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Woo-oo! (Again!)note .

"You kids are nothing but trouble... Curse me kilts, have I missed trouble! I suppose I'll have to keep an eye on you to make sure you get into trouble properly..."
Scrooge McDuck

DuckTalesnote  is a re-imagining of the late 1980s series of the same name. The series is executive produced and created by Matt Youngberg (Transformers: Animated, Ben 10: Omniverse) and Francisco Angones (Wander over Yonder) with the latter also sverving as story editor and co-producer, and Sean Jimenez (Gravity Falls) as art director.

The series shares the same outline of the original series, as we follow famous billionaire Scrooge McDuck (David Tennant) traveling the world; hunting for treasure and having various adventures with his grandnephews Huey (Danny Pudi), Dewey (Ben Schwartz), and Louie (Bobby Moynihan), along with Tagalong Kid Webbigail "Webby" Vanderquack (Kate Micucci), their Voice of Reason housekeeper Mrs. Beakley (Toks Olagundoye), and crash-prone pilot Launchpad McQuack (Beck Bennett). However, this iteration comes with some significant changes that bring it closer to the original comics source material, the most blatant being Donald Duck (Tony Anselmo) now tagging along with his family on their shenanigans. Additionally, the series also serves as a love letter to other programming that aired on The Disney Afternoon, incorporating elements of everything from The Wuzzles to Goof Troop.

At the same time, the series is a Continuity Reboot set in its own parallel continuity. Some of the more obvious changes:

  • The show is now set in the 21st century, with the characters using smartphones and the like.
  • Huey, Dewey and Louie have evolved from rigorously identical prepubescent kids to three preteens with unique personalities and individual voices.
  • Webby is now an adventurous Genki Girl with a Grappling-Hook Pistol.
  • Mrs. Beakley changes from a doting, cheerful maid into a buff, no-nonsense ex-spy Action Mom (or Grandma).

Get ready to have that theme stuck in your head again, only this time, it's more energetic than before!

The series premiered on August 12, 2017 on Disney XD with an hour-long episode, "Woo-oo!" (yes, that is the episode's title, not a Verbal Tic on our part), that can be watched on Disney XD's official YouTube channel here, as long as you live in the USA. The series moved to Disney Channel in May 2018. A second season was ordered ahead of the series premiere, and began airing on October 20, 2018 and concluded on September 12, 2019. On September 21, 2018, a third season was announced as being in production and premiered April 4, 2020. The series moved back to Disney XD following such.

On December 2, 2020, Frank Angones confirmed on his Twitter that the third season will be the end of the show. The final episodes rolled out in spring 2021, with the three-part Grand Finale having aired on March 15. This made DuckTales the final series from Disney Television Animation that started on Disney XD to end. However, there was a continuation in the form of a seven-part scripted podcast called This Duckburg Life that featured the voice cast reprising their roles, with Huey Duck as the show's host for "Duckburg Public Radio". Here's a preview. An art book showcasing the behind the scenes art and information about the show's production titled The Art of DuckTales was released on November 8, 2022.

There is a short-lived comic run from IDW that lasted 20 issues from 2017 to 2019. These are Loose Canon at best.

On December 4, 2019, it was announced that the show will be represented at the Disney Theme Parks as DuckTales World Showcase Adventure at Epcot, replacing Agent P's World Showcase Adventure. Despite production on the show ending (and Phineas and Ferb getting revived), Disney still went through with opening of the experience as planned, albeit it was delayed multiple times due to the COVID-19 Pandemic until it was finally released on December 16, 2022.


General trope examples:


"Trope Tales, woo-oo!":

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  • Aborted Arc: Some episodes end on cliffhangers that ultimately go nowhere.
    • "The Town Where Everyone Was Nice!" ends with the Drosera occidendum plant replanting its seed, hinting that it could regrow. This plant and the titular town are never seen again.
    • "The Duck Knight Returns!" ends on a cliffhanger where Jim Starling is revealed to have survived the explosion, and turns into Negaduck. However, he is not seen again in the series after that episode, not even in "Let’s Get Dangerous", with the implication being that it's being saved for a potential Darkwing Duck spin-off.
  • Accidental Astronaut: Happens to Donald Duck at the end of the episode "The Golden Spear!", after seeing a spaceship crash to earth. He assumes that his long-lost sister, Della is inside the spaceship and runs to the site of the crash, only for him to get trapped inside the spaceship and taken to the moon.
  • Accidental Misnaming: A Running Gag in the premiere, as Scrooge remembers Huey and Louie, but refers to Dewey as "the third one", "Sonny-Jim", and "...Bluey?" Huey also mentions he's pretty sure Scrooge called him Herbert once. Dewey has since been referred to as "Bluey" by other characters as well.
  • Action Mom: Della Duck. She is a daring adventurer and loves going on adventures together with her kids.
  • Actor Allusion:
  • Actually Pretty Funny: After Scrooge tells Dewey that the submarine isn't equipped with a bunch of hi-tech weapons, Dewey asks what it is equipped with. Scrooge tells him seat belts and forcibly straps him into one before walking away chuckling. Dewey admits that's actually a good one.
  • Adaptational Angst Upgrade: In the pilot, Scrooge and Donald's trust and respect in each other has strained considerably, unlike previous iterations where they had little to no such bad blood. And from the beginning, the show makes a point about the negative emotional repercussions of Scrooge's reclusive life, especially in relation to his family. Astute viewers will quickly realize the reason: Donald quite reasonably blames Scrooge for Della's disappearance. Once the boys learn the story, they briefly do too.
  • Adaptational Attractiveness: Fenton's mother goes from an elderly couch potato to a middle-aged Fair Cop.
  • Adaptational Badass:
    • Technically, Donald Duck. Though he is the perennial Butt-Monkey of the Disney animated universe, the various comics from which the show takes its inspiration — in particular, the works of Carl Barks — do indeed showcase Donald as being "one of the most daring adventurers of all time." This is highlighted in the second episode. Beakley plans to take Bouncer Beagle, leaving the smaller one to Donald. Instead, Donald goes into a berserker rage and trounces both of them without any help from Beakley at all.
      • Exaggerated in the Season 1 finale. Gyro gives him a "Barksian modulator", a machine that changes his voice into the Baritone of Strength of Don Cheadle. Donald gives a Rousing Speech to his family, comes up with a sensible strategy to defeat Magica (one that even Mrs. Beakley is impressed with), and says badass one-liners while charging into battle (where he single-handedly defeats hundreds of Living Shadows and the Gizmoduck suit). Apparently, he's always been saying things like this, but thanks to his silly quacking voice nobody understood him or took him seriously.
      • In "Whatever Happened to Donald Duck?", Donald also fights General Lunaris with his bare hands on top of a space ship
    • Webby; her intro involves her wielding a dagger while darting about with massive amounts of energy, and given that the Quacky Patch doll that was her Companion Cube in the original series is stuck to the wall with an arrow, she's likely to have at least some skill in archery. In the theme song, she weaponizes a grappling hook against a mummy. In her introductory short, we're shown her donning night vision goggles and climbing a cabinet to get at the cookies and when she finds out Dewey has the last one, she dives at him.
    • Mrs. Beakley, given her Heroic Build and her history as a spy. In the intro, she lifts all the nephews and Webby, to protect them from Scrooge's Rogues Gallery, without breaking a sweat, and even seems ready to fight them before the plane crashes into the title. In her introductory short, she's shown to casually suck up a Bedsheet Ghost in her vacuum cleaner, an act that would cause the original Beakley to pass out in fear.
    • Dijon was originally a sniveling lackey to Merlock. D'jinn is a skilled swordsman and noble warrior.
    • While still a juvenile Triceratops, Tootsie is far more ferocious and less cartoonish than her original counterpart.
    • Magica DeSpell is usually a sorceress or witch that depends on magical items to get her goal - Scrooge's number one dime - in the comics. The reboot however turns her into a really powerful sorceress who is the Big Bad of season 1. Even Donald admits in the season finale that Magica is far worse than Scrooge's other villains while in the comics and the old series she was defeated occasionally with ease.
  • Adaptational Heroism: Dijon was a thief and a lackey of movie villain Merlock in the 1987 series but D'jinn is a Cultured Warrior in the reboot.
  • Adaptational Jerkass: Gyro Gearloose is a very nice and decent person in the comics and the original series whose success as an inventor is often Depending on the Writer. His 2017 counterpart is an arrogant and mean Mad Scientist (although a rare heroic one). However, The season 3 episode "Astro B.O.Y.D.!" reveals his backstory which showed a younger Gyro more in line with previous depictions of the character. He also became nicer towards his intern Fenton although he stays a jerkass for the rest of the series.
    • Doofus Drake. He's the clumsy friend of the nephews in the original series but is a outright Spoiled Brat in the reboot who isn't only very wealthy but also very mean with Louie being his favorite victim.
    • Zig-zagged with Gladstone Gander, depending of which source for adaption one chooses: In the original series he was a lot nicer than in most comics while his characterization in the reboot is more in line with the unlikeable character of the old Carl Barks comic books.
  • Adaptational Sympathy:
    • F.O.W.L. is a typical villainous organization bent on committing acts of world larceny (hence their name being the Fiendish Organization for World Larceny) so they can enrich themselves further. When the group was added into the world of this reboot, they still seek to enrich themselves, but their goal is to stabilize the world and rid it of constant chaos—or at least their founder, Bradford Buzzard does, as the rest of the group only seeks to act like typical supervillains and conquer everything in the most grandiose way possible. This is further hammered in the series finale, where Buzzard reveals he wants to rid the world of adventure because his grandmother, Isabella Finch, took him on several daring (and highly dangerous) adventures that almost got him killed several times over, leaving him traumatized at the "chaos" he perceived, feeling the only way to rein it in is to get rid of it. This is in stark contrast to the nameless board of directors from Darkwing, who had no motivation beyond enriching themselves further.
    • Negaduck, of all characters, was given this in in the reboot. The original Darkwing depicted him as being its titular lead's Evil Counterpart from an alternate dimension, a Mirror Universe of swapped moralities know as the "Negaverse", and practically everything Negaduck does is to prove himself as the ultimate bad guy. In DuckTales, he used to be Jim Starling, the actor who played Darkwing on a TV show, until its cancellation (partially brought on by his own ego) leaves him without work and struggling to make ends meet. His learning he was being subjected to The Other Darrin In-Universe for a rebooted movie of the show drives him over the edge and causes him to try to kill his replacement outright, only to have a My God What Have I Done Moment and sacrifice himself to save Launchpad from an explosion. Said Heroic Sacrifice inspires said replacement to become Darkwing for real... only for The Reveal that Jim is still alive and has become twisted as to become Negaduck himself.
    • The reboot does this to Flintheart Glomgold, of all characters. The original Carl Barks comic treated him as an unambiguous villain right off the bat, as did the original cartoon. This show takes it one step further by showing that he was once Duke Baloney, a young shoe-shiner in Johannesburg, South Africa, who Scrooge stiffed on the job as part of an attempt to symbolically teach the young boy in the same way he was once taught to make a fortune. Baloney stole a wallet Scrooge accidentally left behind, and devoted his life to destroying him.
    • Magica DeSpell, whom, unlike in the original stories where she was just a Card-Carrying Villain, has every reason to hate Scrooge, thanks to him reflecting back a spell that turned her brother Poe into a raven, causing him to fly away and never be seen again. Notably, unlike a lot of other antagonists, Scrooge actually regrets this one when he's reminded of it.
    • Darkwing himself (and a heroic version at that). The original Darkwing was a glory-hound who, though fighting for the good of St. Canard, was clearly in it for the fame and glory he thought it would bring him, and had become a crime fighter for... reasons that have varied from story to story. With this new iteration, which treats Darkwing as a Show Within a Show, the young Drake Mallard was personally inspired by the show on how to be a hero, and though he develops a bit of an ego himself, his motivation is to inspire others the same way the show inspired him in the first place.
    • The Phantom Blot. Usually a Diabolical Mastermind who just loves being evil for the sake of it, is given a more tragic reason to be a villain with Magica DeSpell being responsible for the destruction of his village which leads Phantom Blot on a path of destroying magic.
  • Adaptational Wealth: Doofus received a huge inheritance from his grandmother. It changed him a lot from being a friend of Launchpad in the original show to a very spoiled creep who treats his parents as slaves.
  • Adaptation Deviation:
    • We could probably go on and on about the small changes— but one big change is that in this continuity, Huey is the only one of the triplets to be an active Junior Woodchuck scout. He carries a pocket-sized copy of the Guidebook under his hat.
    • Launchpad also doesn't start the series as McDuck's trusted pilot but as a regular, extremely bad, limo driver. In fact it's not until he is flying a plane that Scrooge even knew he was a pilot (despite him mentioning it often). He also pilots a submarine (and that becomes the one vehicle he doesn't crash).
    • The main deviation is that in the original cartoon, when Donald goes to the Navy, the boys show more dislike for Uncle Scrooge, calling him "the old skinflint" while Donald is quite respectful and loving to Scrooge. Here it's Donald who resents Scrooge, while the kids jump at the chance to meet their famous grand-uncle about whom they have heard so many stories (of course eventually they do agree that their Uncle Donald wasn't entirely wrong about Scrooge).
    • How the boys interact with Webby is vastly different from the original cartoon. In the original, while they did care about her and see her as a younger sister, she was very much an Annoying Younger Sibling to them, as well as being a girl. In the reboot, on the other hand, she quickly assimilates into their group with no fuss and the boys happily accept her as a friend (once they get over the initial shock, that is). As the showrunners have said, she is like the fourth triplet, and the boys treat her as such.
    • Doofus goes from a friend and fellow Junior Woodchuck to the triplets to a spoiled, rich brat who Louie wants to hobnob with.
    • Darkwing Duck is no longer an actual super hero but a character in a Show Within a Show. Now that Drake Mallard has become a real life Darkwing Duck, there is still a great variation in his origin story and relationships
  • Adaptational Name Change:
    • Subverted: Dewey Duck's full name in all media made before this project was "Deuteronomy Duck". In this series, Huey refers to him as "Dewford". Word of God states that Deuteronomy is still his name, but they call him Dewford because the former is difficult for Donald to pronounce.invoked
      • Played straight with Louie, whose full name is Llewellyn (originally Louis) in this version, which he hates.
    • Gyro's robot assistant is called "Little Helper" in the original comics and cartoons. Here, he's called "Little Bulb" or "Lil' Bulb".
    • Fenton Crackshell is now Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera, as part of his Race Lift.
    • Flintheart Glomgold's real name is Duke Baloney.
    • Storkules. It's pretty clear he is the show's version of Herakles/Hercules. While the other greek deities such as Zeus or Selene keep their mythological name, Storkules is given a bird pun renaming.
  • Adaptation Origin Connection: F.O.W.L. is shown to be the employer of many different villains that in their original depiction aren't connected to them like John D. Rockerduck and Jeeves, Gandra Dee, Don Karnage and The Phantom Blot.
    • Speaking of The Phantom Blot, he's given a completly reworked origin story. Usually depicted as a criminal mastermind and a recurring enemy of Mickey Mouse's Rogue Gallery, the reboot ties him to Magica DeSpell of all people, making him a magic-hating villain because Magica destroyed his village once.
  • Adaptational Species Change: In The Wuzzles, Rhinokey was part-monkey as his name suggests. In "The Lost Cargo of Kit Cloudkicker!", he's now part-gorilla, and accordingly he's called Rhinocerilla or Gorillinoceros by various characters.
  • Adaptational Villainy:
    • Although Glomgold was certainly corrupt and a rival to Scrooge in the original cartoon, his schemes rarely involved outright murder attempts. In the new series, he doesn't hesitate at the thought of killing Scrooge, Launchpad, Donald, four children, and even his own henchmen once he has what he's after. A later episode has him decide to kill Beaks, just because the guy was annoying for about five minutes, and tries to off Scrooge in the process. Scrooge implies that Glomgold is constantly trying (and failing) to kill him. This is in line with how Glomgold was in the comics, however.
    • While Gyro Gearloose is more of an Adaptational Jerkass, it's played straight with Little Helper/Lil' Bulb. In the comics, he's mostly either doing his own thing in the background, or helping Gyro. In the show, he can be actively malevolent at times. Although, it seems Lil' Bulb has been tuned a bit better, playing as a loyal soldier for Gyro in "Moonvasion".
    • As for an example of true adaptational villainy, we have Doofus Drake: in the original he was more of the bumbling goofball who ultimately meant well. In this adaptation, Doofus inherited his grandmother's wealth and became corrupt and heartless, turning his own parents into servants, and even planned to "keep" Louie. Most of what he does either disturbs or absolutely terrifies anyone who interact with him (especially Louie).
    • Zigzagged with Darkwing Duck. While the fictionalized character was still a hero in the show, actor Jim Starling descended into villainy during the filming of the Darkwing movie. Meanwhile, actor Drake Mallard, who was the new Darkwing, became a real life hero as the role.
    • In the original, Tootsie the Triceratops was the friendly pet of Bubba the Cave-Duck. In this adaptation, she is a savage wild animal that tries to crush the other characters underfoot, and her relationship with Bubba is non-existent since they came from different time periods and only meet through Time Travel.
    • With things such as working with Mark Beaks against Fenton and being an agent of F.O.W.L., Gandra Dee seems to be more villainous this time around, compared to her original counterpart, though with being genuinely impressed with Fenton and turning against Beaks in mind, whether she is truly evil or not has been left ambiguous for the longest time. Ultimately Subverted when it turns out she only joined F.O.W.L. because no one else would fund her (dangerous) scientific projects and plans to quit F.O.W.L. when she and Fenton have completed their secret project that works as a much safer alternative.
    • In the season 2 Christmas Episode "Last Christmas!", Della, Donald and Dewey are facing the mythological monster, Wendigo, who turns out to really be The Ghost Of Christmas Past. In the original work, he is just a well-meaning spirit, while here he is a Crazy Jealous Guy who wants to keep Scrooge away from his family on Christmas Eve.
  • Adaptational Wimp: Flintheart Glomgold goes from a Corrupt Corporate Executive and Diabolical Mastermind who is a serious threat to Scrooge and his family to a Big Bad Wannabe whose failing schemes are comically overcomplicated. He isn't really taken serious by Scrooge himself.
  • Aerith and Bob: The character names run the gambit from Scrooge and Magica to Donald Duck and Mark Beaks. Most characters have an animal-pun somewhere in their name, but even that isn't consistent.
    • While Huey, Dewey, and Louie are pretty ordinary, their full names are very much this trope: Llewellyn, Deuteronomy (or Dewford for short), and Hubert.
  • Again with Feeling: After spending a great deal of time repairing her spaceship so she can return home, Della discovers that her ship requires solid gold to run. She sets off on a search spanning a year but doesn't find any gold until her tooth falls out. She promptly exclaims that she's had gold the entire time only to realize that she wasted years on the search and repeat the line angrily.
    Della Duck: "I've had gold in my mouth this whole time!" Beat (angrily) "I've had gold in my mouth this whole time?!"
  • Age Lift:
    • Webby was younger than the triplets in the original series, but all of them seem to be about the same age now, and are preteens instead of young children.
    • Averted with Scrooge of all people. Rather than move him away from his by now antiquated origins to make him a realistic age, the show has gone all-in on it and outright states that he was born in 1867, making him approximately 150 years old.
    • Flintheart Glomgold is mostly depicted as being around the same age as Scrooge, being his main rival. The reboot makes Flintheart significant younger than Scrooge as his origin involves meeting an adult Scrooge when he's still a child. Also it is revealed in the show that Flintheart wears fake beards to make him look older.
    • Likewise Ludwig von Drake is mostly depicted as being part of the same generation as Scrooge. In the reboot he is significant older than Scrooge being shown as an old man in the flashbacks sequences of "The Secret Files Of Agent 22!" and having already old children in "Raiders Of The Doomsday Vault!"
  • Agent Mulder: Webby will believe any tale of legend told to her, no matter how outlandish.
  • Agent Scully: Huey has a healthy skepticism and largely depends on science, especially what's in his Junior Woodchuck's Guidebook; as far as Huey is concerned, if it's not in the book, it's not real. Terror of the Terra-Firmians! puts this to the test, and he ultimately resolves to be willing to accept the more fantastic elements of the family's adventures...by adding it to the Guidebook himself. If he adds it to the book, then it's in the book, which means it's real!
  • A.I. Is a Crapshoot: In "Beware the B.U.D.D.Y. System", the B.U.D.D.Y. robo-driver goes haywire, strapping Scrooge, Dewey, Gyro and Mark Beaks down with multiple seatbelts and endangering their lives, with Gizmoduck rescuing them from the robo-car, and Launchpad's dangerous driving skills knocking the automated van into the canyon below.
    • This is actually a recurring problem in a lot of Gyro's projects. In fact, one of the first questions often asked of both his inventions and similar competing technologies is "How do you know this one won't turn evil and try to kill everyone?".
      • Gyro assures everyone that only 50% of his machines turn evil and that some are just wildly misunderstood.
  • Air-Vent Passageway:
    • In "Woo-oo!", Webby leads the boys out of the locked room through the mansion's ventilation shaft, where Dewey overhears Scrooge say, "Family is nothing but trouble."
    • In "Raiders of the Doomsday Vault!", Dewey is the only one small enough to climb through the vent to get to the other side of a blocked passage in the Doomsday Vault in order to let Della in.
    • In "Louie's Eleven!", Daisy and Donald escape from a stuck elevator through an emergency exit and somehow end up in the ventilation system trying to get back to Miss Glamour's party. Through this, they are able to get the jump on Falcon Graves.
  • Alliterative Name: A number of names: Donald Duck, Dewey Duck, Della Duck, Gyro Gearloose, Gladstone Gander, "Glittering" Goldie O'Gilt, Bettina Beakley, the Beagle Boys (Big Time, Burger and Bouncer).
  • Allohistorical Allusion: The Audubon bay separates Duckburg from St. Canard. John James Audubon was a famous naturalist who wrote a book, The Birds of America which is the one of the seminal works of ornithology and quite fitting for a series of talking animals based on various kinds of ducks.
  • Alternate Catchphrase Inflection: Donald Duck's catchphrase is "Ah, phooey" usually in an exasperated tone. In "Whatever Happened to Donald Duck?", General Lunaris says the phrase in a serious, menacing voice, and in "Moonvasion!", he screams the phrase when he learns he is doomed to orbit Earth in his spaceship forever.
  • Alternate Species Counterpart: At the end of the episode "Terror of the Terra-firmians!", the five Rock Monster creatures that Webby, Lena, and the triplets encountered in the abandoned metro tunnel are revealed to be their exact counterparts — three boys coloured red, blue and green, and two girls coloured purple and black. The brief dialogue between the red and the purple one mirrors an earlier conversation between Huey and Webby.
  • Ambiguous Gender:
    • Pei Pei the panda that is massaging Gladstone in 'The House of the Lucky Gander", who has no obvious Tertiary Sexual Characteristics, has a Gender-Blender Name and is never heard speaking. Since Pei Pei never appeared since that episode, we'll likely never learn their gender.
    • Charybdis, the monster guarding the Spear of Poseidon. Its counterpart in Greek mythology was a female monster, but it speaks with a very deep, masculine voice provided by Fred Tatasciore.
  • Ambiguous Time Period: The show seems to approach its setting as a Constructed World with elements from multiple periods existing side-by-side:
    • Scrooge, for instance, is an old-time adventure hero in the mold of a late-19th and early-20th Century explorer with a private collection of rare artifacts and trinkets which was still possible in an era before the United Nations and other institutions passed laws to better preserve patrimony.
    • Donald Duck owns a beat-up hatchback with a modern GPS electronic navigating console. Webby uses a cellphone while Scrooge uses a flip-phone and Launchpad flies an old-fashioned sea-plane for transport rather than say a private business jet.
    • We also see parts of this in the Money Bin in "The Great Dime Chase". It's clarified that the Money Bin is not really Scrooge's primary office-space. His real corporate HQ is in the city, and the Money Bin, and the money inside it, is largely of sentimental value. The Bin likewise has old-fashioned technology like pneumatic tubes, while Scrooge's archives still use the Card Index system of cataloguing when modern libraries use computer searches for better accessibility.
    • The sketch of The Spear of Selene found by Dewey has multiple dates listed on it, including 03/15/20-- (even referred to as "twenty—" by Dewey), the week of the triplet's birth, thus implying that the show takes place in the 21st century at least.
    • The inclusion of characters from other Disney Afternoon franchises certainly doesn't make things any easier, either. Although Kit and Molly from TaleSpin have been aged up, they're now merely adults and that show was set, roughly, in The '30s.
  • Amphibian at Large: The main antagonist of the episode "The House of the Lucky Gander!" is Toad Liu Hai, an ancient spirit taking the shape of an anthropomorphic toad. In the episode's climax he takes a One-Winged Angel form, towering over the ducks.
  • Amusing Injuries:
    • In the first episode alone, poor Launchpad and Scrooge respectively get to enjoy the pleasantries of being swollen with venom from rattlesnake bites and bashed into buildings while holding onto a flying dragon. Worse? All this pain is Played for Laughs.
    Scrooge: [covered in cuts, contusions and disheveled feathers] Wheeze... It'll take more than a... bruised spine... to shake off ol'Scrooge, you ye bad dragon-dog ye!
    • Jim Starling both as himself and as Darkwing Duck in the old Darkwing Duck tv show is often taking injuries that he shrugs off, true to style. His counterpart, Drake Mallard takes similar abuse, but it's played for drama.
  • And the Adventure Continues: It's DuckTales, of course the adventure doesn't end with the final episode, but to be more specific:
    • Huey, Dewey, and Louie have grown and matured considerably, becoming seasoned adventurers.
    • Webby, having found her true heritage, has grown closer to her family.
    • Scrooge has fully embraced "Family is the greatest adventure of all" and see the kids as the best partners he's ever had.
    • Della has returned to her family, learned what it means to be a parent, and is ready to make up for the ten years of adventures she's missed.
    • Donald is ready to strike out with Daisy on a new adventure all their own.
    • Ms. Beakly is free of her decade-long burden of secrecy and is ready to re-embrace her past as a super-spy.
    • And Launchpad has found his place in St. Canard, with Darkwing Duck and Gosalyn.
    • Not mention the superheroes, sorcerers, super scientists, and magical creatures that have become a part of their extensive family.
    • And on the villains' side: Scrooge's greatest foes (Magica, Ma Beagle, and Glomgold) are still at large, as well as most of F.O.W.L. High Command. The McDucks have a lot of foes that could resurface at any time.
  • Animation Bump: The show is already very nicely animated, but the Title Sequence shows much more shading and fluid movement. Episodes towards the tail-end of Season 1 have shown an increase in fluidity.
    • This is mostly common in Season 3, where some scenes have snappier animation than usual, with the characters being more expressive and exaggerated. ESPECIALLY within the series finale.
  • Arbitrary Skepticism: Huey claims his trusty Junior Woodchuck guidebook contains info on everything there is. But he also adds entries on anything new he encounters, which makes it a bit odd that he flatly denies the fabled Terra-Firmians' existence on the basis that they're not in the book.
  • Arc Hero:
    • Francisco Angones stated on his Tumblr that the show's seasons will revolve around a character. Season 1 focused on Dewey, Season 2 revolved around Louie, and Season 3 was Huey's time to shine. This is even subtly acknowledged by Wikipedia for their episode list article, as the indicating color for each season on that article corresponds to each triplet's color (Dewey's blue for Season 1, Louie's green for Season 2, and Huey's red for Season 3).
    • Additionally, Lena served as a Deuteragonist in Season 1, while Della was featured in Season 2, and Season 3 is ultimately revealed to be Webby.
    • Even Launchpad serves a substantial role, especially in Season 3.
  • Arc Number: The number 87 appears often throughout the show, whether it's DT-87, the McDuck Manor security system, or 87 cents that was stolen from Scrooge's money bin one day. This is a reference to when the original DuckTales series premiered in 1987. Webby is also known as experiment 87, code-named April, created by F.O.W.L. using Scrooge's DNA.
    • Additionally, the first few episodes of Season 2 have characters that describe situations as "the fourth weirdest thing" that has happened. Ultimately subverted, as it doesn't go anywhere or seem to reference anything.
  • Arc Words:
    • "The Spear of Selene": What it means isn't immediately clear, but over the first season, the boys learn that it was a rocket that Della took out alone and crashed on the moon.
    • "Family is the greatest adventure of all." The show puts the idea of family front and center, particularly found family. The line also provides the key to breaking Scrooge's contract with Bradford in the series finale, driving the killing blow to Bradford's decades-long plan to rid the world of chaos.
    • Scrooge's iconic quote about being "smarter than the smarties, tougher than the toughies, and sharper than the sharpies", oft-referenced throughout the series, is confirmed as this trope once and for all in the final moments of the Grand Finale. It refers to the development of the main trio, who have all embraced and become better at their respective skills - Huey's smarts, Dewey's toughness and determination, and Louie's sharp wit and cleverness.
    • "I'm/You're Scrooge McDuck": The line puts front-and-center both Scrooge's reputation as an adventurer and his enormous ego. Appropriately, the line is also juxtaposed into situations that highlight how he's still capable of failure/needs the help of others.
  • Arch-Enemy: Scrooge has many, as befits a world-renowed hero with a very, very long history. To wit:
    • Flintheart Glomgold is the one that stands out the most. By his own account, he's Scrooge's first, last, and only nemesis, to the degree that he sees all of Scrooge's other archenemies as his Sitcom Archnemesis, and schemes for their demise alongside Scrooge. After he proceeds to lose DeSpell's, Beaks', the Beagles', and Don Carnage's entire fortunes to Louie (and later Scrooge) due to sheer stupidity, all of them now share the same sentiment right back.
      Magica: (before attacking Glomgold with the rest of the Rogues Gallery) You've made a powerful enemy. I have enough hate in my heart for two Scottish billionaires!
    • Magica DeSpell has a centuries-old blood feud with Scrooge, and is dedicated solely to his destruction (with Take Over the World as a secondary goal.) After Lena's Heel–Face Turn, she starts acting as a much more personal one to her as well...especially once Lena becomes the new host for the DeSpell magic, leaving Magica powerless.
    • Mark Beaks becomes one after his debut episode, due to wanting to be a more successful billionaire. It's...pretty one-sided, though. He later becomes a proper one to Gizmoduck.
    • Ma Beagle and her boys are a more contemporary one - while they haven't been rivals for nearly as long as some of the others, they blame Scrooge for swindling their ancestor out of the deed to Duckberg, and Ma is determined to steal it back. (To be fair, the original Beagle stole it in the first place, too, so it's basically a family tradition at this point.)
    • For a certain definition of enemy, Goldie O'Gilt counts, too. She's so far the only rival adventurer that's not only managed to keep pace with Scrooge any time they cross paths, but outright defeats him and escapes with the treasure in many of their encounters. Importantly, though, while she's got no problems with attacking Scrooge, swindling him, and leaving him for dead, she never leaves him in a situation she isn't 100% sure he can escape from (albeit not without tremendous effort, which Scrooge finds little comfort in.) He's obviously not happy that she's chosen to mentor Louie now, either, especially because she's only doing it to, in her own words, [make Scrooge] really, really angry.
    • Don Karnage has become one specifically for Dewey, after the latter upstaged him and (temporarily) hijacked his pirate crew.
    • Negaduck emerges as Darkwing's in the latter's debut episode.
    • Bradford Buzzard, Director of Fowl, stands out among Scrooge's enemies in that he's the only one that Scrooge actually acknowledges as a threat (outside of probably Magica), and one that he doesn't think he can win against, since he knows more about Scrooge than anyone else. And on a more personal level, he was the one who caused the Spear of Selene incident, the event that hurt Scrooge the most, by telling Della about the space-ship. In addition, he was the one who had Duckworth killed, in his attempt to remove any potential allies of Scrooge.
    • A Running Gag of the two first seasons has Santa Claus of all people being teased as Scrooge's nemesis. It turns out Santa isn't exactly his enemy nor is he a villain by any means; it's more that Scrooge is bitter that Santa chose his christmas business over his friendship with Scrooge, meaning the trope is actually Subverted.
  • Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking: In "The Spear of Selene," Zeus recalls how Scrooge "killed the unkillable Gorgon, found the lost treasure of Troy, and is really good at building sandcastles."
  • Arson, Murder, and Lifesaving: Subverted after Scrooge and the kids stop the Pixiu dragon and Launchpad crashes:
    Scrooge: In the short time I've known, you've wrecked my home and my money bin, unleashed several ancient evils, and almost got me killed twice!
    Huey: Four times, if you count each monster as an individual time... [Scrooge glares angrily at the kids]
    • And then double subverted when Scrooge breaks into laughter:
      Scrooge: That was incredible, when you pulled me into the airplane and said "No time!" And who would have thought of a Medusa gauntlet? Brilliant! Oh, and then you swung me out and pulled up just in time and... [laughter] You kids are nothing but trouble! Curse me kilts, have I missed trouble! I suppose I'll have to keep an eye on you to teach you how to get into trouble properly.
  • Art Evolution: The series' animation has gradually become more fluid and expressive, and loses a lot of the stiffness characteristic of the first few episodes of Season 1.
  • Artistic License – Paleontology: The Pteranodon in the "Meet Scrooge!" short has fewer fingers and toes than in real life, bird-like talons, naked skin (though that may be due to the art style), and deformed wing membranes that make it look like it's got bat-wings, but at least it doesn't have teeth or a long tail, unlike the ones from the original series.
  • Ascended Extra:
    • While Donald Duck only appeared in the pilot and select episodes of the original series, it's evident that he'll be sticking with his family this time around, as he did in the original comics. One promo quite literally puts him front and center.
    • Fenton Crackshell was introduced in the later episodes as part of a retool that earned him cameo roles in Darkwing Duck, being considered as an annoying rival. He's now seemingly already working for Scrooge, with a new Gizmoduck suit that is three to four times his size.note 
  • Awesome, but Impractical: The Buzzards point out that the Money Bin is this.
  • Awesome Mc Cool Name: Della apparently intended to name the triplets Jet, Turbo, and Rebel instead of, respectively, Hubert "Huey", Deuteronomy "Dewey", and Llewellyn "Louie". Dewey is explicitly furious that he missed out on "eleven years of Turbo!" Huey hasn't registered an opinion either way, but since Louie hates his full name, he probably agrees.
  • Badass Family:
    • Webby laughs at the idea of the Duck/McDuck family being "normal and boring" and goes on to talk about how Donald is a daring adventurer. The triplets already know how big a deal Scrooge is, and they are set to join him on new adventures. Even Della was big on adventuring.
      • It's eventually revealed that many of Scrooge's ancestors were similarly some form of badass. Apparently it's In the Blood.
    • Speaking of Webby, she and her grandmother qualify. Mrs. Beakley is strong, tactical, and Ma Beagle speaks of her as The Dreaded. She taught her granddaughter on how to be an Action Girl.
  • Bait-and-Switch:
    • The Turn Off Your Phone PSA. Seriously, who was expecting the opening to grind to a halt when a cell phone goes off?
    • This line from the Glomgold Industries training video. "That's the motto of the world's most beloved Scottish billionaire duck... (a silhouette of Scrooge is seen at a wall until Glomgold breaks through it) Flintheart Glomgold!"
    • Scrooge's indignation that Glomgold is threatening Donald to keep him from taking the red jewel for himself. For a second, his anger sounds like he's upset at Glomgold for sinking to such a dirty trick, but...
      Scrooge: Hiring my own nephew to use against me?! [sighs in defeat] Now that is good planning.
    • The note from Della apologizing to Scrooge for stealing "the Spear of Selene", implies that she betrayed Scrooge by stealing an artifact they found on one of their adventures despite his instructions. It's later revealed that the Spear of Selene is actually a spaceship she designed and Scrooge had secretly built for her as a surprise to celebrate the triplets' birth. Della found out about it before he could unveil it and decided to take it for a joyride. The note was meant to explain why it was missing.
    • Following up on the above, the reveal of this truth in "Last Crash of the Sunchaser!" is THE critical moment of the show's thus-far biggest Driving Question. It's taken very seriously, and is explained for the bad blood between Donald and Scrooge, and how it led Scrooge to retire from the life of adventure the kids practically worshipped him for. He tries to end the reveal on a hopeful note, by explaining that the kids reignited his adventuring spark and that Della's spirit lives on in her kids' own adventures. Then this happens:
    • "The Duck Knight Returns!" sets up the return of Darkwing Duck, who in the Ducktales universe is a cartoon superhero played by an actor (voiced again by Jim Cummings) named Jim Starling. He has the same voice, and his older appearance and mannerisms make him come off accurately like a more aged, jaded, and washed-up DW would be. By the end of the episode, Starling has gone off the deep end and become this universe's version of Negaduck, whereas the unnamed Ascended Fanboy actor that was billed to replace him in the movie reboot is identified as Drake Mallard, and when the movie is sunk at the end of the episode, he opts to become Darkwing for real, cementing HIM as the Ducktales universe version of DW.
  • Barefoot Cartoon Animal: Much like in the original show, whether or not a character wear shoes depends on how human-like their body is. Of the main characters only Launchpad and Mrs. Beakley wear shoes, though Scrooge has spats that cover a portion of his feet.
    • Lampshaded when Scrooge decides to go back to basics as a shoe shiner in order to replace the fortune he lost to Louie. Not only is demand for shoe shining lower in the modern day than it used to be, not a single character on a crowded street is actually wearing shoes.
  • Be Careful What You Wish For: Arguably one of the central themes of "Let's Get Dangerous!" Drake got his chance to become Darkwing Duck for real and fight crime in St. Canard...regular, mundane crime, unlike the supervillains TV!Darkwing faced off against. When those same supervillains show up for real, Drake freaks out because he wasn't expecting to ACTUALLY go up against real supervillains with real, deadly, superpowers. Much of the initial conflict of the episode is Drake grappling with his cowardice versus his heroism, and he ultimately manages to overcome it and get in the fight for real. Another example from this same episode is Gozalyn's desire to find her missing grandfather at any cost; she gets the opportunity at the episode's climax, but the "cost" in this case would be the probable destruction of the entire multiverse. She ultimately, tearfully, decides to give up the search in order to save the world.
  • Beleaguered Assistant: Mrs. Beakley is taking time to... adjust to the nephews' presence.
    Beakley: (to Scrooge) When I told you to spend time with your nephews, I did not mean move them in.
    • Zan Owlson, to Flintheart Glomgold (poor girl...).
  • Berserk Button:
    • Don't threaten the boys when Donald is around, or you'll be caught in a whirlwind of squawking fury. He even landed some good hits in on Lunaris due to it, though he still lost. Donald has many others, but if we listed them all, we'd be here all day.
    • Do not disrespect Doofus Drake's grandma in any way, shape or form!
    • Don't disrupt Mark Beaks' extremely rigid schedule in any way, shape, or form.
    • Jim Starling did not take kindly to being replaced for the Darkwing Duck movie. To such an extent that he ultimately turned into Negaduck.
    • Don't say the moon isn't a planet. The Moonlanders HATE that. Lunaris so much so that it's a major pretense for his invasion of Earth.
    • The Spear of Selene is a very touchy subject for Scrooge due to it being the cause of Della’s disappearance. Even long after Della’s return home, Bradford revealing in the Series Finale that he was the one who told Della about it in the first place sends Scrooge into a rage.
  • Big Bad Ensemble: The four leading antagonists are Flintheart Glomgold, who's constantly trying to bury Scrooge and plotting to kill him; Mark Beaks, a hipster Corrupt Corporate Executive who focuses more on buzz and technology to get ahead instead of working hard or honestly; Ma Beagle, matriarch of the Beagle Boys who wants to steal the deed to Duckburg from Scrooge; and Magica De Spell, who is plotting to steal Scrooge's #1 Dime and regain her power. She edges the others out by virtue of being the villain of the Season Finale.
  • Big Fancy House: McDuck Manor is a huge estate with a Peacock casually flying around, has large spacious interiors, with paintings of Scrooge's family and other adventures and relics and display cases of old outfits, trinkets, and mysterious artifacts. And of course it has an Air-Vent Passageway (albeit just the right size for four small children to crawl through).
  • Bigfoot, Sasquatch, and Yeti:
    • In one of the promotional shorts, Huey captures a Sasquatch that looks suspiciously similar to the one from A Goofy Movie.
    • Subverted in "The Impossible Summit of Mount Neverrest!" where no yeti shows up but is still referenced (Launchpad mistaking a big, hairy pig-man for a yeti).
    • In "The Other Bin of Scrooge McDuck!", Huey takes in a Bigfoot which he names Tenderfeet after pulling a thorn out of its foot. It turns out the Bigfoot, whose real name is Gavin, is actually scamming the triplets so he can live in the mansion, plus sasquatches are revealed to be sapient and can speak English fluently.
  • Bilingual Bonus:
    • While his pronunciation is terrible, the line Launchpad uses when he pretends to be "Uncle Hampus" is actual Swedish.
    • The "Uke or Puke" machine in "Daytrip of DOOM!" used actual Japanese characters, and the game spoke in actual Japanese.
    • The writing in the temple from "The Spear of Selene!" is written in Greek with more or less correct grammar.
  • Bitch in Sheep's Clothing: Many:
    • Mark Beaks comes off initially as a hip and modern "fun boss" type of CEO billionaire, but he's soon revealed to be petty, shallow, severely neurotic, and a narcissitic megalomaniac.
    • Gladstone Gander appears to be a laid-back "cool guy" billionaire, in sharp contract to penny-pinching "work hard to get ahead" Scrooge, causing the kids to idolize and envy him. It turns out he's a selfish, lazy Jerkass who has no issues about throwing family under the bus to save his own skin. He appears to have a Heel Realization at the end of his debut, but it turns into an Ignored Epiphany instead - only for him to apparently come around for real in the season 2 finale (or at least, he's willing to use his luck to benefit someone other than himself, for once.)
    • Lena is one of Webby's first real, outside-the-family friends. Too bad she's a mole for Magica. At first.
    • Goldie is a special example - she makes absolutely no qualms about her thieving, con woman nature, and repeatedly betrays Scrooge and anyone else she works with. Despite that, she is charming and charismatic enough that people keep trusting her, and Scrooge is attracted to her enough that he keeps getting caught in a vicious cycle of Mistrust-Forgiveness-Cooperation-Betrayal every time they meet. At least on Goldie's part, though, she's not actively malicious and has no desire to actually hurt the people she scams, and she cares about Scrooge enough to ensure he's never left in a situation he can't get out of (though not without difficulty.)
    • Gandra Dee is a charming punk-esque genius scientist that Fenton immediately hits it off with. Turns out she's a spy for Beaks who's only after Gizmoduck, to Fenton's dismay. Oh, and she's actually working for F.O.W.L. However, she does turn around in the end.
  • Bittersweet Ending: The Shadow War! ends with the Duck-McDuck family reunited and Magica de Spell defeated, but Lena is seemingly dead (assuming she existed in the first place), the money bin is wrecked, and Magica is still out in the world, even if she no longer has her powers. On a slightly more sweet note, Lena is now apparently inhabiting Webby's shadow, and in the last few seconds, we see that Della Duck is alive, having crashed on the moon.
  • Black Comedy: Jokes revolving around murder and death are surprisingly commonplace. In "The 87 Cent Solution!", one joke revolves around Glomgold crashing Scrooge's funeral and trying to dance on his rival's coffin.
  • Bland-Name Product:
    • In "The Shadow War!", Scrooge's house is filled with Papa Swan's Pizza boxes, an apparent parody of Papa John's Pizza.
    • An advertisement blimp had the logo of the company "Gladyear" on it, which is an obvious rip-off of the tire manufacturing giant "Goodyear" and its famous advertisement blimp.
  • Blunt Metaphors Trauma: In "The Living Mummies of Toth-Ra", when Scrooge is encouraging the followers of Toth-Ra not to give up hope:
    Scrooge: Don't lose hope! Remember the burritos! When a burrito falls apart, you've got to... put it in a bowl and eat it with a fork... or, uhh, grab some tortilla chips and make nachos, I guess. Uh, is any of this making sense?
    Amunet: This was never about burritos.
    Scrooge: It wasn't?
    Amunet: It's about freedom to make a choice, a choice bigger than beef or veggies. We've lived our whole lives toiling in the service of the Pharaoh, now we get to choose for ourselves! And what do we want?
    Members: Burritos!
    Scrooge: Wow. Okay, then. CHARGE!!!
  • Bookends:
    • The first episode of the first season started with Dewey trying to steal the house boat. That season's finale, Dewey specifically points out that he's not stealing the boat.
    • The closing seconds of the first and last episodes of the first season are beat-for-beat mirrors of one another. "Woo-oo!" ends with Dewey seeing a picture of Della and gasping "Mom?". "The Shadow War!" ends with Della seeing news footage of Dewey (and the rest of the family, for that matter) and gasping "Boys?".
    • In-narrative, Scrooge's earliest direct confrontation with F.O.W.L. was when both sought to acquire the Papyrus of Binding ("The First Adventure!"), which ended when F.O.W.L. failed to use it against Scrooge because they didn't understand him (Black Heron commanded the Papyrus to kill Scrooge's sidekicks when Donald and Della were his family). In "The Last Adventure!", F.O.W.L. once again try to acquire the Papyrus to use against Scrooge and fail because Bradford Buzzard doesn't understand his enemy, writing a contract where Scrooge can only keep his family if he gives up adventuring when Scrooge considers family the greatest adventure, resulting in the Papyrus destroying itself.
  • Born Lucky: Gladstone Gander, as it's pretty much his defining characteristic which informs his incredible laziness and selfish behavior.
    • Launchpad, who crashes every vehicle he mans but somehow makes it out of every single crash unscathed and can fix most vehicle problems simply by hitting it.
  • Borrowed Catchphrase: It takes Beakley about ten seconds of trying to keep the houseboat together during "The Shadow War" for her to unintentionally adopt Donald's catchphrases and mannerisms (i.e.: "What's the big idea?!" and "Aw, phooey!")
    • Lunaris also adapts the latter twice, the first time sarcastically as a taunt to Donald, after catching him trying to warn Earth about the impending invasion. The second time is in the vein of a Big "NO!" after his defeat, upon learning that the derelict spaceship he's now trapped in is Earth's newest moon.
  • Bowdlerise: The episode "The Beagle Birthday Massacre!" is re-released under the title "The Beagle Birthday Breakout!".
  • Brand X: Nearly all smartphones in the show are Waddle phones (produced by Mark Beaks' company). Similarly, all soda the characters drink are PEP products.
  • Breakout Villain: Despite only being a guest character who only makes one appearance a season, Don Karnage ended up joining the main cast of villains in the Grand Finale.
  • Brick Joke:
    • Two from "Woo-oo!"
      • First, we see Dewey messing with the engine of Donald's boat. By the end of the second part, the boat explodes because Dewey left the engine on.
      • The other is Glomgold's orientation video, where he concludes by saying that "employees are the greatest treasure of all!" His henchmen bring this up when he's about to kill them alongside Scrooge.
      Hack: But I thought employees were greatest treasure of all!
      Glomgold: Don't be ridiculous! Treasure is the greatest treasure of all, that's why it's called "treasure"!
    • In "Woo-oo!", Scrooge had no idea what modern children play with, so he gave them a bag of marbles. In "The Shadow Wars!", Magica, pretending to be Lena, tells Scrooge she's come over to "what do children do these days, play marbles?"
  • Broken Pedestal:
  • Brought to You by the Letter "S": The Beagle Boys eschew the traditional prison numbers on their chests for big black "B"'s.
  • Building of Adventure: The Money Bin is now Bigger on the Inside, boasting 57 Floors, located on an island on the eastern coast of Duckburg, connected by a land-bridge. It has a huge vaulted space for Scrooge's pit of Pooled Funds, in addition there's the underground Mad Scientist Laboratory where Gyro Gearloose tinkers, and there's Scrooge McDuck's archives run by the formidable Miss Quackfaster which is also incredibly huge and elaborate. There's also a large sorting area where machines sort out nickels and dimes from the Soda dispensers in the building. Indeed Scrooge's accountants Lampshade how the building is impractical, noting that Scrooge's real corporate headquarters is in Duckburg's financial district and the Money Bin is more or less an artifact that serves little business purpose, and exists more as Scrooge's private playground where he plots adventures.
  • Butt-Monkey:
    • Zigzagged with Donald Duck, as his portrayal is a mix of his more adventurous qualities from the comics and his traditional bad luck from the cartoons.
    • Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera also serves as one, even when he is Gizmo-Duck although not as much.
    • Flintheart Glomgold serves as this on the villainous side. While he still has nefarious plans for Scrooge that are supposed to be taken seriously, his klutzy jokester demeanor makes him quite Laughably Evil.

    C-F 
  • Calling Parents by Their Name: The nephews address Scrooge by his name instead of calling him "Uncle Scrooge", which is pretty jarring since they always address him as "Uncle" in the comics and other media.
    • The triplets do this to Della too on occasion after she comes back, but that's understandable considering they haven't known her the entirety of their lives.
  • Canon Character All Along:
    • The intro shows the main cast being chased by a mysterious demonic creature. When this creature debuts in the episode McMystery At McDuck Manor!, it is reaveled it is Duckworth, Scrooge's loyal butler from the original series who here appears as a ghost.
    • In the first season's finale it is revealed that Lena is Magica's shadow brought to life. As Magica's Shadow was already brought to life by Magica in one episode of the original show, Lena can be counted as the same character, just much more developed and relevant to the plot.
    • Second season introduces Jim Starling - the actor who plays Darkwing Duck - as well as his replacement. By the end of "The Duck Knight Returns", the replacement actor is revealed to be Drake Mallard and becomes Darkwing for real, and Jim becomes Negaduck.
    • The Buzzards, Scrooge's financial advisors. The ending of "Moonvasion!" reveals them to be the F.O.W.L.'s shadowy board.
      • The same episode also introduces different members of F.O.W.L., including the Phantom Blot. He is shown having previously worn the costume of the Funzo's Funzone mascot, implying the nameless mascot previously shown in the show was this canon villain all along.
    • The series finale has two major examples:
      • While Webby originally was a Canon Foreigner in the original series the series finale reveals that not only she is a clone of Scrooge but that she was given the name April by her creators at F.O.W.L. The same episode also introduces Webby's own clones, May and June, making Webby part of the trio April, May and June which were created by Carl Barks himself as Daisy's nieces in the comics.
      • The finale also reveals that Manny The Man-Horse is the show's version of Goliath of Gargoyles.
  • Canon Foreigner:
    • Mark Beaks represents today's idea of a billionaire: the tech industry magnate.
      • As well as Falcon Graves, a professional mercenary and tech thief.
    • Glomgold's band of mercenaries: Gabby McStabberson, Hack & Slash Smashnikov.
    • The B.U.D.D.Y system, created by Beaks. Turns out it was one of Gyro's Lil' Bulb robots.
    • Zan Owlson, who briefly becomes acting head of Glomgold Industries and later Glomgold's and Louie's advisor. She represents the concept of a younger, more on-the-ball businesswoman trying to temper the more out-of-touch and devil-may-care attitudes of the older billionaires, and when that fails, decides to Start My Own multi-billion dollar corporation.
    • All of the Moonlanders; while the original Ducktales universe was no stranger to aliens, they were usually relegated to one-offs or Monsters of the Week. The Moonlanders are major supporting characters, the second major Arc Villain, and become semi-regular parts of the main cast following their collective Heel–Face Turn.
  • Canon Immigrant: A song. The "Moon" song was for decades exclusive to a Nintendo Entertainment System game created by a third party to Disney; DT 2017 not only brings that song into the show proper, it is basically the theme song for Della Duck and the leitmotif for her and her boys. An epic orchestral remix serves as the backing theme for the climactic space battle in the Season 2 finale.
  • Canon Welding: In the pilot alone, there are mentions of Cape Suzette, Spoonerville, and Saint Canard, confirming the Canon Welding of the old continuities in The Legend of the Chaos God carried over into the new timeline.
  • The Caper: Season 3 episode Louie's Eleven sees the gang trying to break into a high-class dinner party so the 3 Cabelleros can play.
  • Cartoony Eyes: Traditionally, Donald and the other ducks have blue sclera in animation. Here, the whites of their eyes are actually white (a brighter shade of white than their body feathers), showing a clear influence from the comics.
  • Casting Gag:
    • The kelpies the group meets take the form of talking horses, voiced by Tara Strong and Andrea Libman. Two voice actresses who are pretty familiar with talking equines. Tara voicing Briar, who's pink, is another instance where she voices a pink, pony like character.
    • Scrooge's worst enemy, Magica de Spell, is voiced by Catherine Tate, real-life best friend of David Tennant and his costar on Doctor Who.
    • The episode "From the Confidential Casefiles of Agent 22" is a send-up to Adventures of the Gummi Bears, with a villain played by April Winchell. Her father, Paul Winchell, voiced Zummi, the leader of the Gummi Bears.
    • Hugh Bonneville starred in not one, but two films alongside a friendly talking bear. In this show, he voices a friendly talking bear himself- Santa Claus.
    • Young Donald was originally voiced by the late Russi Taylor, alluding to how she was the long-standing voice of his nephews (and Webby) in the original DuckTales and various media from 1987 to 2019. It remains to be seen if Taylor's Other Darrin as young Donald, Cristina Vee, will voice the nephews in other media.
    • Riki Lindhome voices May, who is a clone of Webby (voiced by her Garfunkel and Oates partner-in-crime Kate Micucci)
  • Central Theme:
    • The importance of family. The heroes' lives only improve after they gain a family, whether it be a long lost relative or a Family of Choice. The series also shows the lengths one will go to keep them. By contrast, the antagonists of the series have no one to call family, exploit their familial relationships, or actively try to sabotage what someone else has.
    • The adventure of life. Whether it's Because Destiny Says So, you're a Thrill Seeker, or you tried a Refusal of the Call, you can't not take risks in the world.
  • Character Catchphrase:
    • Each triplet has their own catchphrase.
      • Huey is always quoting random Jr Woodchuck rules that are appropriate to the scenario.
      • Dewey tries to make puns based on his names all the time (most often "Let's Dewey this" or something similar).
      • Louie will often add "Trademark Louie Duck" to the end of various ingenious schemes.
      • Parodied with their old catch phrase "Quackarooni" which is never said except when they are teleported to another dimension. Once they get back, they have no idea why they said it and wonder what it means.
    • Donald shares most of his common catch phrases like "palooka" and "what's the big idea" with his sister Della.
    • Scrooge has "Curse me kilts!" Parodied with "Bless me bagpipes" which he never says, although anybody impersonating him will act like he does.
    • Launchpad has "Let's get dangerous," as does Drake Mallard and Gosalyn.
  • Cheated Angle: Applied to an object rather than a person: before the season 1 finale, we only ever see the tails side of the Number One Dimenote . This is to conceal the fact that the heads side has Magica De Spell on it, who's trapped in the Dime. Especially egregious in the intro sequence where the Dime is spinning, so it appears to have two tails sides!
  • Chekhov's Gag: The second episode, Beakley casually mentions to Donald that she's a spy, followed by awkward laughter by both. Many episodes later, she is revealed to be a retired S.H.U.S.H. agent.
  • Chekhov's Gun:
    • In "Woo-oo!" Medusa Gauntlet mentioned early on by Webby is later used to render a gold-hungry dragon Taken for Granite.
    • In "The Golden Lagoon of White Agony Plains", the amulet Goldie shows off to Scrooge in the opening scene ends up playing a pivotal role in the climax.
    • A statue of Scrooge inside his garage - three times, no less.
      • First, Scrooge uses the head of the statue to defeat Captain Peghook, after he declares he will only be satisfied with the head of Scrooge McDuck.
      • Then, the head falls onto the Headless Manhorse, which is so grateful to finally have a head that it abandons its quest for vengeance on Scrooge.
      • Then, twenty whole episodes later, Dewey and Webby use the decapitated statue as part of a riddle, which tells them to "look through the eyes" of Scrooge.
  • Chekhov's Gunman: Boyd is introduced in "Day of the Only Child!" and appears to be used for a Paper-Thin Disguise joke as Mark Beaks' Robot Kid lookalike to try and con Doofus, but he ends up being instrumental in defeating Doofus and overturning his villainous status quo at the end of the episode. A much, MUCH more dramatic example is Boyd's true past, revealed a season later; he was the prime creation of a younger Gyro Gearloose (him being an African Parrot like Mark Beaks was just a coincidence), who Gyro's mentor reprogrammed to be evil. This led to Gyro becoming an outlaw in Tokyolk and his descent into a cynical, Jerk with a Heart of Gold Mad Scientist, and Boyd being memory-wiped before being found by Beaks in "Day of the Only Child!". "Astro B.O.Y.D.!"in Season 3 not only explains all this, but gives him an emotional and cathartic resolution to his character arc, that ALSO makes a lot of headway on turning Gyro into a Defrosting Ice Queen.
  • Chekhov's Skill: Scrooge uses his gold swimming skills to ambush Flintheart. Louie expressing in an interest in this skill also returns during "The Shadow War".
  • Chromatic Arrangement: The color scheme is carried over from the comics. The personality traits associated with the colors are shifted around between Huey (red) and Dewey (blue), as Huey is the smart and uptight one and Dewey is the bold and adventurous one. Louie fits his color stereotype to a T with his lazy, laid-back and cunning attitude, though. Webby is similarly called "the pink one", although her usual outfit is more purple.
  • Christmas Episode: Each season of the series has one.
    • Season 1 has "The Impossible Summit of Mt. Neverrest!" which is set around christmas time and has a winter theme.
    • Season 2 has "Last Christmas!" which also features some elements of A Christmas Carol.
    • Season 3 has "How Santa Stole Christmas!" which also includes Santa Claus himself.
  • Clock of Power:
    • In the "Meet Scrooge!" short, Louie plays with a clock that turns out to be a time machine, sending Scrooge through multiple time periods before Louie sets it back to noon.
    • In "The 87 Cent Solution!", Glomgold reveals himself to be the one behind Scrooge's seeming descent into madness, as he picked up a discarded Gearloose Labs invention shaped like a fob watch that could freeze and unfreeze time when clicking the top button. Glomgold used his "Time Teaser" to secretly annoy Scrooge and make him look insane with a fictional illness called Gold Fever.
    • Gyro Gearloose's Time Tub features a few different clocks on it, though it's unclear if they themselves power the time travel or not.
  • Cliffhanger: Several episodes end on one, in accordance with the story arc of the season.
    • At the end of "The Great Dome Chase!", Gyro is shown experimenting on "Project Blatherskite", foreshadowing Gizmoduck's Gizmosuit.
    • "The Beagle Birthday Massacre!" ends with Lena magically summoning the shadow of Magica De Spell and telling her, "I'm in."
    • The biggest cliffhanger ever is in the season 1 finale, "The Shadow Wars Part II: The Night of De Spell!", where it is revealed that Della is still alive, and repairing her rocket on the Moon.
    • "The Outlaw Scrooge McDuck!" wraps up with Louie making a phone call to one Goldie O'Gilt.
    • "The Golden Spear!" ends with Della at the gates of McDuck Manor, but Donald blasting off in her rocket, crashing on the Moon.
    • "The Duck Knight Returns!" when Jim Starling is revealed to be Not Quite Dead and becomes this universe's version of Negaduck, vowing revenge.
  • Cloneopoly: The episode "The Most Dangerous Game...Night!" features "Scrooge-oploy", a Scrooge's own version of Monopoly where he made the rules to benefit him.
  • Color-Coded Characters: The triplets still have their Chromatic Arrangement that was established in the comics; Huey wears red, Dewey wears blue and Louie wears green. Webby was pink in the 1980's cartoon, and is now a darker pink, while Lena is purple.
  • Company Cross References: In the episode "The Dangerous Chemistry of Gandra Dee", Gizmoduck fights a Mad Scientist named Dr. Atmoz Fear who looks and sounds a lot like Dr. Doofenschmirtz from one of Disney's other shows, Phineas and Ferb.
  • Composite Character: Mrs. Beakley's characterization as a stoic butler who tags along with Scrooge in some adventures has much more in common with Duckworth, Scrooge's predominant butler from the original series. That being said, Duckworth himself does show up despite being dead.
    • Ludwig von Drake is shown to be the director of S.H.U.S.H. in the reboot, a role usually played by J. Gander Hooter in the original Darkwing Duck series.
    • John D. Rockerduck in the show is depicted to be a rival of Scrooge from his old gold rush days who got rich by being a robber baron. In most comics Rockerduck is portrayed as a much younger rival of Scrooge who inherited his wealth. The background the show gives to Rockerduck matches better with how Don Rosa portrayes John's father, Howard Rockerduck, in his Scrooge biography. However, while Howard is an ally of Scrooge in this book the show still portrays John as an amoral antagonist more in line with his comic book self.
      • At the same time, some of Rockerduck's typical comic book traits, like being a younger rival who loves luxury and doesn't care to cheat to beat Scrooge, are given to Canon Foreigner Mark Beaks.
  • Confusion Fu: Don Karnage and his crew were able to successfully steal from Scrooge and his team because their musical number left them too stunned to do anything.
  • Continuity Reboot: The show, unlike the original series, explicitly takes place in an entirely new continuity that draws various elements from the comics and cartoons.
  • Culturally Sensitive Adaptation: The original show has some issues when it came to portraying foreign cultures, one such example being Dijon, a greedy stereotype of an Arab person. The reboot reimagines him as D'jinn, a poetic swordsman and total badass. However, he maintains a connection to the film, as it turns out that the genie's lamp in question once housed his ancestor. His genie ancestor was freed, would find love and start a family. He wants the lamp because it's a family heirloom.
  • Daddy Had a Good Reason for Abandoning You: Deconstructed with Della. Della impulsively stole a rocket ship Scrooge had built for her and wound up crash landing on the moon, where she spent ten years stranded and trying to get home. The triplets (especially Dewey) grow up idolizing their Missing Mom and devote a great deal of time to finding out what happened to her. When they hear the story from Scrooge, they're quick to blame him and ignore Della's own involvement. When Della gets back, they range from ecstatic (Dewey) to nervous but accepting (Louie). Della struggles to adjust to being a mother, but she gets right to work bonding with her children. However, Beakley and Scrooge, as happy as they are to have her back, blame her for the childish behavior that got her lost in the first place and that she still hasn't grown out of. When she tries to put her foot down and discipline Louie, he's quick to throw the whole thing in her face, and the rest of the family implictly agrees. As much as she's been missed, as excited as everyone is to have her home, even though the length of her absence was no fault of her own, her decade-long absence hurt those around her, and no explanation is going to be good enough to wipe away those hurt feelings.
  • Darker and Edgier: There are quite a few elements that make this show darker than its predecessor:
    • The show averts Never Say "Die"; mortal danger is mentioned on-screen multiple times, along with words like "kill" and "die." Donald's worries about the danger his nephews are in is thus played completely straight. And it's all but blatantly stated in the series finale that Bradford Buzzard is responsible for Duckworth's death.
      • The Beagle Boys, while still mostly Ineffectual Sympathetic Villains, have expressed zero qualms about killing children for revenge. In "Daytrip of Doom!", Webby bluntly states to the triplets that the Beagle Boys would gladly threaten to toss one of them down a cliff in order to send Scrooge a message.
      • "Terror of the Terra-firmians!" has the characters be placed in very real dangers, from being buried alive in a structural collapse, to getting thrown about in a train crash. This is in direct contrast to the usual cartoony perils expected from this kind of show.
    • The portrayal of the McDuck-Duck Family is this compared to most previous incarnations. The show has a semi-serialized narrative, with Myth Arcs focusing on deconstructing the Dysfunctional Family relationships between the main characters, which were usually used for humorous gags in the past.
    • Magica's abusive treatment of Lena is depicted in a very straightforward manner, as is Lena's own inner turmoil about betraying her friends. It gets even darker during Lena's nightmare in "The Other Bin of Scrooge McDuck!", where Magica transforms Webby into a doll and uses her to attack Lena, which results in Lena accidentally killing her best friend, resulting in a horrified Big "NO!" before Lena wakes up and realizes it was All Just a Dream.
      • Lena's arc comes to a head during "The Shadow War!", where she is apparently killed by Magica, prompting another Big "NO!", this time from a tearful Webby. Even though the ending hints that Lena's spirit lingers on, it's still shockingly dark for a DuckTales cartoon.
    • It is heavily implied that Della Duck cut off her own leg to escape from the wreck of the Spear of Selene. Even though it happens off-screen, it's a really brutal implication.
    • Even the comedy is a bit darker in this show than in the original, with a lot more Black Comedy, ranging from Flintheart's hilariously complicated murder plans to Webby's enthusiasm about dying an exotic death.
  • Darkest Hour: Has happened during each Season Finale.:
    • Season 1: The truth about the Spear of Selene has driven a wedge between Scrooge and the rest of his family. The situation escalates until ultimately Scrooge is left alone in his mansion to brood and despair, while his disillusioned family part ways with him and go back to their normal, boring lives. Oh, and Magica is prepared to strike at the now-defenseless Scrooge.
    • Season 2: Scrooge's Big Badass Battle Sequence moment against the Lunarians turns out to have all been part of Lunaris's plan, and all but he, Beakley, Launchpad, and Duckworth were captured. Lunaris is putting his endgame into motion, and Scrooge has absolutely no idea how to counter it. Meanwhile, Della is overcome with fear for her children's safety and abandons the battle, taking her kids (who want to help) off to hide, eventually stranding them on a desert island - which triggers some unpleasant PTSD from her time on the Moon.
    • Season 3: Bradford has revealed how he's been the architect of decades of Scrooge's suffering. Nearly every single character from the show, hero or villain, has been captured by F.O.W.L. despite their best efforts. Bradford forces Scrooge to sign a Magically-Binding Contract that he'll never adventure again in order to protect his family. And then Bradford throws Donald Duck into the Solego Vortex to kill him anyways.
  • Dating Catwoman: Scrooge and Goldie O'Gilt. Whenever he was after a legitimate score, she was always right behind him to steal it from him.
  • Death by Adaptation: In this series, Duckworth only appears as a ghost, having passed away long before the series begins. In the original series, he was alive and well throughout the entire run.
  • Decomposite Character:
    • Armstrong the robot from the original series is shown to have existed in this show's continuity, as he is brought up a few times as a Mythology Gag: his head is seen in the pilot and he's listed among Gyro's inventions that have ended up turning evil. However, B.U.D.D.Y. in the series ends up taking Armstrong's role as a robot that Launchpad is pitted against.
    • In a more subtle way, the triplets take on aspects of Donald Duck now that they are made into individuals rather than merely the Single-Minded Triplets that they were in the comics. The Donald of the show has a lot of aspects of his comics and cartoons personality but is also retired and jaded about his past, unlike the comics Donald who still believed and persisted that he was one scheme away from solving his fiduciary woes. These aspects are now retained by Louie Duck who also has the schmoozing back-and-forth dynamic with Uncle Scrooge, i.e. trying to see if he gets to have the biggest bit of inheritance, planning for crazy schemes and so on which is something Donald often showed in comics. Dewey Duck also has Donald's sentimental family side which is highlighted in Last Christmas! where he hugs a past version of his mother in a scene similar to Donald hugging Hortense in "The Dream of a Lifetime" while Huey Duck is generally the triplets' base character blended into a single personality albeit he does have and shows Donald's famous temper and fussy nature when things don't go his way.
    • Similarly, this applies to Darkwing Duck himself. While Drake Mallard still exists, the majority of his negative traits (i.e. his egotism, selfishness, and lack of concern for others but himself) are transferred into his predecessor in the role, Jim Starling (aka the series version of Negaduck). Drake himself is actually a Nice Guy with a good sense of right and wrong (though he still hates Gizmoduck).
  • Deconstructed Trope:
    • Nephewism is tossed around here. Della is an actual person here, but she's been missing after a joyride left her stuck on the moon. As such, Donald has had to put up with being a single caretaker to her kids, and when she does come back it has major ramifications that shatter the status quo.
    • Scrooge's iconic tendency to swim through money is still present, but Scrooge notes to Louie that it's not as easy as just diving in; he worked and trained years to gain the dexterity and strength needed to push coins around like water, whereas for an upstart like Louie he'd break his skull due to diving into a pile of coins headfirst.
  • Defictionalization: In-universe. After the Darkwing Duck reboot movie is cancelled, Launchpad suggests to Drake Mallard, the actor who would have played Darkwing in the movie, to become a superhero for real.
  • Denser and Wackier: Compared to the original series, this show features more exaggerated animation, a faster pace, and a lot of slapstick, although it's balanced with a more frosty dynamic between Scrooge and Donald, Never Say "Die" being completely averted, and the fact that the series deals with the Triplets' Missing Mom.
  • Designated Girl Fight: Wouldn't Hit a Girl is not entirely played straight in the show, but female villains often end up this way. In episode 24, when the gang finally faces off against Magica Despell, the only ones who physically attack the villainess are Webby and Lena. The boys serve as distraction, and Scrooge disarms her using his cane and an absolute minimum of violence.
  • Didn't Think This Through: Scrooge uses a Promethean candle for Donald's birthday, one that is designed to never go out. His reasoning is that buying a new candle each year would cost too much money. The problem? On a birthday, someone is supposed to blow out the candles. Also, the Promethean candle appears to be sentient.
  • Diligent Hero, Slothful Villain: Mark Beaks is the Slothful Villain to both Scrooge and Gyro.
    • Like Scrooge, Beaks is a wealthy and successful businessman, however unlike Scrooge who gained his wealth through through his blood, sweat, and tears and loathes any type of cheating, Beaks became rich through plagiarism and selling defective products.
    • Gyro and Beaks are both inventors, however while Gyro is a hardworking if socially inept scientist who focuses on making products that work with little care for aesthetics, Beaks is a Brilliant, but Lazy, smooth-talking Con Man who either steals others' inventions or creates half-assed products that look impressive.
  • Dismemberment Is Cheap: Della sure seems no worse for wear after losing her leg.
  • Divergent Character Evolution:
    • The creators decided that since Huey, Dewey, and Louie's names are always given in that order, that it's the birth order for the triplets. They now wear different clothes instead of merely different colored T-shirts and matching caps, have different plumages and have three different voice actors, much like they did in Quack Pack, and have distinct personalities:
      • Huey is the only Junior Woodchuck and likes solving mysteries and planning things out. He wears a red polo shirt and a red cap.
      • Dewey is excitable, rash, and desperate for adventure. He wears a blue T-shirt over a long-sleeved shirt.
      • Louie is laidback, sneaky, greedy, and openly admits to being "the evil triplet." He wears a green baggy hoodie.
    • Flintheart Glomgold's appearance is much more heavyset to give him a much more distinct look from Scrooge, who he's got a lot in common with.
    • Mrs. Beakley is Scrooge's housekeeper who's been with him for a number of years. In the original, she was hired to be the triplets' nanny in addition to being the housekeeper.
    • Now that Donald is a cast regular as opposed to the 1987 series, the original characters created in the first series (Launchpad, Fenton) who originally served as his decomposites and surrogates have been altered to set them apart. Fenton Crackshell for instance is now a younger Latino duck and an assistant of Gyro Gearloose where he was originally an accountant and Ditzy Genius without any scientific chops. Launchpad is mostly unaltered but he's emphasized more often as a comic relief character than the first series.
  • Dogfaces: They show up as per usual. However, unlike in most earlier works, some of the dogfaces have tails.
  • Does Not Compute: Launchpad after Mrs. Beakly suggests he drive something without crashing it.
  • Does Not Know His Own Strength: In "The Dangerous Chemistry of Gandra Dee," Beaks drinks a lot of nanite serum because he is impatient. It makes him much bigger and stronger, turning him into "Mega Beaks". Fenton gives Beaks his phone for a distraction, with the pretense of showing Beaks his newfound online popularity. However, when Beaks tries to use the phone, he ends up breaking it.
  • Does Not Like Magic: The show actually features a heroic and a villan example:
    • Scrooge is shown to not like magic as he sees magic as a way of cheating. Also, he has faced a lot of supernatural dangers such as Magica DeSpell that it seems reasonable for him to dislike magic.
    • The Phantom Blot is changed from Diabolical Mastermind to a man destroying all magic due to losing his village thanks to evil sorceress Magica DeSpell giving him an actual reason for his hatred against magic.
  • Does This Remind You of Anything?: Launchpad's main aircraft, the Sun Chaser, strongly resembles a Grumman Goose. This is almost definitely a deliberate reference, if not an outright Visual Pun.
  • Double Take: A lot of mileage is gained from the "Wait, what?" version of this trope.Lampshaded by Louie in the second season.
  • Downer Ending: In "The Last Crash of the Sunchaser", Dewey demands that Scrooge tell him and his brothers about the Spear of Selene and what happened to their mother before he gets back onto the plane. Scrooge tells them that Della desperately wanted to explore outer space, but Donald was strongly opposed to it. Nevertheless, Scrooge secretly builds the Spear of Selene rocket without telling Donald, and Della takes it for a joy ride into space (without Scrooge's knowledge), and encounters a cosmic storm, causing Della and the Spear to vanish. Upon hearing this, Huey, Dewey and Louie immediately blame Scrooge for their mother's disappearance and for "encouraging her" to go forward with the mission, and irrationally accuse him of being too stingy to search for her. A flashback clearly shows how Scrooge builds and sends more ships into space to search for Della at great financial expense, until he is essentially forced to stop. No one believes him, the tension of the situation escalates, and the ending sees Donald, Huey, Dewey, Louie, Bentina Beakly, Webby, and even Duckworth's ghost leaving McDuck Manor, leaving Scrooge all alone in the manor, bitterly brooding.
  • Do Wrong, Right: Huey, Dewey, and Louie are shooting at each other with toy guns, and Scrooge grabs Dewey and admonishes him not for playing so destructively, but for yelling while firing at Huey because that means he's lost the element of surprise. At the end of the second episode, Donald decides that letting the triplets hang out with Scrooge is okay because he feels they will always get into trouble and mischief but Scrooge will be able to show them how to get out of it and be better prepared.
  • Driving Question: The major one in the first season: what happened to Della Duck, the triplets' mother? She's been gone since before the triplets were even born. Whatever it was, it causes Scrooge and Donald to have a falling out, and directly leads to Scrooge hanging up his spats and retiring from adventuring. The only clue is a note from Della apologizing to Scrooge for "taking the Spear of Selene", but as of the episode of the same title, we don't actually know what the "Spear of Selene even is, since Selene (the Greek goddess) herself mentions she has never had a spear. It's further complicated by the fact that Scrooge has had all information about the event obliterated, rendering any details nearly-impossible to uncover.
    • Answer: The Spear of Selene was a spaceship that Della designed, and Scrooge had secretly built to take his family into space once Della's then-soon-to-be-born triplets were old enough. Della stumbled upon the Spear early and, being her brash and impulsive self, took it for a joyride without permission, wanting "one more adventure before motherhood"; when Scrooge tried to intervene and order her back, Della foolishly refused, and ended up flying into a cosmic storm that cut off communications and damaged the ship, sending it crashing into the Moon. Scrooge tried desperately (and unsuccessfully) to track her down, driving himself nearly to bankruptcy before his Board of Directors forced him to stop. Donald blamed Scrooge solely for the tragedy, and cut ties with him. Scrooge became a bitter, jaded old man who gave up adventuring, at least until the nephews came into his life. Finally, The Stinger of the Season 1 finale established that she actually survived the crash landing, and was still alive (though stranded) on the moon.
  • Early-Bird Cameo: In the title sequence, there's a horned spirit/demon chasing the kids. Who is it? It's actually the ghost of Duckworth, Scrooge's butler. He can change into a demon to scare people if he wants to.
  • Easily Forgiven: Webby is scared to death of how her overprotective grandmother will react when she finds out Webby went on an adventure and lied about being at a friend's house. Mrs. Beakley's annoyed by the lying, but shrugs off the adventure as perfectly safe with Scrooge supervising.
  • 11th-Hour Ranger:
    • Don Karnage joins FOWL in the series’s final episodes, but it’s partially to buy his way out of them coming for his head after failing a commission from them.
    • Kit Cloudkicker and Molly Cunningham are the last introduced allies to Scrooge’s family prior to the Grand Finale, and are seen among the mass gathering of the family at Bradford’s defeat despite the brevity of their presence on the show.
  • The Ending Changes Everything: The series finale contains a twist that gives an entirely new meaning to Webby's personality and her relationships with Scrooge, Beakley, and the triplets.
  • Enemy Mine:
    • Despite Scrooge and Donald not having the best relationship, they both agree on one thing — they both hate their fellow relative Gladstone Gander, who gets everything he wants without doing anything to earn it.
      • "The Depth Of Cousin Fethry!" also reveals that the same applies to said other relative.
    • Likewise, Scrooge and Glomgold both dislike Mark Beaks. This turns into a deconstruction, as Scrooge eventually realizes that just because he doesn't like Beaks doesn't mean he can get along with Glomgold or tolerate his villainy.
  • Epic Fail:
    • In a promotional short, Donald Duck grapples with a Promethean candle that will never go out. Donald's attempt to extinguish it just makes everything so much worse and ruins his birthday.
    • At the end of "Woo-oo!", Donald has somehow managed to staple himself to a wall with a hand-sized stapler.
    • In "Nightmare at Killmotor Hill", Dewey attempts to slam dunk a basketball into a dream monster. The ball bounces back up and hits Dewey in the face, knocking him out.
  • Establishing Character Moment: The shorts give a good idea on what the characters are like in about 30 seconds:
    • Huey's shows how crafty he is, seemingly setting up a tent, only to capture a Sasquatch.
    • Louie's shows that his first instinct is to touch anything shiny or fancy, which immediately gets him (or others) into trouble.
    • Launchpad is shown cheerfully writing an apology letter for denting someone's car, and tells them Scrooge will pay for the damages... And after he's done with that, it pans out to show a plane he crashed, with Launchpad starting up yet another letter at a much more heavily damaged car.
    • Mrs. Beakley is shown vacuuming the house, as Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Webby are running from a ghost. When it comes time for her to deal with the ghost, she casually switches the vacuum to a feature that sucks up ghosts, and goes back to work without saying a word.
    • Donald's shows him desperately trying to relax before being dragged on a series of adventures, and his birthday presents being destroyed by Scrooge's Promethean Candle.
    • Scrooge's is cheerfully explaining that he used a Promethean Candle on Donald's cake as buying a new candle for every birthday is an unthinkable waste of money.
  • Even the Dog Is Ashamed:
    • Literally. Even Duckworth's ghost walks out on Scrooge after the reveal of what happened to Della.
    • In "The 87 Cent Solution", even Manny the Headless Man-Horse becomes convinced that Huey is right about Scrooge having gold fever and puts on a sickness mask.
  • Everyone Has Standards:
    • Scrooge is The Scrooge, an incredible miser for sure, but even he believes his accountants are skin-flint jerks because they believe a few expenses he's done for the sake of feeling good (such as getting a costly cushion for his #1 Dime) are completely superfluous and have no problem sneering at him over them.
    • Louie is willing to lie and schmooze his way through just about anything, but is heartbroken when he learns Dewey didn't tell them about his research into their mother.
    Louie: You kept a secret about Mom. That is not okay.
  • Everything's Louder with Bagpipes: In This Duckburg Life episode 5, while in jail, Flintheart Glomgold plays a bagpipe to his fellow inmates because it annoys them.
  • Evil Counterpart: Glomgold is this to Scrooge, of course. It's even explicitly stated.
    Scrooge: That's Flintheart Glomgold. The poor man's version of me. Which, to be fair, still makes him insanely rich.
  • Evil Gloating: In "The 87-Cent Solution", a fake funeral service is staged for Scrooge. Flintheart Glomgold shows up and tries to dance on Scrooge's casket. After announcing that Scrooge died of "gold fever", Huey mentions that only a master genius would be capable of pulling off such an elaborate and complex scheme. When Huey concludes by saying that Scrooge died of "gold fever", Glomgold stands up and tells the audience how he used a "time teaser" stopwatch to magically stop time, infiltrating Scrooge's vault and taking advantage of Scrooge's tight-fistedness by pilfering 87 cents to drive Scrooge to madness. He even types up the paper listing the symptoms of "gold fever" which he created and plants it in Huey's Junior Woodchuck Guide, only for Scrooge to reveal that he was only faking his death as part of a scheme to prompt Glomgold into boasting of his fraudulent methods to win the bet, with Scrooge revealing that Flintheart just lost the bet, making Scrooge the richest duck in the world once again.
  • Evil Twin: The nephews are in agreement that Louie is the "evil triplet". He certainly seems the most adept at lying, at one point telling Webby it's the "responsible thing to do".
  • Evil vs. Evil:
    • Pretty much every villain in the series either already hates or comes to hate Glomgold for being an obnoxious dumbass.
    • Played more seriously with FOWL, as it’s revealed in the Grand Finale they’ve been rounding up every character in the series to be executed via the Solego Vortex, Scrooge’s main enemies among them. After Glomgold, Magica, and the Beagle family are freed from FOWL, Magica deals Bradford his final defeat, with the villains disgusted at Bradford’s actions and hypocrisy.
  • Evolving Credits:
    • Season 2 features a few cosmetic changes to the opening, with Gizmoduck and Magica De Spell being added in after becoming proper characters in universe.
    • Season 3 also adds Della Duck, after her return from the Moon.
  • Exact Words: When the ghost pirate sees Scrooge, he says that he'll only go away when he gets "the head of Scrooge McDuck". Scrooge gives him the head of a statue of himself, and the ghost vanishes while lampshading that he should've been more specific.
  • Excuse Plot: "360° Adventure: The Lost Key of Tralla La": The gang escapes a crumbling temple, run from Flintheart Glomgold and it ends with Scrooge diving in his money bin.
  • Explain, Explain... Oh, Crap!: In the first part of "Woo-oo!", Scrooge is admonishing his nephews and Webby for sneaking into the garage. To make a point, he accidentally hits a cursed gong; the other four look on in shock, and Scrooge has this to say:
    Scrooge: Oh, what are you gaping at? The curse is only activated if you ring the gong three times, and, and... and you already hit it two times, didn't ya?
  • Exposition Already Covered: In "The Missing Links of Moorshire!", when Scrooge and his family, along with Glomgold, are transported to a mystical golf course, they meet two kelpies, Briar and Bramble. When Bramble asks them if they wonder where they are, they already figured out where they are and the purpose of the golf course by observing their surrounding, which annoys the kelpies.
    Bramble: Bet you're all wondering what this place is?
    Louie: It's a mystical golf course, right?
    Huey: Did ancient Scottish Druids build a secret course so they could keep playing golf, even after Black Donald got it banned?
    Briar: (annoyed) Uh, yep. That's all correct.
  • Failsafe Failure: Atlantis's booby traps are less effective than they should be because the city flipped upside down when it sank, so the floor traps are now on the ceiling... far above anyone's heads.
  • Fangirl: Webby practically Squees when she meets Huey, Dewey, and Louie simply because they're Donald Duck's nephews and she is a huge fan of their adventurous family.
  • Fantasy Counterpart Culture: Duckburg is located in the fictional state of Calisota, much like how Carl Barks imagined it. Calisota is a melange of California and Minnesota, there is also a real-life area in Northern California called "Calistoga" (though it's unlikely Barks cited it as an influence). Duckburg seems like an east coast city (since we see the Money Bin located on an island connected to the main city by a bridge and the bay where Donald's houseboat is also on the East side of the city) and it has a misty gray-looking ambience rather than sunny California. On the other hand given that Saint Canard is located on the other side of the Bay, this could mean that the Audubon Bay and Duckburg in general is based on the San Francisco Bay Area (with St. Canard standing in for Oakland), and Frisco is much colder, grayer, and foggier than the overexposed Southern California.
  • Fantasy Kitchen Sink: An Evil Sorceress, a Ghost Pirate, a ghost horse, a gold-eating Eastern dragon, an ancient Chinese luck-eating spirit with Reality Warper powers, underground beings that cause earthquakes, robots that gain sentience, Atlantis, Sea Monsters, living mummies, a Bedsheet Ghost, a sasquatch, a Time Machine, an Eldritch Location, Greek gods, sirens, kelpies, druids, prophecies and numerous magical artifacts all coexist in this world.
  • File Photo Gag: "The Ballad of Duke Baloney" shows a news report about Glomgold's disappearance with a photo of him stuffing his mouth with shrimp during a charity auction.
  • Five Stages of Grief: With regards to Della's disappearance, the triplets experience it:
    • Denial: Dewey is hoping against all odds that his mother is still alive, and nothing really horrible happened to her, or at least caused her disappearance. His other brothers eventually join in, and hold the same sentiment, at the ignorance of their own well-being.
    • Anger: Scrooge reveals what happened to Della, that she took the Spear of Selene and flew out into space, only to get lost. The boys end up hating Scrooge and blame him for causing their mother's disappearance.
    • Bargaining: The boys try to carry on with life back in the Marina. Donald tells the boys they are moving to Cape Suzette, and the boys jump at it to escape from this tragedy.
    • Depression: The boys undergo a state of profound unhappiness since their move back to the Marina, to Donald's deep concern and guilt.
    • Acceptance: With prodding from Beakley and Donald, the boys finally understand why Scrooge didn't tell them the truth and apologize, and accept that their mother is gone. Though, Dewey doesn't fully move on until "Last Christmas!".
  • Flat-Earth Atheist:
    • Huey is a subdued one. While he's perfectly willing to believe in the supernatural, if there's a scientific explanation, he will cling to that instead, even if evidence begins to point towards the supernatural. More specifically, he doesn't really believe anything unless it's in his Junior Woodchuck guidebook. If he discovers something new, he'll add it to the book.
    • Averted with the Buzzards when they bring up Scrooge's magical defense spending. You'd expect them to not believe in magic, and write off the entire expenditure. In fact, they're just concerned with how much Scrooge is spending on it, indicating they do believe that magic exists and that some defenses are worthwhile.
  • Financial Abuse: Inverted by Doofus Drake who, as sole heir to his beloved grandmother's fortune, uses his control over their finances to treat his parents as servants. It's not until they're given access to a portion of the money via Boyd adopting himself into the family and taking half of it under the Insane Troll Logic that "she was my grandma too and would have wanted us to share it" that they're able to put their foot down and actually provide some discipline.
  • Foil:
    • A minor one, but concerning a very important character (see Walking Spoiler below): In Scrooge's painting, Della is wearing an aviator's outfit, contrasting with Donald's sailor uniform. Her jacket also has four yellow buttons on the front, just like Donald's shirt. Arguably doubles as a Mythology Gag for Don Rosa's Life and Times: in Chapter 11, Della and Donald, as kids, wear matching clothes.
    • Gladstone Gander is another foil to Donald. They are cousins who are about the same age and grew up together, but while Gladstone is Born Lucky and thus never had to work in his life, Donald is Born Unlucky and had to fight hard to achieve pretty much anything, which turned him into The Determinator.
    • As usual, Scrooge and Glomgold. Both are insanely rich, world-jetting adventurer ducks, but Glomgold cheats and cares for nothing other than treasure, while Scrooge "earned it square" and has a loving family he cares deeply about.
  • Foreshadowing:
    • All of the newspaper headlines hint towards events coming up in future episodes.
    • In "The Great Dime Chase" Scrooge's Board of Directors argue with him over his spending money on "magical defenses". Magica De Spell shows up in the next episode.
    • Notice how every time Scrooge's #1 Dime is shown, only the side of the coin with the text "10 cents" is seen, and not the other one with a person's face. By the finale, it's revealed that the dime's back has an engraving of Magica DeSpell, which was where Scrooge sealed her.
    • In season 2, Louie lays out the "Wow! Say what? Aaagh!" cycle. At the end of that very episode, he's the target of the "say what" with the "Wow!" being Scrooge's setting him on the path to riches, foreshadowing his becoming a danger to the family very briefly.
  • Formerly Friendly Family: At the beginning, Donald and Scrooge haven't spoken for over ten years. Donald drops Huey, Dewey, and Louie off at Scrooge's mansion so they stay out of trouble while Donald goes to a job interview and it's clear this is a last resort. Later, it is revealed that their conflict stems from Donald's twin sister and the triplets' mother, Della, getting lost in space, and Scrooge not doing enough to search for her in Donald's eyes. In the penultimate episode of Season 1, Scrooge's family abandons him as the triplets learn the truth about their mother, but their feud is over by the season finale.
  • Foul Waterfowl:
    • Due to receiving Adaptational Villainy, Doofus Drake is a Bratty Half-Pint who orders around his parents due to them spoiling him.
    • Magica De Spell, the duck is even more of a jerk than she was originally, being a cruel sorceress who abuses her niece Lena.
    • Flintheart Glomhold, the duck is willing to stoop to any low to best Scrooge, even if it means killing someone. He's also quite proud of the fact that he's evil.
    • Black Heron, a heron who is member of the criminal organization F.O.W.L., and never misses a chance to flaunt her villainy.
  • Four-Fingered Hands: Besides these on all the characters, anthropomorphic birds usually have feet that's missing a digit (either no hallux or only two toes in front and one in back).
  • Four-Philosophy Ensemble: Each of the kids falls into one of the categories.
    • Huey is The Realist, usually having the most tempered expectations for what is likely to happen in their adventures and going between trying to reel everyone in when they go too far and giving them support when they get too downtrodden.
    • Dewey is The Apathetic, not having strong beliefs or expectations about adventures and only caring if they're exciting enough.
    • Louie is The Cynic, always expressing negative opinions and expecting the worse to happen on adventures.
    • Webby is The Optimist, seeing everything with a sense of wonder and believing the best of nearly anyone she meets.
    • This also applies to the older Duck cousins though it's a bit less prominent with them.
      • Donald is The Cynic, enjoying very little in life and always expecting his horrible luck to come down on his head at any minute.
      • Della is The Realist, enjoying adventures for all they're worth but also recognizing practical limitations and having little patience for pointless shenanigans.
      • Gladstone is The Optimist, always expecting everything to work out for the best because of his insane luck.
      • Fethry is The Apathetic, largely oblivious to how other people see things until told outright and just enjoying his personal passions.
  • Free-Range Children: Zigzagged. While we do see the children escorted to the movie theatre by Mrs. Beakley and Launchpad, most of the time, the triplets are free to run around the city without really informing their guardians of their whereabouts. How else could the boys go for a trip, come back after dark and be able to meet up with Webby instead of heading straight home?
  • Freeze-Frame Bonus: There is at least one or two in each episode, mostly in the form of background text. To name a few:
    • The intro briefly shows the only silver coin in the entire sequence is a 10 cent piece, which Scrooge triumphantly holds aloft.
    • As Scrooge, Donald and the kids chase the #1 Dime during the final third of the intro, they form a flying V.
    • Webby's String Theory board is positively bursting with them including background on the Clan McDuck, an Early-Bird Cameo (pun definitely intended!) of Gladstone Gander, a list of names of known Beagle Boys among other goodies, and mention of F.O.W.L.
    • In "Daytrip of Doom!", when Beakley gives Scrooge his breakfast and morning paper, the newspaper shows a headline and a picture of Ma Beagle; it notes that she got pardoned, and that crime has skyrocketed as a result.
    • In the same episode, Webby invades the personal space of a passenger on the bus. The title of the book she reads is "The Joy of Personal Space".
    • In "The Beagle Birthday Massacre", the junkyard where the Beagles hold Ma Beagle's birthday party has a "Beware of Dogs" sign on the entrance.
    • In "Terror of the Terra-Firmians!", the old metro car has advertisement posters for different Glomgold Industries products, including Glomgold Meats, Glomgold Water and Glom Illustrated (tagline: "Entertainment for the Glomgold Enthusiast").
    • In " The Living Mummies of Toth-Ra", Bill Cipher appears as a hieroglyph, albeit green to reference his original concept design. Makes a bit of sense to reference him as a dollar Bill in a show about Scrooge McDuck. An image of him also appears in the notes Fenton makes for Launchpad in "Beware the B.U.D.D.Y. System!".
    • In "The Shadow War" they don't use generic shadows for the shadow warriors. If you pause at any given time, you can spot a couple recognizable figures in their crowd (including Mrs. Beakley, Gabby McStabberson, and several Beagle Boys)
  • Freudian Trio: The triplets form one. Huey (Superego) is smart and logical. Louie (Id) is greedy and seeks pleasure. Dewey (Ego) is socially smart and boldly adventurous.
    • "Terror of the Terra-firmians!" introduces a new dynamic. Webby (Id), who believes in the possible existence of Terra-firmians even without proof. Huey (Superego), who will not accept such claims unless he has solid proof - and also gets paralyzed when confronted with his fears of the unknown. Lena (Ego), who wants to believe in the existence of Terra-firmians along with Webby but points out that the younger duckling doesn't help her case by utilizing fanfiction as "evidence". Louie takes up the role of the Ego when Lena goes off with Mrs. Beakley in the second and third acts of the episode, playing peacemaker between Webby and Huey.
    • "Friendship Hates Magic" forms a new trio that parallels the triplets.
      • Webby (Ego), is the most likely to jump into danger in her drive for adventure, much like Dewey.
      • Lena (Id), streetwise and able to fool people easily, like Louie.
      • Violet (Superego), very studious, resourceful and rational, like Huey.
  • The Friends Who Never Hang: Donald hasn't interacted with Webby or Launchpad too often. While Donald has been absent for the majority of the episodes (especially in the first season), it still doesn't hold water. Even in her few episodes after returning, his sister Della has bonded more with Webby and Launchpad than Donald has, especially two-for-one in "The Golden Armory of Cornelius Coot!". Webby is shown to greatly admire Donald as "one of the most daring adventurers of all time" and Donald does hug Webby along with the triplets near the end of "The House of the Lucky Gander". And Donald is shown to keep a photo of Launchpad in his houseboat in "Nothing Can Stop Della Duck", so the material is there, it just has yet to be capitalized on. The latter case with Launchpad has been rectified with "The Trickening" showing the two-interacting onscreen for the first time.
    • Dewey and Louie are rarely seen together without having Huey or Webby as an intermediary though this has been rectified with "Louie's Eleven" giving focus on their relationship without Huey or Webby.
    • Mrs. Beakly has next to no screentime with the boys without Webby as an intermediary.
    • For examples among the kids' friend group (Huey, Dewey, Louie, Webby, Lena, and Violet):
      • Despite being friends with them by the time of "A Nightmare on Killmotor Hill", Lena has little interaction with Dewey and Louie.
      • Similarly, Violet has also had little interaction with Dewey.
  • Frustrating Lie:
    • In "Woo-oo!", before Donald leaves for his job interview and he hears his houseboat starting up, he asks Huey and Louie where Dewey is. Louie says he's sleeping, but Huey asks, "Who's Dewey?", making Louie slowly turn his head towards Huey to glare at him. After Donald leaves to go find Dewey, Louie yells at Huey for his weak lie.
    • In "The Town Where Everyone Was Nice!", when Donald wants to make himself look impressive to his friends, José and Panchito, by lying about how successful he is, Huey and Scrooge agree to help him, with Huey telling Donald to keep his lie small and simple. But of course, Donald's small and simple lie is telling them he's in charge of McDuck Enterprises and he's a billionaire, which naturally causes Huey and Scrooge to facepalm at the same time. With the damage done, Huey adds that Donald is taking over the family business so Scrooge can retire, and Donald adds that it's because Scrooge is very, very old, which angers Scrooge, but he plays along so he doesn't have to pay for their trip. Donald ends up making it more complicated when he and his friends decide to bring back their old band, the Three Caballeros, and he agrees to pay for their expenses using Scrooge's money, which upsets Scrooge even more, and Huey tries to talk Donald out of it and come clean to his friends.
  • Funeral Cut: After seemingly going crazy from an illness Scrooge is about to take one last dive in his money bin. The scene then cuts to his funeral. It's quickly revealed that Gloomgold was messing with him and that the funeral was a sting to make him confess.
  • Furry Confusion:
    • As usual with Disney duck media, anthropomorphic and non-anthropomorphic animals coexist. The very first scene of the pilot is a non-anthropomorphic seagull flying among ships, with anthropomorphic bird sailors (one of them a seagull!) chasing it away. We later see an anthropomorphic dog-woman walking a pug - and when Launchpad almost hits them with the car, it's the pug, not the woman, that shakes its fist at the car.
    • In "Daytrip of Doom" Webby rides the bus and points out "a dog wearing a bowtie. Did he get that on himself?" The funny thing is that she points this out to an anthropomorphic dog bus driver.
    • In "The Missing Links of Moorshire", the gang encounters two kelpies that look like colorful ponies in hats. Webby gets thrilled about encountering "talking animals wearing clothes", when all people in this universe are exactly that. To be fair, the ponies are lower on the Sliding Scale of Anthropomorphism, as they walk on all fours and wear no clothes apart from their hats.
    • For a quick gag in "They Put a Moonlander on the Earth!", the show finally reveals that, yes, Duckburg does have small, non-sapient ducks. Dewey and Webby seem completely at ease feeding them popcorn, while Penumbra, not accustomed to Earth or its contradictions, is confused and horrified, especially when she sees Dewey eat a fistful of popcorn himself.note 
  • Furry Reminder: Several references are made to Huey, Dewey, and Louie having hatched from eggs, as opposed to being born in the usual human way. This surprisingly becomes a major plot point, as it makes it possible for Della Duck to be absent from the birth/hatching of her own children.

    G-P 
  • Gasshole: After Dewey and Webby bother a donkey too much, it, unwittingly perhaps, retaliates by letting rip one big, stinky fart (although the fart sound is replaced by the donkey braying (likely as a form of censorship) and we know about it just from the reactions of Dewey and Webby (plugging their nostrils)).
  • Generation Xerox: The quartet of Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Webby are shaping up to be like the four Duck cousins (Fethry, Donald, Gladstone, and Della): Huey and Fethry are the red-clad, hat-wearing science enthusiasts who are also Junior Woodchucks; Dewey and Donald are the (normally) blue-clad, Hot-Blooded physical fighters; Louie and Gladstone are green-clad and the laziest members of the family, and generally the most egocentric; and Webby and Della are the headstrong, enthusiastic females. It's lampshaded in the season 2 finale, with Dewey noting the similarities and disappointed that he's Donald's counterpart.
  • Generational Trauma: The Mcduck/Duck clan's generational trauma originates with "Dirty Dingus" Mcduck who is an impossible-to-please father who can't hold the family wealth together. Then his son Fergus feels he needs to instill a sense of self-reliance on his son Scrooge in order to survive with their diminished finances. Unfortunately, it's A Lesson Learned Too Well for Scrooge, so he decides to get everything in life only on his own terms; therefore leaving home and causing a rift to form between himself and his family. While Scrooge improves once his sister Hortense entrusts guardianship of his nephew and niece to him, everything goes sideways when Della gets lost on the moon. Blaming Scrooge for building the Rocket that caused it, Donald then becomes an overprotective uncle for Della's kids, which they all inevitably rebel against. This ends up creating even more problems once they have to come back into Scrooge's life. Thankfully, as the family begins to reunite, they begin to properly address these issues one episode at a time.
  • Genre Savvy: Young Donald and Della know better than to get any knowledge of the future from time travelers. They've seen the movies; they know what happens.
  • Giant Squid:
    • One attacks the crew in their sub in the second part of "Woo-oo!" Appears again at the end where it drags Glomgold away.
    • Another one shows up in "The Missing Links of Moorshire" to ruin several golf shots.
  • Gone Horribly Right: Mrs. Beakley thought that Scrooge needed to spend more time with his family. She didn't mean for him to move them into the manor!
  • Good Capitalism, Evil Capitalism: The show continues the motif started by previous works with McDuck enterprises being founded from hard work and Glomgold being started through lying and cheating. It also adds two new contenders:
    • Waddle, owned by Mark Beaks, has only made its owner a millionaire by scamming investors into investing in nothing and then framing the lack of a project as it being stolen. He usually steals ideas from Gyro and doesn't even go through testing to make sure everything is done right.
    • Louie is given a greedy personality on account of the triplets' Divergent Character Evolution and wants money like his great uncle, but without having to go through the work. Season 2 revolves around Scrooge encouraging his planning skills, but Louie still focuses on crafty schemes before learning humility toward the end of the season.
  • Great Big Book of Everything: Played with. Huey still has one Junior Woodchuck Guidebook on hand to work with, but it only has all the scientific/researched information known at the time. So more supernatural stuff like the Headless Manhorse Huey has to add himself.
    • "Storkules in Duckburg" reveals that it does contain information on at least some supernatural stuff, like harpies. So, it may just be more obscure things that are omitted.
  • Haggis Is Horrible:
    • In Let's Get Dangerous, Louie tries some haggis and says it tastes like socks and bitter regret. Learning that it is made from a sheep's bladder causes a gag reaction from not only Louie but also Huey, who was force fed it.
    • In the This Duckburg Life episode 5, Flintheart Glomgold is in jail and prepares haggis for his inmates because they hate it.
  • Half-Arc Season: While there is a myth/story arc, one-off adventures and self-contained plots still happen all the time, though whether they will return for the season finale or not is always a mystery.
  • Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: As usual, Scrooge, Donald and the triplets wear shirts but no pants, along with some other bird characters, like Fenton, Gladstone and Lena. The rest of the characters wear either pants or skirts/kilts. This gets a subtle sendup in the pilot episode when Donald's shirt gets yanked off; he hastily covers his waist—which is normally uncovered—with a towel.
  • Hammy Villain, Serious Hero: Scrooge McDuck is a savvy businessman and Experienced Protagonist who believes in hard work over all else, while his business competitor Flintheart Glomgold spends most of his time and money on evil schemes to take down/kill Scrooge that fall prey to Complexity Addiction. Scrooge mainly sees Glomgold as a nuisance more than a real threat. Their dynamic is perhaps best captured here. Zig-Zagged since Glomgold has moments of Beware the Silly Ones, particularly in Season 2, and Scrooge sometimes takes his bait, such as during their staring contest in "The Infernal Internship of Mark Beaks".
  • "Harmful to Pets" Reminder: In "The Rumble For Ragnarok!", Dewey gives a lollipop to Fenrir the wolf, who chokes on the lollipop and spits it back out. The audience becomes angry and appalled by it, with one giving Dewey this remark:
    "What are you doing?! You can't give candy to a dog! What are you, a dummy?!"
  • Handicapped Badass: Della. She lost her left leg from the knee down when she crashed on the moon. She built her own prosthetic leg.
  • Hats Off to the Dead: In the episode "The Golden Lagoon of White Agony Plains", Scrooge tearfully takes off his hat when he thinks Goldie has just plummeted to her death into boiling molten gold. This immediately allows Glomgold to knock him out with a pickaxe to the head and capture him.
  • Helicopter Parents: Donald is described as such by the creators and it shows during issue #0 of the tie-in comic where he is very reluctant to let them do even low risk activities and even has a Long List of dangers for them to avoid. He's scared to death of losing them like he lost his sister (and their mother) Della.
  • He Who Must Not Be Seen: The writers tried to get Mickey Mouse on the show, but couldn't do so legally. They finally found a loophole in "Moonvasion!" where he "appears" as Donald's "Wilson"-like watermelon companion, and Donald uses it as a ventriloquist dummy. They even had Chris Diamantopolous from the Disney Channel shorts do the voice.
  • He's Back!: After a period of implied hermetic retreat where a headline notes that he hung up his spats, Scrooge is making a comeback:
    Scrooge McDuck: I'm back... Uncharted territory... bold new discoveries!
  • Hero of Another Story: Launchpad in "The House of the Lucky Gander!" doesn't stay with the family, but instead goes to find his girlfriend Ziyi in Macaw. By the end of the episode, he returns in armor with many arrows sticking out of him, an Eye Patch Of Power and a panda cub clinging to his back. He repeats this in Season 2's "The Depths of Cousin Fenry" with another (mermaid) girlfriend and nautrical armor and a octopus instead.
  • Heroic Sacrifice: Lena makes one to stop Magica. It didn't fully stick.
  • Hired Help as Family: Mrs. Beakley is Scrooge's housekeeper and friend but doesn't quite qualify as family. Her granddaughter Webby, on the other hand, does. Scrooge treats her like his surrogate granddaughter or grandniece. He is about as close to her as he is to his grandnephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie.
  • Hollywood Healing: Launchpad goes from still significantly dealing with the snake venom poisoning when Glomgold shoots missiles at Atlantis to try and kill our heroes in the destruction of the city to the picture of health moments later as he's piloting the submarine to escape the city with everyone on board.
  • Honorary Uncle: Webby initially address Scrooge as Mr. McDuck, unlike the original where he makes it clear that he considers her family; however this is a one-sided feeling, "The Living Mummies of Toth Ra" shows that Scrooge cares for her as deeply the nephews. However, by the end of From the Confidential Casefiles of Number 22!, Scrooge asks her to call him Uncle Scrooge.
  • Houseboat Hero: Donald and the nephews live in a decrepit boat. By the end of the pilot, it's been relocated to Scrooge's swimming pool.
  • I Just Want to Have Friends: Webby is initially quite lonely and isolated before the nephews come to stay at McDuck Manor.
  • Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: Unlike the original show, all episode titles end with an exclamation mark, including "Woo-oo!", "Daytrip of Doom!", "The Great Dime Chase!" and "The Beagle Birthday Massacre!"
  • Idiot Savant: Launchpad has absolutely no idea what he's doing under most circumstances and barely seems capable of walking down a street without causing some sort of disaster, but he can build a functioning airplane from scratch and fly it through hell and back with his passengers in one piece. He crashes every time he flies, but he can and does put the plane back together again without trouble or complaint.
  • Ignored Epiphany: The perpetually lucky Gladstone, at the end of "The House of the Lucky Gander", after Liu Hai tries feeding off of Donald's unusually bad luck, which results in the collapse of his House of the Lucky Fortune casino:
    Webby: [to Gladstone] I guess you're not so lucky after all.
    Gladstone: But if you think about it, we're all free... so, me losing is the luckiest thing that could have happened. Boom! Still the luckiest guy on Earth and a hero, huh?
    Louie: Eh, luck's overrated.
    [after Scrooge, his nephews and Webby have left]
    Gladstone: Have I really just been coasting on my luck, charm, and ridiculous good looks? Who is Gladstone? I need to get my hands dirty, do something meaningful; a new, noble purpose. [A golden yacht pulls into the harbor]
    Heiress: Hey, handsome. I need to get rid of my boat for tax purposes. I'll sell it to you for $20.
    Gladstone: Gladstone is back, baby!
  • Immortality Field: Scrooge's parents became immortal thanks to Scrooge using mystical druid stones to rebuild their ancestral home of Castle McDuck. Unfortunately, it also prevents them from leaving the castle and it can only be seen and visited every five years when the mists of Dismal Downs dissipate.
  • Ink-Suit Actor: The redesigned Fenton greatly resembles Lin-Manuel Miranda.
  • Insistent Terminology: Lieutenant Penumbra and General Lunaris consistently refer to the Moon as "the planet Moon." Lunaris, in particular, hates to be corrected on the matter.
  • Intergenerational Rivalry
    • Scrooge McDuck and Flintheart Glomgold. Demonstrates a resentment dynamic. Glomgold was a child when he met Scrooge in South Africa. He swore vengeance after Scrooge made what he considered was a condescending gesture, underpaying him with an American dime and then doubting his ability to make a name for himself. He has since dedicated his life to one-upping Scrooge and making his life miserable. While what Scrooge did was certainly not his proudest moment, Glomgold's resentment is portrayed as more irrational and obsessive, making him the more villainous of the two.
    • Dewey Duck and Don Karnage. Karnage developed a grudge after Dewey incited his crew to mutiny, took his place as captain and then crashed the pirates' plane. Karnage considers Dewey his Arch-Enemy, not paying much mind to the rest of the Duck family. Overall, their rivalry is Played for Laughs because of this and leans towards a petty dynamic on Karnage's part.
  • Intrafamilial Class Conflict: Downplayed:
    • While Scrooge McDuck is the richest duck in the world, his nephew, Donald, ended up raising his sister's triplets on his own on a houseboat, drifting in and out of jobs due to his bad temper. While the money wasn't the reason they drifted apart, Scrooge often calls Donald a "deadbeat". In addition, as a preteen first meeting Scrooge, Donald would write emo songs with lyrics like "Gotta Eat the Rich Uncle".
    • Also between Donald and his cousin Gladstone, who has never had to work a day in his life due to his insanely good luck. Gladstone often finds $20 bills out of nowhere and gets things like cars and boats for free, while Donald, insanely un-lucky, struggles to keep a job and keep his houseboat in order. Donald sees Gladstone as "the worst" and never visits him, while Gladstone is horrified when a spell turns him into Donald.
    • Comes up in "Last Crash of the Sunchaser" when Scrooge's great-nephew Louie, who grew up with Donald, is most angry at Scrooge for having so much money and not spending enough to find his mother when she went missing. Meanwhile, a flashback shows Scrooge nearly drained his entire fortune trying to find her — he had to be stopped by his Board of Directors. When Louie later learns this in "The Shadow War: Part 1", he forgives Scrooge.
  • It's All About Me:
    • During the Glomgold Industries training video:
      Glomgold: Glomgold Industries: Take an idea, make it your own. Better, faster, cheaper; that's the motto of the world's most beloved Scottish billionaire duck... Flintheart Glomgold!
    • Once he gets his hands on the ruby, he strands the employees:
      Glomgold: [over the walkie-talkies] Hey team... Wanted to thank you for keeping Scrooge's kin busy while I escape with the jewel and blow up Atlantis with my most hated rival inside!
      Hack: But I thought employees were the greatest treasure of all!
      Glomgold: Don't be ridiculous! Treasure is the greatest treasure of all! That's why it's called treasure. Glomgold out!
    • This is the case for Mark Beaks. He constantly posts on social media, focuses on his public image and launches into a rage about how he should get everything he wants after Dewey brought his coffee one minute early.
  • Jerk with a Heart of Gold: Both Donald and Scrooge qualify. Both have bad blood between them while the former is short tempered and the latter is closed off and aloof. However, they both love their family dearly, only wanting what's best for them, and do take steps to make amends with each other.
  • Job's Only Volunteer: During a mission for F.O.W.L., the Phantom Blot is annoyed to find out that he's been assigned the annoyingly chipper Pepper as his partner. He later learns the reason he got stuck with her is because no one else wanted to partner up with him.
  • Kent Brockman News: While Roxanne Featherly maintains her composure during a report on first contact with an alien civilization (who, at this point, haven't made any hostile moves), the news crawl across the bottom of the screen urges viewers to panic. Roxanne notices this and sighs, "C'mon, Carl!" A few minutes later, once the invasion proper begins, the news crawl reads "Carl was right, we're doomed!"
  • Knight of Cerebus: Besides being Sealed Evil in a Can, Magica is this also. She has a sense of humor, but while every other villain has goofy moments, she doesn't. Her episodes are the darkest in the series.
  • Lack of Imagination: In "Nightmare on Killmotor Hill", compared to his brothers' and Webby's dreams, Huey only dreams he has longer legs. He admits he's not very imaginative.
  • Latino Is Brown: Fenton has been race-lifted to be the setting's equivalent of Latino, and he and his mother are appropriately drawn with brown feathers to contrast the main characters' white. Gosalyn Waddlemeyer, who had yellowish-brown feathers in the original series without indicating her race, is also interpreted here as a Latina according to Word of God while having the same feather colours (though her grandpa is white).
  • Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: Animal versions of Lupin and Jigen briefly drive past Scrooge's limo in the first episode. note 
    • In "Double O Duck in You Only Crash Twice" reintroduces the Rescue Rangers, but can only do so in appearance, their names never being mentioned.
  • Leaning on the Fourth Wall:
    • Given that it's been three decades since Scrooge headlined his own TV series, him deciding to get back into action after being told he "used to be" a big deal can be seen in this light.
    • What's even more fun about the trailer is that, as soon as Scrooge gets up, the background music abruptly changes to the under beat of the theme. Then, when he states that he has low key plans for the day, the music fully comes in.
    • "Woo-oo" shows Scrooge having difficulties remembering his Nephew's names and just considering the boys one singular entity, similar to how many people regard Huey, Dewey, and Louie prior to this series's Divergent Character Evolution.
    • Louie in "Terror of the Terra-Firmians": "Oh man, I didn't see that coming! Really came together in the third act!"
    • An unintentional one in "The House of Lucky Gander": due to the episode reshuffle, it was the first episode since the pilot that took place outside Duckburg and featured Donald and Scrooge in central roles, so Scrooge's line "Finally, a proper adventure" comes off as this.
  • Leeroy Jenkins:
    • Dewey is the most reckless of the triplets, with a tendency to barge ahead no matter how dangerous the situation.
    • Scrooge in some flashbacks is shown to have similar behaviors, especially in From the Confidential Casefiles of Number 22!
  • Left the Background Music On: When the triplets talk about Scrooge's exploits at the beginning, the music swells. Turns out it's just the car radio.
  • Legion of Doom: Glomgold forms his own, enlisting Ma and the Beagle Boys, Mark Beaks, Magica, and Don Karnage in "Glom Tales".
  • Living Emotional Crutch: Scrooge's family is this for him. In the past, it was Donald and Della and when they left his life, he fell apart. He became the bitter miser people always say he is. In the present, it's still Donald, but also the triplets. With those four back in his life, Scrooge discovers joy again. When they leave him shortly before the Season 1 finale, Scrooge falls apart again.
  • Living Forever Is Awesome: While not technically immortal, the events and/or byproducts of many of Scrooge's adventures, as well as those of this rivals and partners, have caused them to become gifted with lifespans that can be measured in centuries. Scrooge uses his extreme longevity to collect more treasure and go on more adventures, and now that his grand-nephews are there, he's rediscovered just how awesome his extended life can be.
  • Living Legend: Scrooge constantly traveled the globe in his youth, becoming a world-renowned adventurer and treasure hunter in his pursuit to become the richest duck in the world. Meanwhile, Donald himself is known for being a daring adventurer (albeit on a much, much smaller scale). The triplets learning of the latter actually takes them aback to the point where they briefly doubt the authenticity of the former's adventurer status, since they only knew Donald as a chronically unemployed, bumbling single parent who worries over every step they take.
  • A Lizard Named "Liz": Just like the source materials it's based on, many characters have surnames with duck- or bird-related puns. McQuack, Vanderquack, Quackfaster, Beakley, Beaks, the list goes on. The Beagle Boys likewise have punny names based on their dogface design. Exceptions include Flintheart Glomgold, Magica de Spell, Gyro Gearloose, Gabby McStabberson and the Smashnikov brothers; their names do pun on aspects of their personality, ability, and vocation, but don't have anything bird-related about them.
    • Falcon Graves is an unusual example, as he hits the trope with his first name, but his surname is unrelated.
    • Taken to the extreme with Violet Sabrewing, who is a violet sabrewing.
  • Locked Out of the Loop: Donald never told his nephews he was once an adventurer, nor that they were related to Scrooge.
  • Loophole Abuse: Initially averted but ultimately played straight in the series finale. Bradford Buzzard uses an artifact known as the Papyrus of Binding for a magically and legally bulletproof contract thirty years in the making that states Scrooge can have his family if he stops adventuring. He closed every conventional loophole, but unfortunately for Bradford, for Scrooge’s family, “family is the greatest adventure,” and the Papyrus takes the family saying as a contradiction of terms, turning the tables. Lampshaded by Bradford right before the contract disintegrates.
  • Lost in Imitation: Despite the series being more faithful to the comics, it still keeps some of the changes brought by the old cartoon, like the Beagle Boys being led by Ma Beagle instead of Grandpa Beagle.
  • Magic Skirt: When Scrooge uses his gadget cane to fish stowaway Webby out of a crate of life jackets, her skirt is in place even though Scrooge is holding her upside-down by her leg.
  • Mama Bear: Mrs. Beakley is one for the nephews and her Webby. In the theme song, she pulls them all up single-handedly to protect them from Scrooge's rogue's gallery.
  • Man Behind The Curtain: Sabaf, who is revealed as the one operating Toth-Ra like a puppet:
    Sabaf: [operating Toth-Ra] I am Toth-Ra, commander of the sun.
    Louie: Ooh, hate to pull rank, chief, but uh... I'm commander of the whole universe, which kind of includes the sun, so...
    Sabaf: [as Toth-Ra] Impossible! Uh, come forth so that I may smite you, vile pretender!
    [Toth-Ra's limbs have broken from their puppet rods]
    Louie: No... you come over here, so I can smite you!
    Sabaf: Never! You come over here, because I'm going to smite you... so hard! [Louie and Webby go past the limp Toth-Ra]
    Sabaf: Get away from there! Uh... I am ordering that guard to control me with my awesome Pharaoh powers! [Webby and Louie don't buy his story as they walk into the inner chamber] Ahh, fine, you got me.
  • Meaningful Name: As usual, Flintheart Glomgold effectively translates into "stone-hearted money grabber"
  • Merit Badges for Everything: They wouldn't be the Junior Woodchucks without this. It doesn't come up as much, but badges include Sickle Sharpening and Cartography, which doesn't sound like much except it requires you to map a location that has never been mapped by anybody before. Huey's opening short implies (but never states) that Bigfoot Catching is also a merit badge. They even have a merit badge for Failing, of which Launchpad has several.
  • Message in a Bottle: In "The Beagle Birthday Massacre", Lena throws a bunch of them out, first as pranks and later as a call for help.
  • Mix-and-Match Critters: The teaser for Season 3 showed a bear-butterfly and an ape-rhinoceros hybrid, who look like more realistic takes on Butterbear and Rhinokey from The Wuzzles.
  • Mood Killer:
    • Launchpad's observation about the importance of family gets interrupted by him crashing the plane.
      Launchpad: Aw, family truly is the greatest adventure of— OH, NO, THE GROUND!
    • Hilariously, It wouldn't be Launchpad without such disregard for safety. Notably, in the episode, it's shown he clearly didn't correct it in time to save the plane...
    • Huey does this twice to Scrooge, interrupting his He's Back! speech and then disrupting his dramatic build-up to the reveal of Atlantis. He's quite explicitly upset about the latter.
  • Mocky Mouse: In a rare example of Disney themselves using the pastiche of Mickey Mouse, "Moonvasion" has Donald stranded on an island and making friends with a watermelon dubbed "Mikey Melon" whom he hallucinates as being alive. The watermelon is made to look and sound like Mickey Mouse and was the closest the production team could get to including Mickey in the series because of Disney nixing their plans.
  • Mood Whiplash: In any episode that ends with a Twist Ending or Sudden Downer Ending, the mood becomes suddenly shocking, but then it cuts to the cheery end credits.
    • In "Moonvasion!", the final scene is a heartwarming group gathering... until the final minute of the episode which has The Reveal that Scrooge's board of directors is actually F.O.W.L. High Command and they promptly declare war on the McDuck clan and their friends. Immediately followed by the upbeat credits music.
  • Morality Pet: The triplets, Webby, Donald, and Della to Scrooge. Without them by his side, Scrooge would probably be just like Flintheart Glomgold.
  • Ms. Exposition: Webby has spent a good deal of her free time trying to research Scrooge's old adventures with Donald, as well as the Duck family tree. She provides information about some of the artifacts in the pilot, namely the Gong of Pixiu, Captain Peghook, the Deus Ex Calibur and the headless man-horse, though that last one is pretty self-explanatory.
  • Mundanger: After twenty episodes of threats including cursed mummies, deadly traps, jealous Greek deities, and killer robots, the main danger in "The Last Crash of the Sunchaser!" is the titular plane itself, stuck in a precarious position and legitimately threatening the lives of all on it.
  • Musical World Hypotheses: "Sky Pirates...In the Sky!" plays The Diegetic Hypothesis for laughs. The sky pirates intensively practice and critique their musical numbers, it's apparently intended as a distraction, and at the end their habit is exploited by the main cast.
  • Mutually Unequal Relation: Storkules (the show's equivalent to Hercules) considers Donald his friend, treating him as close to an Ambiguously Gay level. Donald thinks he's a loud idiot with No Sense of Personal Space, and is incredibly hesitant to acknowledge Storkules as a "friend" and not an "acquaintance".
  • Myth Arc: The first season dives into what drove Scrooge McDuck into retiring from adventuring in the first place, involving Donald, and Della stealing the Spear of Selene.
  • My Friends... and Zoidberg: In "The Living Mummies of Toth-Ra!" Scrooge introduces the group as "Scrooge McDuck and family ... and associatenote ."
  • Mythology Gag: Now with its own page.
  • National Animal Stereotypes: The show occasionally uses these, especially during the globe-trotting adventures. Macaw, an East Asian city, has pandas among its residents; Egypt has jackals and falcons; and the eponymous Brazilian town from "The Town Where Everyone Was Nice!" is inhabited by parrots and other South American birds.
  • Negatives as a Positive: When in a contest against a spirit that feeds on luck, Scrooge shows confidence in Donald against Gladstone, because while Gladstone is born lucky, Donald has never had luck in his life and relies on stubbornness and rage to get the job done.
  • Nephewism: A double-barreled example with Donald raising his nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie and Donald and his sister Della being implied to have spent most of their life with Uncle Scrooge. Unlike most instances of this, the deeper implications are not ignored as Della's absence and eventual return greatly impact the cast with Donald having spent the last 12 years struggling as a single parent raising his sister's children.
  • Nerd Hoard: In "The Duck Knight Returns!", Launchpad attempts to sabotage the younger actor replacing Jim Starling as his childhood hero Darkwing Duck in the Darker and Edgier reboot by breaking in to his trailer (at Jim's request). However, Launchpad ends up bonding with the actor over the extensive Darkwing Duck memorabilia collection in his trailer, including discontinued toys, comics, and a lunchbox, proving the actor is an Ascended Fanboy. This foreshadows the fact that the actor is Drake Mallard, Darkwing Duck's alias in the original cartoon, and was meant to be the real Darkwing Duck of the series all along.
  • Never Say "Die": The show constantly averts this, with the villains being very open about their murderous intentions.
  • Never Smile at a Crocodile: In one promo, Donald briefly finds himself in a swamp where two crocodiles eye him hungrily.
  • Nice Mean And In Between: Downplayed with the Three Caballeros as all of them are rather genial and friendly but vary in how ruled by their vices they are in the pursuit of success.
    • Donald is Nice, having his head on the straightest of the three and being the one most likely to give consideration to his band mates and others.
    • Jose is In-Between, being nicer than Panchito but not quite as considerate as Donald.
    • Panchito is Mean, having the biggest ego of the group and constantly trying to make their efforts about himself.
  • No, You: Lena's way of denying that's she's tired and needs to sleep:
    Violet: "Judging from your sunken eyes, elevated heart rate and irritability..."
    Lena: "You're irritability!"
  • No Communities Were Harmed: Macaw, in "The House of the Lucky Gander", is apparently based on Macau, a port city founded by the Portuguese and is now an autonomous Chinese territory located on the west side of the Zhujiang (Pearl) River estuary.
  • No Hugging, No Kissing:
    • Webby does not have any romantic interest in any of the triplets, or vice versa. This is probably for the best after the reveal that she's Scrooge's "daughter".
    • Averted with Scrooge and Goldie, who have a very strong sexual tension between them and are very comfortable with touching each other.
  • Non-Mammal Mammaries: Many adult female bird characters, such as Mrs. Beakley, Goldie O'Gilt and Roxanne Featherly, have a human-like body shape complete with breasts.
    • Male example in "The Spear of Selene!" The statue of Donald that Storkules sculpts has a humanoid physique (which Storkules himself also sports) including nipples.
  • No OSHA Compliance:
    • Atlantis sank because the Atlanteans were so eager to build their city and fill it with deathtraps that they failed to make sure the supports were sufficient.
    • Mervana similarly sunk into the ocean, although it's implied this was because they failed to maintain the buildings well enough.
  • Noodle Incident:
    • Launchpad has this with his old relationships:
      • In "The House of the Lucky Gander!", Launchpad says he's going to check on his old girlfriend Ziyi... and the next time he's seen he's wearing arrow-riddled chinese armor, an eyepatch and a papoose basket containing a baby panda. He says he'd been doing "tourist stuff" the entire time.
      • In "The Depths of Cousin Fethry!" Launchpad once again runs into an old girl friend, the mysterious Oceanica. When we see him again he's in leather armor, sporting a trident and a conch shell, and has an eel wrapped around an arm, and an octopus on his back. This time he was doing "sea stuff."
      • When talking about romance with Fenton, Launchpad mentions a Ninja, a werewolf, a clone of himself, a Nordic shield maiden, and a sentient cloud made of energy that one time.
    • In "The Impossible Summit of Mount Neverrest!", Scrooge is shown to have a grudge against Santa Claus for something. It gets a Call-Back in "Last Christmas," where Scrooge violently attacks an animatronic statue of Santa with his cane.
      Scrooge: That man is not allowed in my home! He knows what he did.
    • Mrs. Beakley reminisces wistfully about the time she infiltrated a hippie commune.
    • When Dewey ends up visiting Donald and Della in the past when they're around his current age, they both agree that being visited by a relative from the future and having to deal with a spirit of obsession at the same time is only the fourth weirdest thing to happen to them on Christmas. With those criteria, one has to wonder what the top three were...
  • Noodle Implements: In "Day of the Only Child!" Doofus threatens Louie with an umbrella and a bag of walnuts. He's interrupted before we find out what he intends to do with them.
  • Official Couple: Donald and Daisy as of "Louie's Eleven!" and "New Gods on the Block!", and Fenton and Gandra as of "Beaks in the Shell!"
  • Offscreen Moment of Awesome: There are numerous high-flying adventures that are happening off-screen.
    • We never see Launchpad's adventures in Macaw.
    • At the end of "The Spear of Selene", we don't learn how the ducks escape the wrath of Zeus.
    • In "Jaw$", Scrooge and his family are back from a Jack and the Beanstalk-type adventure, but only see the toppled beanstalk.
    • In "The Shadow War - Part 2", Donald goes head to head with Shadow Gizmo-Duck, right before it cuts to the others. Next time we see Donald, he's already won.
    • Once again, we never see Launchpad's adventures with Oceanica.
    • We never see how the Ducks found the pile of lamps in "Quack Pack."
  • Older Hero vs. Younger Villain: On account of Scrooge being The Ageless and having a magically expanded lifespan, and having great wealth and influence acquired over years, most of his enemies are far younger than him. The possible exception is maybe Magica DeSpell since its not clear how far back their rivalry dates (though there are mentions of a family blood-feud).
    • His feud with the Beagle Boys extends to their ancestor who owned the Deed of Duckburg, which they swindled, and which Scrooge swindled back to become landowner albeit at a generous and nominal fee of course. It's never made clear how old Ma Beagle is but she was likely a young girl when Scrooge pulled that stunt, and most of the Beagles, her children, are closer to the generation of Donald, his sister and his cousins, or Launchpad, being a little above the triplets and Webby.
    • Flintheart Glomgold is revealed to be far younger than his usual fake-Scottish shtick suggests, growing a natural black beard in his period of amnesia and regressing to the Duke Baloney identity he left behind in South Africa. He is about a generation older than Donald at best, and despite being a quarter of Scrooge's 150+ age, he has closed the gap in a very short time albeit by criminal means.
    • Mark Beaks is the youngest of Scrooge's regular antagonists, and much younger than Glomgold and the Beagles. He's a budding silicon-valley magnate and has a more internet-driven personality and is mostly an antagonist to the triplets and Gizmoduck rather than Scrooge himself.
  • Once a Season: Launchpad encounters an old girlfriend and has a solo adventure we never see, only to return to the protagonists with an armload of Noodle Implements and saying goodbye in a deeper, more serious voice, before shrugging off his adventure as "stuff."
  • One of the Boys: Webby. When the triplets were heading off to Funso's, they say, "Come on, boys!" Webby initially thinks she's not being included. Dewey makes a point of asking if she's coming when she doesn't seem to join them. It doesn't hurt that she's an Action Girl with little experience outside of situations of peril.
  • Orphaned Etymology: With a lack of humans present in the world, and even Dogfaces being uncommon, any time they speak of "man" or "human being", it usually refers to a duck-person instead.
  • Our Cryptids Are More Mysterious: Several cryptids are referenced throughout the episodes.
    • The very first episode references the Chupacabra; Scrooge, apparently, investigated its mystery and found out that it was a shaved, non-anthropomorphic bear.
    • A bigfoot nicknamed "Tenderfeet" plays a prominent role in the episode "The Other Bin of Scrooge McDuck". He appears to be a simple-minded Gentle Giant that Huey grows fond of and takes care of, but Louie is suspicious of him and eventually finds out that he's a fully sapient Con Artist who is taking advantage of Huey's misplaced kindness.
    • A Nandi bear appears in the episode "Challenge of the Senior Junior Woodchucks". It appears to be an unusually large bear with hyena spots and opposable thumbs.
  • Our Dragons Are Different: Pixiu is an Eastern dragon described as a "gold-hunting dragon", attracted to gold, probably with the intention of eating it.
  • Our Humans Are Different: "Human" in this universe refers to all anthropomorphic animals. Human humans are referred to as "Hyper-intelligent Hairless Apes", meaning this is a universe where humanity as we know it hadn't emerged. The only actual humans appear in a sitcom reality created by Donald's wish, as the live studio audience, and the ducks are horrified by them.
  • Our Kelpies Are Different: One episode has a pair of kelpies named Bramble and Briar in an episode. They are generally friendly, even if they would like everyone to follow them into the water and drown. They look like My Little Phonies with wet manes and the added bonus that they're voiced by Andrea Libman (Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie) and Tara Strong (Twilight Sparkle).
  • Our Mermaids Are Different: So far, two distinct types of mer-ducks have appeared. In "Woo-oo!", they are monstrous with sharp teeth and scaly skin, aggressively attacking Scrooge's submarine; in "The Depths of Cousin Fethry!", Oceanica, Launchpad's ex-girlfriend is a beautiful mermaid with an alluring voice. "The Lost Harp of Mervana!" addresses this issue by claiming that the more time mermaids spend underwater, the more fish-like and monstrous they become.
  • Out of Focus: With FOWL taking the reins as the main antagonists of the final season, Scrooge’s usual Rogues Gallery is sidelined. Glomgold only has one spotlight episode where he’s even more harmless than usual, Magica’a spotlight episode shows she is now So Last Season compared to Lena even after getting her powers back, and Ma Beagle doesn’t even appear until the penultimate episode of the season in which she shares the spotlight with Magica and Glomgold. Mark Beaks also only has one spotlight episode in which it’s made clear he’s on the decline due to Waddle being on the verge of bankruptcy.
  • Panthera Awesome: The jade tigers from "The House of the Lucky Gander!"
  • Papa Wolf:
    • Donald. Anyone who hurts his kids or puts them in any danger will face his considerable wrath.
      • In "The Spear of Selene!" Donald spends the whole episode avoiding conflict. But the moment Huey & Louie are threatened by a mind-controlled Storkules, he leaps into action to defend them.
    • Scrooge is no slouch in this department either. Do not harm his loved ones, especially his nieces and nephews.
  • Paper-Thin Disguise: Employed by a number of antagonists, including Glomgold, the Beagle Boys and Don Karnage, in various episodes. Subverted in that usually only established cloudcuckoolanders (like Launchpad or Mark Beaks) fall for them, whereas Scrooge, the boys, Webby and Donald are specifically shown seeing through them.
  • People Puppets: Magica Despell turns Webby into a puppet in "The Other Bin of Scrooge McDuck", which attacks Lena after reciting lines that mock the real Webby.
  • Pie-Eyed: Most characters are depicted with eyes like these, to imitate the visual style of Carl Barks and give the show a "classic cartoon" feel.
  • Plagiarism in Fiction: Glomgold's business strategy consists of taking an idea and making it his own. He says as much during his company's training video. Mark Beaks has a similar corporate motto.
  • Planetary Relocation: General Lunaris' Evil Plan in the season 2 finale involves using a massive rocket engine to force the Earth to revolve around the Moon. This ends up having catastrophic effects on the weather until Storkules pushes the Earth back into orbit.
  • Planetville: Tranquility appears to be the only city on the Moon, hidden under the surface of the Far Side. It appears to host the entire Moonlander civilization.
  • Platonic Co-Parenting: Donald and Della are siblings. However, when Della gets lost in space for ten years, Donald raises her kids as if they were his own. When Della returns, she begins to take an active role in raising her sons, but Donald continues to treat them as his own as well. He’s always been their legal guardian, so they’ll always be his kids.
  • Pooled Funds:
    • Scrooge, naturally. In one of the first trailers, we see him nonchalantly throw a few gold coins into the money bin. The opening sequence shows him swimming through money like some kind of land-shark, confirming he still has his infamous ability to swim through hard cash. In the first episode he falls from a great height, but when he realizes that he's landing in his money bin he dives into it and comes up unharmed. In the second episode, he weaponizes this to allow him to sneak up on Glomgold.
    • The trope is discussed when Louie once tried to dive into Scrooge's money bin. Scrooge tells him that he can swim in money because he's been practicing for years. If Louie, or anyone else, tried it without sufficient training, they would crack their skull open.
      • Notably, later in the same episode, Louie does manage to swim in a river of coins, but doesn't even try to jump into the Money Bin itself. note  However, in the season 1 finale, Louie is shown able to actually dive in and swim around in the money bin a bit.
    • Parodied by Gladstone, who makes fun of Scrooge by swimming through a jacuzzi filled with casino gambling chips.
  • Pragmatic Villainy: The Buzzards who also run F.O.W.L. Their entire MO is not doing anything that might draw Scrooge McDuck's attention, thus giving him a chance to spoil their plans. This becomes difficult when their other associates are...less pragmatic than them.
  • Prefers Proper Names: Violet is the only character to refer to Webby by her full name Webbigail, and is also shown to call Huey "Hubert" in the season 3 premier.
  • Pretentious Pronunciation: Inverted in "Daytrip of DOOM!" Webby read Jane as Ja-Ne. "It's Jane."
  • Propeller Hat of Whimsy: Played with in "The Infernal Internship of Mark Beaks!" Waddle trainees Dewey and Huey wear propeller hats called "Trainee Beanies" as part of the informal uniform. This sets the young interns apart from the regular workers, but also says less about Huey and Dewey than about CEO Mark Beaks, emphasizing the forced fun atmosphere of the company and how nonserious the internship is. Mark also later slaps a trainee beanie on his abductor Falcon Graves as part of a disguise, showing how flippant Beaks is about his own kidnapping. Subverted when it's revealed that Beaks staged the kidnapping to scam his investors, showing how Affably Evil he really is underneath the immaturity.
  • Puff of Logic: In "Nightmare at Killmotor Hill", a unicorn in a Shared Dream notes how everyone is leaving the scene, wondering how he's supposed to exist if no one's around to dream him up. The moment the unicorn says this, he instantly vanishes.

    R-S 
  • Race Lift:
    • Fenton Crackshell becomes Latino with brown feathers, and his last name becomes "Crackshell-Cabrera" to reflect this. Fenton's mother, now called Officer Cabrera rather than Mrs. Crackshell, gets the same treatment.
    • Fenton's Love Interest Gandra Dee also gets brown feathers, but her ethnicity is not specified.
    • Gene the Genie has dark brown feathers, suggesting that he's African in this version.
    • Gosalyn Mallard had no specified ethnicity in Darkwing Duck, but according to Word of God she'll be explicitly Latinx in this series. Her feathers, which were yellow in the original show, are now more brownish (though the difference is not as obvious as in Fenton's and Gandra's case).
  • "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
    • After the triplets learn what became of their mother, Mrs. Beakley decides to use her vacation time after bluntly giving Scrooge, who lashed out at her granddaughter, a piece of her mind:
      Mrs. Beakley: Well, you've successfully pushed your family and everyone who ever cared about you away, again. I hope you're happy.
    • She gives one to the nephews as well, in the following episode. Pointing out that no matter how hurt they were, Scrooge was hurt as well, and they shouldn't not forgive him at one point. See Reverse Psychology below.
    • Done by Zan Owlson when she gets fed up with the antics of the billionaires she worked with.
      Owlson: ENOUGH! I was at the top of my class at Mouseton, ran several successful businesses, but none of that prepared me for you Duckburg billionaires! Reckless thrill-seekers! Madmen with the minds of children! Actual children! I tried to keep you people humble, but all you care about is money and power! Well, I'm DONE trying to make you better! I'm going to become a better billionaire myself! I QUIT!
  • Reference Overdosed: Many nods to elements of the original series can be found in Scrooge's garage, including a robot that looks like Armstrong and an oil lamp that looks like the one from DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp. Also in "The Great Dime Caper," Gyro makes a list of his inventions that turn evil, including Armstrong, Robotica and Cogs.
  • Refugee from Time: Both the technology (such as the existence of laptops and smartphones) and Launchpad's birth year (1987) indicate that the show takes place in The New '10s. Despite this, Scrooge's backstory still uses the time frame from The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, with his birthdate being given as 1867 in "The Other Bin of Scrooge McDuck!", and his participation in the Klondike Gold Rush in the 1890s. This makes Scrooge at least 140 years old in this continuity. This is hand waved by the creators as Scrooge spending certain amounts of time in a state where he doesn't age, such as five years frozen in ice, and an indeterminate amount of time in a "timeless demon dimension". However, this doesn't explain Donald and Della, his nephew and niece, who are in their late twenties / early thirties (unless their parents waited really late in the game to have children).
  • Refuge in Audacity:
    • Donald asked Mrs. Beakley how a housekeeper knows so much about electrical engineering (and Tae Kwon Do), and she responds, "Simple. I'm a spy." They both laugh it off, but Donald's laughter slows as he wonders if she's actually joking or not.
    • During the invasion from the Moon, after all of Scrooge's plans to stop Lunaris fail, Glomgold's completely ridiculous scheme (involving a giant catapult, sharks in parkas and Scrooge dressed up as Santa Claus) is actually a success because Lunaris couldn't believe anyone would do something that obviously stupid, wasting time looking for the ulterior motive rather than just dealing with the plan in front of him.
  • Reimagining the Artifact: As the Disney Ducks franchise has been going on for over 80 years, there are some elements in it (such as gender and race stereotypes) that did not age very well. Instead of getting rid of them completely, this reboot series attempts to put a modern spin on them.
    • Webby is no longer an overly nice Girly Girl but a plucky and adventurous Tomboy with a Girly Streak.
    • Mrs. Beakley, instead of a Granny Classic who faints at the sight of danger, is an ex-spy with a Heroic Build who, beside being Scrooge's housekeeper, is also his bodyguard.
    • Fenton's mother is not a frumpy TV-addicted housewife but a Spicy Latina police officer (who nevertheless loves her telenovelas).
    • Goldie isn't just Scrooge's on-and-off Love Interest, but also an adventurer serving as Scrooge's counterpoint to show what Scrooge's life might be like if he only looked out for himself.
    • Dijon is renamed D'jinn and is a noble warrior rather than a petty thief.
    • Gandra Dee is no longer a shallow Dumb Blonde love interest for Fenton, but a rival scientist working for Mark Beaks (and also a love interest for Fenton).
    • Bubba isn't just some random Dumb Muscle caveduck with a pet Triceratops, but a highly advanced Genius Bruiser caveduck who happens to be the first in the McDuck family. Also, Bubba and the Triceratops are from different time periods who only meet due to Time Travel. Not to mention said Triceratops is more of a reptilian rhinoceros than a giant lizard, thanks to "Dinosaur Renaissance" theories being popularized by Jurassic Park.
    • Bombie is not a Voodoo Zombie created by a witch doctor, but a Solomon Grundy-esque Revenant Zombie. His appearance is also changed from a black-skinned, ape-like caricature of an African person to a grey-skinned Dogface.
    • Donald's iconic temper tantrums in the original shorts and comics often were targeted at the triplets. Since that would make him look like an Abusive Parent for modern audiences, here he is in full Papa Wolf mode instead, channelling his anger at anyone who threatens his nephews.
    • This also applies, to varying extents, to the Disney Afternoon shows that have been inserted into the continuity — ie. the Rescue Rangers are intelligence-boosted lab animals rather than anthro residents of a Mouse World.
  • Replaced with Replica: In the episode "The Great Dime Chase", Scrooge McDuck reveals that the Number One Dime he exhibits in his Money Bin on a velvet pillow is just a decoy, and he carries his real Number One Dime in a locket around his neck.
  • Resourceful Rodent: Gadget Hackwrench makes an appearance and is given an origin story. She was experimented on and she received a procedure that enhanced her intelligence and she surprised the scientists by using tools. She used tools to make her own clothes, and she made the Ranger plane for her and her friends to use in order to escape the facility.
  • Retired Badass:
    • The first trailer shows that Scrooge used to have quite the adventurous lifestyle, but he's more or less left it behind by the beginning of the series. His nephews pointing this out leads Scrooge to throw off the "retired" part.
    • Donald is one himself, to the point of never mentioning his adventurous past to the boys. When they see him in one of Scrooge's paintings depicting a previous adventure, it leads them to disbelieve everything about Scrooge's adventuring past....for at least five minutes.
    • Mrs. Beakley is a former spy, now a simple housekeeper.
  • Retool: One thing that distinguishes the reboot from the original is that it has a more serialized narrative.
  • Reverse Psychology:
    • In "The Shadow War - Part 1", Mrs. Beakley uses some of this to show Huey, Dewey and Louie how wrong they are to hold ill feelings against Scrooge:
      Mrs. Beakley: Apple shortbread pie, with a scoop of sea salt ice cream, a common farewell dessert in certain parts.
      Dewey: Finally, some real food.
      Mrs. Beakley: [pulls the pie away] Oh, I'm so sorry, this was Scrooge's favorite dessert. Oh, I don't want to remind you of that horrid man who lost your mother all those years ago, even if it was an accident that tore him up for ten years, propelling him into a desperate search attempt that left him broken and nearly bankrupt.
      Louie: Wait, bankrupt? Really?
      Mrs. Beakley: But I understand, you're upset because you lost one family member, which was terrible and painful, so you decided you should go ahead and lose another. Brilliant, makes perfect rational sense.
      Dewey: Yeah, nailed it, Mrs. B.
      Mrs. Beakley: Yes, distance yourself even further from his life and forsake family altogether. That will definitely fix it.
      Launchpad: No, it'll do the opposite of that!
      Mrs. Beakley: Perhaps it's worth considering that the reason Scrooge closed himself off was because the loss of Della was the hardest thing he'd ever faced, harder than any adventure! It's not that he didn't care, it's that he cared about family more than anything in the world, and perhaps he still does. But I'm just the housekeeper, what do I know?
      Launchpad: A lot, this lady knows a lot!
    • In "The Shadow War - Part 2", Donald tells the kids to stay on the docks and not join the fight against Magica. Later, when the kids join the fight anyway, he reveals that he was expecting the kids to not follow his order. Louie even calls it "classic reverse psychology".
  • Rewatch Bonus:
    • With The Reveal in the Season 1 finale that Lena is Magica's shadow, every interaction between them is put in a new light.
    • Angones pointed out a more lighthearted one after the Season 2 premiere. After defining the "Whoa!" and "Wait, what?" moments, he challenged fans to rewatch the series and notice every time they respond to those moments with "Whoa!" and "Wait, what?"
    • The reveal in the Grand Finale that Webby is Scrooge's Opposite-Sex Clone puts everything about them and their relationships with the rest of the cast in a very different context.
  • Rhino Rampage: The opening has the ducklings riding on a charging black rhinoceros.
  • Riddle for the Ages: Who is the triplets' father? The series ends without so much as a hint.
  • Rogues' Gallery Transplant:
    • Scrooge and the family get attacked by Don Karnage in "Sky Pirates in the... Sky!".
    • Zig-Zagged with F.O.W.L., the organization having originally appeared in DuckTales, but was largely defined by Darkwing Duck, with this series' version based more off of the latter incarnation, especially with F.O.W.L. High Command set to be major villains after the Season 2 finale.
      • Steelbeak, however, only existed as a F.O.W.L. agent in Darkwing Duck, so his appearance in The Stinger is a more straight case.
    • Promotional material for Season 3 revealed concept art for Taurus Bulba. He is portrayed together with the now-real Darkwing and Gosalyn, suggesting he's not part of a Show Within a Show.
  • Running Gag:
    • In the one-minute shorts featuring Dewey's talk show, something will inevitably happen to cause time to run out and he states he will have to bump Flintheart Glomgold to the next night. This results in Glomgold, offscreen, yelling, "What?!"
    • Gyro Gearloose will try to get a Pep soda out of the dispensing machine, but will always have some sort of trouble, despite being a supposed technological genius.
    • Like most cartoons, characters constantly don Paper-Thin Disguises. Unlike most other cartoons, almost nobody is fooled by them (well, except Launchpad).
    • Characters will often do impressions of Scrooge, consistently using the phrase "Bless Me Bagpipes", something Scrooge himself has never actually said.
    • While a bit understandable in the first episode, Scrooge has trouble remembering Dewey's name even after being saved by him against Magica and during game night.
  • Same-Sex Triplets: Huey, Dewey and Louie, as always. However, they're easier to tell apart than in most incarnations, both in terms of appearance and personality.
  • Spared By Adaptation: In the Don Rosa continuity, Fergus McDuck, Scrooge's father and Donald's grandfather, died at the age of 67 in 1902, the same year Scrooge moved to Duckburg permanently, whereas Downy O'Drake, Scrooge's mother, died of illness five years earlier. In this continuity, they're both alive thanks to the druid stones Scrooge used when rebuilding Castle McDuck on Dismal Downs.
  • Scary Librarian: Ms. Quackfaster, the archivist of Scrooge's personal library who puts Dewey and Webby through a series of punishing "trials" and actually threatens them with a sword at one point while they're trying to find information on Della Duck.
  • Schizo Tech: Smartphones, GPS, and other modern technologies coexist with Polaroid cameras (used by Webby), pneumatic tubes, and card-index library catalogs. Notably, modern day technology is mostly used by Donald and the nephews, whereas old-fashioned technology is largely used by Scrooge, his employees and their relatives, so it might be a deliberate generation contrast.note 
  • Screaming Warrior:
    • Deconstructed in "Daytrip of Doom": Hewey, Dewey, Louie, and Webby are having a dart gun free for all, Dewey announces that he's gonna commence his assault, and Scrooge puts his foot down. Specifically, he does so to tell Dewey not to announce his assault, so he can keep the element of surprise.
    • Miss Quackfester is a justified example: she wants to intimidate Dewey and Webby with her screaming and sword-swinging.
    • Donald quacks his lungs out when he goes into an Unstoppable Rage mode. In "The House of the Lucky Gander", he makes a jade tiger disappear just by roaring at it from the top of his lungs.
  • Scout-Out: As usual for the Disney Ducks franchise, the Junior Woodchucks are a stand-in for the Boy Scouts. This time, Huey is the only triplet who is a member, although Launchpad is still the scout master. This series’ incarnation is unisex. Della herself is Junior Woodchucks alum. The organization has been unisex for at least two centuries now, as the early 19th century explorer Isabella Finch was a Woodchuck.
  • Secret Identity Vocal Shift: When Fenton transforms into Gizmoduck, his voice changes from meek and shy-sounding to heroic and powerful.
  • Seduction as One-Upmanship: Flintheart Glomgold tries to hit on Goldie O'Gilt just for the pleasure of taking something that once belonged to Scrooge.
  • Semiaquatic Species Sailor: In addition to Donald Duck, there are seagull and pelican sailors who frequent the Duckburg harbor.
  • Serious Business: Dartgun battles, at least to Webby. She boobytraps the hall, uses night-vision goggles, and ambushes the nephews from the ceiling. And there are no safe zones...
  • Setting Update: Zig-Zagged; A lot of the technology and fashion appears to be more modern or up-to-date, and has a new character, Mark Beaks, based on the idea of a modern billionaire, but at the same time, a lot of the vehicles and buildings aesthetically have a more classic flair to them, and said new character is shown driving a sports car across an 80s style grid backdrop in the opening, giving the setting a bit more of a Retro Universe feel.
  • Shared Universe: While occasionally implied before, the show gives the original Disney Afternoon shows more explicit continuity with each other, albeit with very reworked origins.
  • Shouldn't We Be in School Right Now?: Neither Webby nor the triplets are ever shown or mentioned attending school. Webby might be a justified case, since she would likely be homeschooled by Beakley. The triplets on the other hand, likely not (then again, with how overprotective Donald is of the boys, he might also be homeschooling them).
    • Issue 0 did mention that the boys go to school (or used to, due to the issue being a prequel).
    • Taurus Bulba lampshades the trope in "Let's Get Dangerous!" regarding Huey, though mainly because Huey is asking him a number of uncomfortable questions regarding the machine he is promoting.
  • Shown Their Work: Close-ups of the #1 Dime show that its design is based on the Mercury dime, which was struck from 1916 to 1945, and thus the likeliest candidate to be the US silver dime in circulation during Scrooge's earliest childhood in the new timeline.
    • Subverted, since Scrooge got his first dime in 1877. It's possible they hadn't decided on using this timeline when designing the dime.
    • Also, the tails side of the Number One Dime reads "10 cents", whereas most real-world dimes read "one dime". The "Capped Bust" dime (1809-1837) read "10 c", but also had an eagle figure above the text.
    • "The Rumble for Ragnarok" employs proper terminology of professional wrestling lingo, including "babyface" and "heel".
  • Show Within a Show:
    • The "Ottoman Empire", a reality show that Louie is fond of watching.
    • Launchpad's favorite television show is Darkwing Duck.
  • Skewed Priorities: The sneak peek for "Daytrip of Doom" has this Played for Laughs. When Scrooge finds his grandnephews and Webby playing an intense war game, he's completely fine with it, to Mrs. Beakley's dismay. However, when he finds Donald doing laundry in his bathroom, he finds that a serious offense and calls for a house meeting.
  • Sliding Scale of Idealism vs. Cynicism: Much like the original series, incredibly idealistic. With its light yet adventurous tone, heart, and themes of the importance of family, it remains faithful to the original series while also stepping everything up.
  • Snakes Are Sinister: Zig-Zagged by the Serpent of Solomon from Issue 7 of the comic. It is a dangerous snake spirit who attacks anyone dishonest and keeping secrets, but leaves them alone if they tell the truth (especially those who possess the Stone of Truth).
  • Soft Water: Exaggerated when Scrooge falls from a great height over his money bin; he saves himself by diving into his coinage as if it were a pool, which he does in other shows with great frequency.
  • Special Edition Title: A frequent staple in the series.
    • "Last Christmas!" has completely new, Christmas-themed lyrics for the theme song, beginning with "Life is like a candycane..." The instrumentals and vocalist are also changed to sound like a 1940s-era Christmas crooner, and there are falling snowflakes added to the animation.
    • In "GlomTales!" Stylistic Suck rules the day as Glomgold replaces the opening credits with his own.
    • "Astro Boyd" truncates the usual opening to just displaying the series name. In katakana.
    • "The Trickening" makes the opening credits spookier, along with a remixed version of the song.
    • "Let's Get Dangerous" also truncates the opening, having the title dyed Darkwing purple.
  • Speech-Impaired Animal: Donald, as per his classic voice which is canonically addressed as difficult to understand. Addressed in universe here.
  • Spiritual Successor: To Gravity Falls, due to the shows sharing key creative members and a similar madcap humor and adventurous tone.
  • Spoof Aesop: Of the Family-Unfriendly variety, as Louie is aghast that Webby didn't tell Mrs. Beakley she was going anywhere.
    Louie: Webby! That's irresponsible, she'll be worried sick! Call your grandma this instant and tell her that you are spending the night at a friend's house, okay? Lying: it's the responsible thing to do.
  • Squee: Webby utters one of these as a reaction to the family secrets contained in Fergus's and Downey's home in "The Secret-s of Castle McDuck!".
  • Starstruck Speechless: Webby, a Duck family history nut, ends up overwhelmed when she gets to meet Scrooge's parents. She doesn't snap out of it until they are on the car back home.
  • Stealth Pun: In one of the teaser shorts, Webby's character backstory is that of a Shellshocked Veteran who'd lost troops in Peking - making them Peking Ducks.
  • The Stinger:
    • At the end of "The Shadow War!", after Scrooge's extended family defeats Magica, Della Duck is seen alive and well on the moon.
    • At the end of "Moonvasion!", we cut to the Buzzards, revealing that they are the leaders of F.O.W.L., and have set their sights on Scrooge. It also confirms that Gandra Dee and Black Heron are still around and introduces Steelbeak and Rockerduck as more members.
  • Stock Ness Monster: They have yet to appear in the show proper, but they are listed among Webby's 30 favorite things in one of the advertisements.
  • Story Arc:
    • One of the first season's arcs focuses on the nephews trying to figure out exactly why Donald and Scrooge became estranged for ten years. Whatever it is, it has something to do with the nephews' mom, Della.
    • A second arc is focused on Webby's friendship with Lena, and Lena's conflicted loyalties between her friendship with Webby and her aunt Magica de Spell who wants her to obtain the #1 Dime to free Magica from the shadows, and Lena from Magica's control.
    • A third arc is the Superhero Origin of Gizmoduck and Fenton's move from underappreciated intern to official super hero.
    • The second season has the major arc which is the conflict between Glomgold and Scrooge coming to a head, with a winner-takes-all bet. This is undercut with Louie's personal arc, which is him deciding what does he want to do with his talents: ignore his potential and continue slack off, become an entrepreneur like Scrooge, a cheat like Glomgold or Rockerduck, or a con like Goldie.
    • The second season also has an arc diving into Della's history, how she survived the Spear and subsequently the Moon, and ultimately how she readjusts after finally returning. It also has leads into the Moonmen planning an attack on Earth.
    • The third season features three major arcs; the search for various hidden mysteries based on a newly-discovered journal of a famous explorer, the Duck family learning the true nature of F.O.W.L., and the triplets and Webby facing the fact that they are basically 'destined' to take over from Scrooge in terms of defeating monsters and hunting for treasure, forcing them to acknowledge the various ways in which they still need to grow and improve to reach Scrooge's level.
  • Strange Minds Think Alike:
    • As a Take That! to the way their previous incarnations were portrayed as Single-Minded Triplets, Lena sarcastically asks if Huey, Dewey, and Louie Speak in Unison. They deny it...by saying exactly the same thing. They then remark about how weird that was...by saying exactly the same thing. Frustrated, they try to break it. Even when the result being as expected is already strange (and funny) enough, what really hits the nail on the head is the fact the word all three choose happens to literally be one of the longest and most complicated in the English language!
      Huey, Dewey, and Louie, simultaneously: Antidisestablishmentarianism! Seriously?! GAH!
    • At the start of Season 1, when Scrooge is trying to come up with some entertainment for the triplets, he asks, "Do kids these days still play with marbles?" In the season finale, when Magica, pretending to be Lena, has to come up with an excuse to be in the mansion, she asks herself "What do kids like these days?" before coming up with "playing marbles".
    • Sky Pirate Don Karnage puts on a Paper-Thin Disguise consisting of a white lab coat over his regular outfit and a caterpillar as a mustache and introduces himself as a "plant scientist," fooling only Cloud Cuckoo Lander Launchpad. When he comes across the other sky pirates, one of them immediately asks "Who be you, some sort of plant scientist?"
  • Studio Episode:
    • The Season 2 episode "The Duck Knight Returns!" features Launchpad, Dewey, and Jim Starling (Darkwing Duck's original actor) trying to sabotage the production of an In-Universe Darkwing Duck reboot film bankrolled by Scrooge in an attempt to get Starling his job back...but it turns out that the new actor playing Darkwing, Drake Mallard, is an avid fan of the original show and wants to do the character justice. The film is cancelled after a battle between Starling and Mallard, with Mallard deciding to take up the mantle of Darkwing Duck for real, while Starling transforms into Nega-Duck.
    • Season 3's Quack Pack gives the cast an Out-of-Genre Experience due to a wish made by Donald by forcing them to participate in a sitcom based on their lives, complete with a live Studio Audience... which is composed entirely of humans.
  • Suddenly Bilingual: When Webby lies that her friend's Swedish-speaking uncle just arrived to get Mrs. Beakley off the phone, Launchpad (high on snake venom) falls next to her, grabs the phone, and starts spouting Swedish dialog.
  • Super Cell Reception: There's a running gag about Webby trying to reach her grandmother on the cell phone. Unfortunately, they're far under the sea in a sunken city... where it's basically impossible to have any kind of signal at all. She is using a satellite phone, which explains why she can get signals out in the middle of the sea, but not at the bottom of the ocean in the middle of a giant stone temple.

    T-Y 
  • Take That!:
  • Tell Me About My Father: Genderflipped version. Dewey wants anyone who has the knowledge to tell him about his mother until she returns midway through season 2.
  • The Tape Knew You Would Say That:
    • In "The Beagle Birthday Massacre" Lena does this with messages in bottles:
      Webby: [reading] "Webby. I've been kidnapped by the Beagle Boys." Wait, is this another prank? [she sees another message in a bottle and pulls it out to read] "This is not a prank. Lena."
    • Done more subtly in "GlomTales!". Della Duck grounds Louie, blocks his phone signal, and replaces all his videos with a lecture on ethics. When he switches to Huey's tablet, the video says "Nice try!" (fair enough, he'd only see that one if he used the tablet). Then, just when Louie gets frustrated and groans at the lecture, Della sighs, puts down the dictionary she'd been reading from, and turns to address him directly.
  • Theme Tuneless Episode: The episodes "Woo-oo!", "Whatever Happened to Della Duck?!", and "The Last Adventure!" skip the theme song and instead have the show's logo superimposed over the opening scene. In the case of "Woo-oo!", when shown in it's original hour-long format, the theme song plays at the start of the second half.
  • Therapy Is for the Weak: Averted. The B-plot of one episode deals with Dewey and Webby finding out that Donald goes to an Anger Management Therapist to keep his anger in check. When they confront the therapist about several things, like that Donald is still one of the angriest characters in the setting, said therapist points out (correctly) that the therapy isn't just about making him less angry, it's about helping him find useful outlets for that anger so he doesn't take it out on other people or things.
  • Those Wily Coyotes: Beauford Pluck from Issue 7 of the comic is an anthropomorphic coyote. As is his great grandson Beauford Pluck the Forth, who made Pluck City seem haunted by walking skeletons in order to keep intruders away.
  • Three Successful Generations: Huey, Dewey, Louie and Webby are the talented young kids with bright futures and ambitions to be great adventurers. Donald, Launchpad and Della are the adults who have made something of themselves, but are still striving to achieve higher goals - they also suffer the occasional setback now and then. Scrooge and Beakley are elders who have lived their lives to the fullest, and are now passing on their knowledge to the latest generation - Scrooge by taking his great-nephews on adventures, Beakley by training her granddaughter.
  • Throw the Book at Them:
    • In the “Meet Huey” promotional short, Huey knocks out Bigfoot by throwing the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook at him. If you look carefully, Huey consults the book before throwing it, implying that the guidebook instructed him to use it as a weapon.
    • In “The Great Dime Chase”, Dewey and Webby defend themselves against Quackfaster by throwing several books at her, the old librarian catching them all with ease.
    • In "Escape From the Impossibin!", Beakley throws three books at Webby. She manages to get them impaled in the wall.
  • Time Traveler's Dinosaur: Tootsie is a Triceratops who appears due to Time Travel much like in the original series, unlike the previous series though Tootsie is portrayed as a wild and dangerous animal.
  • Titanomachy, Round Two: After being stripped of his powers as punishment for abusing them, Zeus frees a titan in order to prove himself worthy to regain his place as King of the Gods. While he ultimately wasn't the one to defeat the titan, he still gets his power and position back at the end of the episode.
  • Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth: A luck-eating demon tries to eat Donald's luck after he beats Gladstone in a test of luck. Donald's luck is so terrible, the demon gets poisoned by it and loses all his powers. Which was what Scrooge was counting on.
  • Took a Level in Badass: Its subtly shown over the seasons that the triplets have slowly gained a few levels in badass after so many deadly adventures.
  • Toothy Bird: The bird characters will occasionally be portrayed with teeth, depending on the facial expression they make. Same goes for others that are normally toothless animals like toads. Furthermore, the ducks are shown brushing their teeth, and Della having a golden tooth is a minor plot point.
  • Truer to the Text:
    • The Carl Barks stories serve as a big influence, with almost every scene in the Title Sequence being a reference to his paintings.
    • Scrooge is finally being voiced by an actor who's actually Scottish.note  And Della finally makes an appearance in the cartoons.
    • Donald's personality and characterization in the pilot is far more faithful to the comics version by Carl Barks than any of his previous animated versions. In the original classic cartoons, Donald was unlucky and nearly perpetually angry. It was with Carl Barks that Donald's character developed more and resulted in a new core trait: his endless persistence. In the original Duck Tales he was a supporting character with a far softer and milder personality, unfaithful both to the Barks and classic Disney version. But this Donald is the perfect Adaptation Distillation: fussy, angry and temperamental but also caring and protective, unlucky but also determined.
    • The dynamic between Donald and Scrooge, emotionally estranged, more than a little hostile with the former resenting the latter's exploitative attitude is the first time we've seen their comics' dynamic translated into animation, since the first 1987 series and the few shorts that had them together (such as Mickey's Christmas Carol) had them being cordial and even respectful. Gladstone Gander is also shown with his much harsher and unlikable comics personality from the Barks comic translated on screen, compared to the milder take on the character in the original cartoonnote .
    • This is technically the first cartoon appearance of Emily Quackfaster. In the 1987 Cartoon, her character was made into a similar character with the name Mrs. Featherby. But here she has the name of her original character albeit an entirely different job and personality.
  • Tuckerization: Zan Owlson is named after Suzanna Olson, one of the show's producers.
  • Ultimate Job Security: Scrooge's employees don't have to worry about being fired it seems. Scrooge even tells the Buzzards that Gyro and Quackfaster would seek revenge if fired: Scrooge employs them to keep the rest of the world safe from their craziness.
  • Ultimate Universe: The show combines elements from the original series (such as Webby, Launchpad, Gizmoduck and Mrs. Beakley) with those from the original Disney Duck comics (such as Uncle Scrooge wearing red and having Donald getting involved in his uncle's adventures as well as wearing a black sailor suit), all the while throwing in original ideas (like making Flintheart Glomgold a Fat Bastard, Fenton being Latino) and new characters (Mark Beaks). By the second and third seasons, much of the Disney Afternoon has been added, with characters from TaleSpin, Darkwing Duck, Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, Goof Troop, its movies, and, of all things, The Wuzzles. Even the eponymous characters from Adventures of the Gummi Bears, Bonkers and Fluppy Dogs get briefly referenced. It's to the point where the creative team lovingly nicknamed it the "Disney Afternooniverse."
  • Uncatty Resemblance: One Recurring Extra takes this to the logical extreme and combines it with Furry Confusion: an old anthropomorphic pug lady with a non-anthropomorphic pug as pet.
  • Unrelated in the Adaptation:
    • April, May and June usually are portrayed as Daisy Duck's nieces. In the reboot however, Webby is revealed to be April who also is a clone of Scrooge McDuck while May and June themself are clones of Webby. That means they aren't related to Daisy at all.
    • Webby's changed background also means she isn't Beakley's biological granddaughter any more.
    • Ludwig von Drake is usually portrayed as being blood related to Donald Duck, mostly as his uncle. In the reboot however there are no signs of Ludwig and Donald being related in any way.
  • Vengeful Ghost: In the first episode, the triplets accidentally summon a Ghost Pirate coming for "Scrooge McDuck's head", implying that he's seeking revenge on Scrooge. The old duck defeats him by giving him the head of a statue of him, which makes the ghost vanish.
  • The 'Verse: While this started off as a Truer to the Text remake of Ducktales, what with introducing elements of TaleSpin, Goof Troop, Darkwing Duck, and Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, it looks to be evolving into a new incarnation of The Disney Afternoon, but all set inside one series.
  • Vile Vulture: The Board of Directors are anthropomorphic vultures who help Scrooge with his finances and running his company. In the show, the vultures act extremely thrifty and disapproving of Scrooge's adventurous lifestyle. The Season 2 finale reveals them as the head of F.O.W.L., looking to "save" the world from Scrooge and his dangerous adventuring.
  • Vocal Dissonance: The triplets, voiced by adult men, have voices a bit too deep for preteens. It's particularly noticeable in "Happy Birthday, Doofus Drake! when Louie interacts with Boyd, who's voiced by an actual preteen boy.
  • Wacky Startup Workplace: Deconstructed with Mark Beaks' workplace. On the surface it appears to be this, with trampolines, slides, and cool tech, but all of this is to distract employees from how much of a Bad Boss and Control Freak Beaks really is, and he prefers to breed a competitive working environment rather than a cooperative one.
  • Walking Spoiler: Della Duck. Donald's sister and the nephews' mother.
  • Walls of Tyranny: A variation occurs in "The Living Mummies of Toth-Ra", Pharaoh Toth-Ra had a number of his subjects, dubbed the Living Mummies form a hidden civilisation inside his pyramid deep in the darkness to carry on serving him in death. Their descendants still live there in the present, barely surviving and being completely dependent upon the Pharaoh to give them a few minutes of sunlight each time for the crops they need to survive.
  • Was It All a Lie?: When the kids find out that Lena was Magica's Living Shadow, and was in on her plot to steal the Number One Dime the whole time, Webby is distraught to think that they were never really friends. Lena's Heroic Sacrifice later proves otherwise, though, and her brief manifestation in Webby's shadow offers them a possibility to reconcile in the future.
  • Wham Episode: Found here.
  • Wham Line:
    • At the end of the first episode, Dewey pushes back the fallen part of the painting of Scrooge, Donald, and the ghost pirate to reveal a female duck fighting with one of the pirate's cronies. His response?
      Dewey: Mom?
    • The note Dewey and Webby find in "The Great Dime Chase": "Scrooge, I’ve taken the Spear of Selene. I’m sorry. Della."
    • The end of "The Beagle Birthday Massacre":
      Lena: Aunt Magica, I'm in.
    • Dewey and Webby meet the titular goddess in "The Spear of Selene!", who tells them this:
      Selene: I've never had a spear.
    • Combined with Wham Shot, at the end of "Beware the B.U.D.D.Y. System!":
      Mark Beaks: Gizmoduck... I must have him...
    • Also combined with Wham Shot, the end of "The Shadow War!" reveals a traveler who's hiding on the moon. It's Della Duck. She's still alive.
      The Traveler: [gasp] Boys!?
    • In “The Last Adventure!”, Bradford drops this bombshell while fighting Scrooge.
      Bradford: I’ve torn [your family] apart once before.
      Scrooge: What are you babbling about?
      Bradford: (Psychotic Smirk) How do you think Della found out you built the Spear of Selene?
      (Cue Scrooge launching into a rage)
  • Wham Shot:
    • At the end of the first half of the premiere, we finally get to see who Donald's job interview is with: it's Flintheart Glomgold.
    • In the end of the very first episode Dewey pulls back a piece of the painting featuring Donald and Scrooge fighting the pirate ghost and sees an image of a female duck atop the mast fighting one of his cronies. His shocked response is, "Mom?"
    • The ending of "The Great Dime Chase" has Gyro Gearloose taking notes for how to improve his robots, with the last shot showing his notepad concluding with something called "Project Blatherskite", alluding to the eventual creation of Gizmoduck.
    • The end of "Beware the B.U.D.D.Y. System!" has Mark Beaks vowing to get the Gizmoduck armor for himself, with ominous music in the background.
    • The ending of "The Shadow War!" Della Duck is still alive, and she's on the moon.
    • At the end of "The Duck Knight Returns!", Jim Starling's replacement as Darkwing Duck autographs Launchpad's poster with his real name: Drake Mallard.
      • Immediately followed by another one, when it's revealed that Jim Starling survived the explosion, and vows revenge on Drake Mallard, and becomes Negaduck.
  • Worf Had the Flu: Scrooge has temporarily thrown out his back on a number of occasions when he needed to be sidelined so another character can save the day. The most noteworthy being the "Rumble for Ragnarok" episode where Scrooge is sidelined for the majority of the episode so we can see the kids scramble to fill his shoes in preventing Ragnarok.
  • World of Funny Animals: As with the original, but with a wider variety of species. Instead of just ducks, pigs, and dogs, there's a whole menagerie of different animal characters making up the background population. Humans are nowhere to be seen, which is why the Ghost of Christmas Present was changed from a humanoid giant to an anthropomorphic pig wearing the same outfit.
    • Lampshaded in "Raiders of the Doomsday Vault!", where a video recording of Ludwig von Drake lists "...hyper-intelligent, hairless apes..." as a possible source of the apocalypse.
    • When the family got whisked into a sitcom variant of the mansion in "Quack Pack!", the live studio audience was made up of humans, to which the main characters found absolutely terrifying.
    Huey: What are these things?! Horrible flesh-faced monsters?!
  • Wrong Side All Along: Played for Laughs when the Moonlanders, who have been tricked into invading under the belief that they're preempting Earth's invasion of their home, overhear their defeated leader declaring he's going to destroy the planet (with all of them still on it) just to deny Scrooge the victory. They have a moment of shock before asking "Wait, are we the bad guys?" While they're raiding the fridge of an innocent family they've Bound and Gagged.
  • You Are Grounded!: Becomes a recurring motif in the last few episodes of Season 2. First, Doofus Drake's Extreme Doormat parents finally grow a spine and ground him when Boyd gives them half of Doofus's heritage so they're no longer dependent on his money. Then Della grounds Louie for nearly destroying all of time and space in "Timephoon!", and he spends almost all of "GlomTales!" trying to escape the punishment. Finally, in "Moonvasion!", the Ducks learn that Selene and Storkules are unable to do a Divine Intervention and stop the aliens because they've been grounded by Zeus.

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"Step-turn, step-turn..."

The episode opens with the Duck Family navigating an ancient temple. One of the traps includes perfectly-timed floor-to-ceiling arrow trap that Huey and Scrooge get through with perfectly timed steps.

How well does it match the trope?

5 (7 votes)

Example of:

Main / DeathTrapTango

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