What Could Have Been / DuckTales (2017)

Early designs that resembles the 1987 series, from an earlier attempt to make it a revival instead of a reboot.

DuckTales, what if?

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Examples:

• invoked The crew very briefly considered having the series be a full-on revival, with the plot involving the family coming together to find a missing Scrooge. The concept was scrapped because of the concern of viewers needing to have seen all of a 30-year old series, not to mention the comics, and was turned into a more straightforward reboot.
• A first look image of the show features slightly different outfit designs for Dewey, Webby, and Donald.
• An episode featuring a reunion of The Three Caballeros was pitched for Season 1, but ended up being shelved. Happily subverted, as the SDCC 2018 panel revealed that they would appear in Season 2.
• Mickey Mouse would have appeared, if not for the stories featuring him getting vetoed. Frank Agones's idea for Mickey was that he would be Donald's incredibly idealistic old roommate (to contrast Donald's cynicism) who became an insanely successful Hollywood actor. One pitch for a story consisted of Donald being forced to get a Mickey costume for Halloween and finding that people treat him better and his luck improved because of it.^note  The Mickey Mouse (2013) short "New Shoes" would feature a similar plotline (the difference being it was a result of a Body Swap).
• The creators considered naming the young tech-billionaire antagonist "Mark Zuckerbird". They decided to not use the name because of fear of lawsuit from the real Mark Zuckerberg, who may not be happy to have a villain named after him, and opted for "Mark Beaks" instead — which most find to be a good decision, as Beaks is more of a parody of modern tech-billionaires in general rather than a play on Zuckerberg in particular.
• There was consideration to have at least Ben Schwartz and Danny Pudi record in the same room, but the two kept distracting each other, so they recorded separately instead. But this appears to have changed by the time of recording for Season 3.
• Some of the writers pushed for Zeus to be a swan, in reference to his..."seduction" of Queen Leda in the original mythology, but the reference was understandably deemed "gross".
• The crew considered giving Magica De Spell an accent, namely an Italian one, but doing so made her feel like a "broad Italian stereotype" (jokingly stating that the result sounded like "an evil Pizza chef").
• Very early on, the crew had the idea of adding Daisy Duck to the show as Glomgold's Number Two, with him hiring her after Donald moved in with Scrooge in an attempt to copy his business strategy. But they ultimately decided Daisy deserved more than that and didn't want her to just be "Girl Donald" or "Donald's love interest". Like with the Three Caballeros, her inclusion has since been subverted as she debuted in season 3, but with no sign of working for Glomgold.
• There was an extended version of the scene in "The Shadow War!" where Manny and Lil' Bulb fight shadows that would've had the two keeping score a la Gimli and Legolas.
• Gyro and Fenton were supposed to appear in the second half of the series opener, with Gyro helping get the submarine ready and getting his intern's name wrong. This misnaming would be continued as a running gag in following episodes, up until "Beware the B.U.D.D.Y. System!", when the intern would finally give his name onscreen as Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera. This was scrapped due to taking up too much screentime when the focus was supposed to be on the Duck/McDuck family.
• Bobby Moynihan was once considered to voice both Louie and Launchpad before he was cast in the former while Beck Bennett was case in the latter.
• The shady salesman from "The Impossible Summit Of Neverest" was going to reappear in "The Spear Of Selene" where he sold a map to Dewey and Webby. Likewise, Selene was originally more serious and regal as opposed to the final show, where she's more friendly and laid back.
• "Day Of The Only Child" originally had the plot of Gyro showing separate dimensions where each of the boys was born an only child. Since it was seen as too complicated and repetitive, it was changed to simply having them hang out with other people separately. The beginning of the episode still referenced the original plot with Webby mistaking the situation for such.
• "A Nightmare On Killmotor Hill" had a scene that was cut for time, with Lena revealed to be staying with Violet's family initially to study her, hence why she knew she wasn't sleeping well. She was still shown staying with Violet in "How Santa Stole Christmas!" (much later), however.
• A joke involving Launchpad was cut for time in "Beware The Buddy System", where Fenton tested his skills in a VR simulator, and somehow set it on fire. It was cut for being too long.
• The Golden Lagoon Of White Agony Plains originally had scenes that cut back and forth between Scrooge and Goldie's adventure and the boys "wondering" what their adventure would be like.
• "JAW$!" was an episode that had quite a bit changed. To elaborate:
  • This episode was originally titled “The Beast from Beneath the Bin!”
  • Magica had an opening monologue where she essentially created a shadow puppet show talking about how she'd torture Scrooge.
  • They once discussed the idea of the Bin having mystical properties that opened a portal to an additional sea of treasure, but that proved too confusing. It was decided that having the money shark start small and gain mass helped give some latitude to play with scale.
  • Launchpad had a monologue where he talked about saving someone, when it was actually a movie scene.
  • One joke involving the beginning adventure would've involved an angry giant’s fist that started shaking at the heroes down out of the clouds.
  • During the subplot involving Scrooge and Roxanne, she was also going to interview others to attempt to smear Scrooge’s name, including Ma Beagle. In retaliation, Scrooge brought on Gyro to make him seem benevolent. But of course Gyro only made McDuck Enterprises come off as more evil.
• Don Karnage's disguise in 'Sky Pirates In The Sky" was originally of an old lady who was lost in the jungle.
• In "The Secrets Of Castle McDuck", the producers tried getting Alan Young to voice Scrooge's father, but due to his death, Graham McTavish was cast in the role.
• The opening scene of Who Is Gizmoduck , where Fenton says "“Ok, this is happening now BYYYYYEEEEEEE!!!” was meant to be much longer, lasting all the way through the opening titles.
• There was a line in "The House Of The Lucky Gander" that was cut for both time and legal reasons: "“Oh Donny Boy, the shrimp the shrimp are caallling!”
• The Other Bin Of Scrooge McDuck had a few scrapped ideas:
  • There was a McGuffin called the “Grim Nimbus,” a cloud that made all your worst nightmares come true. It was scrapped due to distracting from Lena's story, the next episode would've covered similar ground, and it was too similar to an original series episode.
  • In the very early stages, Lena’s goal wasn’t to steal the Dime, but instead to help Magica invade Scrooge’s dreams, where he had imprisoned the sorceress. The idea was that Scrooge would have a giant skylight in his room with a pattern drawn on it that turned out to be a dreamcatcher that protected him while he slept. It was seen as too complicated, and it was scrapped.
• The Last Crash Of The Sunchaser has two of these:
  • "We were originally going to be way more slavish to the concept that they were hardly able to move without tilting the plane, but it would have made for a visually boring episode. "
  • The scale of the Sunchaser was originally much bigger, with the hull big enough to hold the submarine. It was then changed to be big enough to hold a Jeep.
• The Shadow War has 2 changed ideas:
  • There was a cut gag of Webby and Launchpad buying the food, decorations, and bounce house, where it would be revealed it was from the same strip mall. Only the bounce house made the final episode.
  • There was initially a much longer competition between Manny and Bulb to see who could take out the most shadows, with Manny pleading “I really need this job, man.”
• The Most Dangerous Game Night had a few things changed about it:
  • The episode would've been a status quo refresher, done in a mockumentary style story. There would've been a reporter interviewing the family to see how they function. The reporter would've been either an expy of Werner Herzog, or Daisy Duck, specifically how she was in Quack Pack. It was scrapped because it was too complicated.
    • For Daisy, she would've fallen for Donald in the end.
  • There would've been a second adventure story about an old wizard who’d come to send the Ducks on an epic quest that Louie had to distract. Louie managed to convince the wizard that an avocado in the kitchen was cursed and tasked him to “guard it”…which became a problem when Launchpad wanted to make guacamole, and then the Gyropuddlians tried to steal the avocado. It was seen as a weird story.
    • Had the wizard story gone through, he would've been voiced by Francisco Angones himself.
  • There would've been a few more scenes of Scrooge announcing his plan for game night .
• The ending to The Town Where Everyone Was Nice was originally going to show a hallucination of the main characters in a live action environment in an homage to the animated characters interacting with live action humans in "The Three Caballeros". It was seen as too expensive, and was changed to Donald, Panchito, and Jose singing their theme song.
• Storkules In Duckburg had some changes both on an episode level and a season level:
  • Storkules was originally meant to permanently move in with Donald by the end, hence why he also reappeared so easily in "The Golden Spear". His appearances in episodes like "Nothing Can Stop Della Duck" were done with Launchpad instead so that he wouldn't be overshadowed. Plus, he was said to ruin tension.
  • The harpies were originally more human-like in design, much like the comics and the original series, but they were made more vulture-like to fit with the show better.
• Last Christmas had two things that were changed in development:
  • The episode was originally meant to be during season 1. Also, it was meant to be another step into Dewey’s search for answers about Della; he went to the past not to meet her but to try to gather clues about what her fate might have been.
  • Before being cast as The Ghost Of Christmas Past, Jack McBrayer was originally going to voice a character named Legal Beagle, the son Ma put through Law School just to keep her out of prison.
• There were once plans to do an episode focusing on the descendants of Robin Hood (1973), but it was scrapped for 2 reasons:
  • It would've taken focus away from the main characters.
  • Getting clearance to use movie characters required too many legal issues to deal with, hence mainly sticking with TV characters.
• Whatever Happened To Della Duck has a few cases of this:
  • The episode was originally called "They Put A Duck On The Moon". To quote Frank: "We changed the title because we didn’t want to be coy about it; we wanted people to know that this is very specifically about what happened to her." The season 3 episode "They Put a Moonlander on the Earth!" seems to be a reference to this.
  • Della almost didn't get a prosthetic leg, but through the encouragement of producer Suzanna Olson, it was incorporated into her character.
  • In one of the original storyboards for the episode, one of Della's pictures would've been of the alien Scrooge encounters in the original series theme song.
  • There were two scenes that were boarded yet ultimately cut for time. To quote Frank: "one was a beautifully boarded bit following Della on her search for gold on the moon. We liked the idea that she’d use the skills she learned from Scrooge. The other deleted bit was a campfire with Della, Penny, and Lunaris where she explains her whole situation and they explain their war with the mites. Great character work, but ultimately unnecessary. We had them fall into the pit immediately instead. "
  • In keeping with the 50s alien B-movie aesthetic, the Moonlanders had different names: "In keeping with that idea, we were originally going to give everyone 50s Americana names, but with the word “Moon” in front of it. Gibbous was MoonKeith. Zenith was MoonMarge. Lunaris was General MoonJohnny Lunaris. It was too dumb, even for us." Interestingly, Penumbra referring to Launchpad as "Earth-Launchpad" as late as [[folder: the finale]] seems to be The Artifact from this forgotten naming convention.
• Treasure Of The Found Lamp has some of this:
  • Gladstone's blimp was originally called The Gladyear Blimp.
  • Charybdis had more scenes that were cut for time.
• The Outlaw Scrooge McDuck has a few interesting bits of trivia:
  • It was originally called “The Outlaw Buck McDuck!” . That was in reference to a subplot where Scrooge had originally been a rustler out West (by accident) but was trying to go straight, which ended up being cut.
  • One scene that was cut was a joke where Rockerduck was chasing Scrooge, and he couldn't open the door by himself.
• The visuals for the theme song were different. It originally involved chasing a treasure, the #1 dime, around the globe, to emphasize the adventure. It was too high concept. Then it changed into everyone jumping around on photos in a Duck photo album, to emphasize family. It was too low stakes. Then it finally changed to chasing the dime through comic panels.
• Gosalyn was originally introduced as Huey's Woodchuck rival.
• The Rescue Rangers were originally conceived as an underground resistance group. Also, executive meddling determined how they could be used due to a then-proposed movie in development for them, so they were made into mutated lab rodents who look similar enough but aren't completely them, much like "Mickey Melon".
• When asked if Negaduck was showing up in Season 3, Frank confirmed that they did try to fit him in, but that they wanted to do the character justice and pushed it back for later. Unfortunately, the third season ended up being the last, so Negaduck never made another appearance.
• Storyboards from Samantha King showed how the premise of "They Put A Moonlander On The Earth" was vastly different from the final product. Her storyboards showed that the episode would've had Penumbra hanging out with many of the family members, unlike the final product, where she hangs out mainly with Webby, Dewey, and Launchpad.
  • She revealed a few more rejected/changed concepts, such as:
    • Gibbous and Zenith originally had Earth outfits that were more Hawaiian in nature with some heavy yellows. Their final outfits were more 90s inspired with little yellow so as to visually contrast with Penumbra.
    • Gibbous got a dog and named her Good Boy. Her introduction was cut, but she still appeared in the episode.
    • One scene that was cut was a moment where Penumbra is in her sleeping quarters inside the hanger, and Della looks over to see her with a sparring dummy with her face on it.
    • The scene that indirectly confirms that Penumbra is a lesbian was originally going to be that she's not interested in dating men. This was changed to "not being interested in earth males" so as to keep things ambiguous.
• One scene cut from "Let's Get Dangerous" is of Megavolt unscrewing a lightbulb from a lamp post, saying how he'll free him. When he sees it's a solar light bulb, he then vows to get the sun next.
  • Storyboards by Diana Huh reveal that Taurus Bulba was going to have an assistant named Calfka who was actually Negaduck in disguise, and he was the one who was supposed to summon the Fearsome Four with the Ramrod. The crew ultimately decided to save Negaduck for an episode next season, feeling that he deserved something bigger, but that ultimately became another example of this trope when the show was announced to be ending with its third season.
• "The Fight For Castle McDuck" had some of Pepper's scenes cut for time, such as how she brought her own snacks like a ziplock bag of biscuits and gravy.
• Parry Gripp wrote his own versions of the theme song, but they were rejected.
• Frank Angones mentioned a heist episode that was pitched, but ultimately not made. It would have followed a Lupin III-inspired modern-day version of Robin Hood and the Merry Men attempting to heist the Money Bin, with Clan McDuck as antagonists.
• "The Lost Cargo Of Kit Cloudkicker!" had a few changes in relation to Baloo.
  • Though Disney had given permission for Baloo to be included in the story, Angones decided against it, feeling that the episode needed to be more about Dewey and Kit, in the same way that Darkwing Duck's episode helped bolster Launchpad as much as it did the superhero.
  • A follow-up was intended to reveal the fates of Baloo, the original Don Karnage, Shere Khan, and Rebecca Cunningham (incidentally confirming that the show's Don Karnage is not simply the rebooted version of the original, but the son of the off-screen direct DT17 counterpart to the original Karnage). However, the show's cancellation put those plans to rest.
• In "The Last Adventure", the scene of Donald and Della in the house boat originally played out where he tries saying something before she kept speaking for and interrupting him. The scene instead plays out where he's more able to get his point across, such as being able to say that Daisy is his adventure.
  • Sticking with The Last Adventure, about 20 minutes of material had to be cut from it since it was too long.
  • Don Karnage's updated plane is actually an updated version of The Egret. It's a legged jet fighter that Steelbeak flew in the Darkwing Duck episode "Tiff Of The Titans". A scene was cut showing the transformation scene.
• The crew wanted to put in a reference to Gargoyles from the start, but had serious trouble figuring out how to do it given the heavy presence of humans in the show. They finally got it done in the series finale.
• Frank joked about not being able to include Lord Dominator in season 2.
• The crew briefly considered Merlock to appear in the series, but scrapped him since Magica filled in the role that has been developed for him.
• During one of his recording sessions, Lin Manuel Miranda hummed a bit of the infamous Moon Theme, intending it as a fun nod to the game. He was quickly told not to do that, as they had a very specific plan for the theme that they didn't want to waste.
• According to the 2022 artbook of the series, had the show been renewed for a fourth season, it would've introduced a new continent named "New Scroogea".
• A Darkwing Duck spin-off was pitched, but rejected. Despite the series being titled Darkwing Duck, Gosalyn would have been the POV character. Eventually a different Darkwing Duck series was greenlit in 2020, but it would be its own continuity unconnected to this series - unfortunately, that reboot was also eventually rejected by Disney according to Ducktales writer Ben Siemon.

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