New DuckTales Animated Series

It's comforting to know that Launchpad still has a place in the reboot, even though he was essentially replacing Donald in the original series.

Webby too.

Wonder if Phenton / Gizmo Duck will make it in?

Anyway, soon we'll all be grabbing on to some Ducktales.

....woo woo.

And a small part of me is not-so-secretly hoping this also foretells a return of Darkwing Duck.

Me as well.

With my greater understanding of Launchpad's role in the original series (taking Donald's place) I now better get why he (along side Fenton) appeared in Darkwing Duck in the first place. As original characters, they were more free to make the jump to another show.

If they decided to bring Darkwing to expand the universe a bit, I wouldn't have any objections, though I could understand if they want to focus specifically on the Ducktales crew first and foremost.

There is also a teaser.

Everything about that image rules, but the part that excited me the most is how all episodes but the even longer specials will be closer to half a hour than the shorts format almost all cartoons are following now. I've long felt it's a shame TV animation seems to be losing all interest on telling longer stories.

edited 7th Dec '16 6:27:28 PM by NapoleonDeCheese

Embedded for convenience's sake:

EDIT: I love that image to bits too. I even tried to get it as the image for this show's Tropes page, but it got too small for me to enjoy... (lousy automatic image-shrinking)

edited 7th Dec '16 6:28:10 PM by TargetmasterJoe

I wonder whether Donald's going to be as snarky and surprisingly erudite at times as he is in the comics. Donald's dialogue is always so great in print, because you don't have to worry about his scratchy voice messing with the delivery.

Though also, his personality in the comics is rather different from in the shorts/cartoons/films/etc. Moving picture Donald is incredibly emotional, no matter what he's feeling, whereas comic Donald is more long suffering and resigned with spurts of anger and intensity.

Though if there's only one single bit I really want from the comics (besides that intense Don Rosa shot of Glomgold pointing a gun at the screen/Scrooge - which is never going to happen), it's the gag where nobody can ever tell Huey, Dewey and Louie apart if they're not wearing different things... except Donald - who can spot their differences down to the exact length of their eyelashes. It always struck me as the sweetest, silliest thing.

edited 7th Dec '16 8:15:38 PM by KnownUnknown

Yeah, here's hoping they don't turn Donald into a complete butt monkey. Through his adventures with Scrooge and the boys, you find out that he's got a surprising store of skills and knowledge. Plus, unlike Launchpad and Fention, Donald was generally not afraid to stand up to Scrooge, or to point out when he was being an idiot.

In that initial promo photo, just what is Webby firing her grappling hook at?

Did Webby borrow the grappling hook from Mabel?

Maybe.

Who knows.

So, an episode where Mickey Mouse and Goofy making a special guest appearance to visit Donald and go on an adventure with him and his family.

Yay or nay?

Same thing, but with Jose and Panchito.

They could even title it "The Magnificent Seven (Minus 4) Caballeros."

...

Actually, you know what? That sounds even better than what I came up with. I hardly know the Three Caballeros, so that'd be a great intro for ignorant people (myself included) for the members who aren't Donald.

(Although I do recall an episode of House of Mouse where Jose (that's the green macaw/parrot, right?) teaches manners to Goofy only for it to go horribly right, but whatever.)

EDIT: Oh and apparently Don Rosa wrote 2 stories about the Caballeros, and this show will borrow heavily from the Don Rosa Duck stories, so bonus!

edited 8th Dec '16 3:50:52 PM by TargetmasterJoe

The fact that they are borrowing from Don Rosa and still using Launchpad and Webby is pretty cool.

I mean, I remember hearing that about the show before, but I guess those two are too deeply ingrained in the series to be left out.

Didn't Rosa do a Launchpad solo story once? Or was that Van Horn?

I always thought it was neat that Rosa wrote an episode of Tale Spin.

Rosa did a Launchpad story once, but IIRC it was a strict Money, Dear Boy job born from necessity and Rosa downright hated doing it.

Ouch.

Not a good sign.

Wait. That might not mean he hates Launchpad. Maybe he just hated that he had to do the story, but had no problem with the character.

That is admittedly wishful thinking though.

Did he ever give an opinion on old Launchpad.

IIRC, Don Rosa despised Ducktales in general, which included Launchpad and almost certainly included Fenton as well (in addition to the same reasons he would've disliked Launchpad, Rosa also hates superheroes). He was always going to - he's quite possibly the biggest Carl Barks purist out there, and he didn't like a lot of the changes they made to the source.

I can understand his reasons, even if I don't generally agree with him. But it's a shame, given how much the Ducktales writers clearly loved Barks' work the same as him.

edited 8th Dec '16 11:12:04 PM by KnownUnknown

Don Rosa didn't hate Duck Tales, he principally just disliked the Adaptation Displacement that it induced over Barks's work in America. In his author's notes on that particular story in the Fantagraphics collection, he actually notes that he likes Launchpad, and wouldn't have minded using him more often if he'd been a Barksian character.

He does like Classic Superman stories though, even included Jimmy Olsen in one of the Black Knight stories.

Well, the fact the teaser used the original theme tune is at least one good sign.

edited 9th Dec '16 3:23:17 AM by Psi001

While I like Launchpad I hope we don't get too many characters in the core team, with the diversified Nephews and Donald we already have a an effectively bigger cast.

X4

Well that's good to hear, and a little understandable as well.

When you greatly value someone's work, it makes sense that you'd get annoyed when someone toys around with it, even if you don't actually hate the thing that was added.

I didn't said he necessarily hated the character, just that he did doing that particular story, which makes sort of sense— even if I have no problems with Spider-Man, if I were a professional writer they'd have to keep me at gunpoint to write a comic book run on Peter Parker.

Re: Don Rosa hating superheroes.

As a comics historian, he served on the committee (along with Jerry Siegel, Julius Schwartz, Curt Swan Dr.Jerry Bails, and Michael Fleischer) who put together DC's first The Greatest Superman Stories Ever Told. One would gather from this that he at least doesn't hate Superman.

I know a lot of Barks purists have some antipathy for Duck Tales. For one thing, it did remove quite a bit of the salt from Scrooge (he's much more hard-nosed in the comics). Still, I can hardly see how it deserves hate; it's really quite excellent (if you can forget about Bubba Duck) for what it is.

From what I gather, Uncle Scrooge (with the nephews and Donald in tow) are pretty much the only professional comics Rosa has ever wanted to do. I can see how it might be galling, under such circumstances, to be required to include a character you care nothing about.

edited 9th Dec '16 10:31:03 AM by Robbery