact same thing because that'd paint targets on their backs.
• In "Send in The Clones", Magica de Spell briefly disguises as Mrs. Beakley to break into the Manor, and Scrooge points out how she sounded different. In the second Brazilian dub, Magica and Beakley have the same voice actress (Helena Samara).
  • This also applies to the French dub, as both characters are voiced by Claude Chantal. Speaking of the latter, she voiced the Fairy Godmother in the 1991 French dub of Cinderella (as well as the direct-to-video sequels). This was only a few years after the episode "Scroogerello" featured Mrs. Beakley in the role of the Fairy Godmother.
  • Also in the second Brazilian dub, Webby is voiced in the first episodes by Elza Gonçalves, and Skittles, a penguin girl she befriends in "Cold Ducks", is voiced by Marli Bortoletto. They'd make another pair of best friends as Maggy and Monica, respectively, in the animated cartoons based on the Monica's Gang comics. It also comes as Heartwarming in Hindsight, as Webby becomes her first and best friend despite only meeting for one episode, and Monica and Maggy are inseparable friends in the comics.
  • In the first Brazilian dub, Hércules Franco voiced Fenton/Gizmoduck, whose main role was to protect the Money Bin from the Beagle Boys and from Magica de Spell in one episode. In the reboot, Franco voices Blackarts Beagle, a Beagle boy and a magician.
• In "The Duck Who Knew Too Much", Gandra Dee tries to impersonate an evil spy as part of her last appearance in the series. In the reboot, she is an evil spy for F.O.W.L..
• The episode "A Whale of a Bad Time" gives us the memetic line "A sea monster ate my ice cream". Three decades later, Pixar released a movie starring sea monsters, who, among other summer activities, really enjoy eating ice cream.
• Major spoiler for the reboot: The first half of the series finale "The Golden Goose" is a Whole-Plot Reference to the fable of King Midas, with Scrooge in the Midas role, turning everything he can reach in his house and yard to gold. Per the original story, Webby laments the solid gold flowers don't smell anymore. Which character in the original story said that line? Midas's daughter! Precedent for the reboot's finale's big twist: Set!

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