New DuckTales Animated Series

Looks like it's finally time for the Tale Spin episode.

We open immediately on the Sea Duck, which looks oddly bulky. It's surprisingly hard to find an actual image from the show (so many toy replicas!), but the body and especially the landers look much bulkier here, and it just looks a bit odd to me.

Of course Kit is flying it (no Baloo unfortunately, thanks to rights issues), and he is being hailed by Don Karnage.

Yeah, I can't say I like this new voice for Kit. It doesn't sound right for the character, somehow. Maybe they should have made him sound more like Baloo. At least the new Don Karnage voice sounds reasonably like the old one.

Really hard to find clips from the original show at the moment, by the way. Ducktales is kind of hoarding all the top results right now.

Kit is carrying a cargo of chickens labeled F.O.W.L. Well, that can't be good.

"Buckle up, I haven't done this since the good old days, but I'm sure it will work just as well with a giant cargo plane, right?" Who is he talking to, Karnage or the audience? And why wouldn't he have done this since then? Clearly him and Karnage still do this on a regular basis, considering the total lack of surprise on Kit's part.

And why is he questioning if he can do that move, anyway? It's his plane, wouldn't he know already if he can do that? He's saying it like it is his first time behind the stick, which I doubt is the case, even in the old show.

Of course Kit shakes them off with no problem, and the FOWL crate bursts, revealing some blue glowing lion bust. Or it is made out of diamond or something.

I wonder if we will see actual gunplay in this episode. Tale Spin never shied away from that, but Ducktales is another matter entirely.

"Wow, I cannot believe that worked." ... Why? You clearly knew what you were doing there. And I'm pretty sure Baloo has done such manouvres countless times before. Why would you think that move would not work?

"Who's the terrible pilot now, everyone?" ... Who are you talking to? Who is saying Kit is a terrible pilot? And immediately my characterization alarm bells are ringing. Kit Cloudkicker, a terrible pilot? The same Kit who joined for the Sky Pirates when he was a child, and was an expert air glider pilot? And who was flying co-pilot with Baloo for years?How could he possibly be a terrible pilot? This rings very false to me.

And then the statue in the back turns the goat and chicken into a chimera, and Kit quickly dumps both from the plane.

Meanwhile, Dewey is learning how to fly the Sunchaser. Not sure how to take this. Are we still on the responsible parenting bandwagon, or is this now okay? I mean, it's not like Kit got to fly the plane all by himself as a kid, other than in an emergency maybe.

Then again, all he seems to be doing is keeping the plane level, which even Dewey thinks is overeasy.

Meanwhile Huey is reading about the Stone Of What Was (really resisting the temptation to write Stone of What What there), which conveniently is exactly the relic Kit was transporting.

What, Della is going to let Dewey land on his own? That seems a bit much for what appears to have been Dewey's very first flying lesson.

Of course Dewey doesn't like doing anything in a normal way, so instead he powerslides the plane next to the pier. And somehow pulls it off.

They arrive at Higher for Hire, which is now run by Kit. Who loves to brag about it, a lot.

"Now this is special." That sure was meta. But yes, that show was something else.

Apparently Della and Kit went to flight school together. That doesn't really make any sense. Why would Kit even need to go to flight school? Wouldn't he have learned to fly from Baloo? And he makes it sound like he was the sort of kid who thinks he was very cool but was actually really lame, which doesn't really ring true to Kit either.

"Uh, no, I grew out of that cloudkicking stuff." What? Really? What kind of lame characterization is that. That doesn't really seem like Kit at all.

"Besides, I became a pilot. An ace pilot. That's me. An ace pilot." Yech. Just the way he reads that line, especially the last part. He sounds like such a douchebag right there.

So of course Della asks about Molly, because clearly Della is just here to throw exposition dumps at. It feels a bit more artificial than the other cameos, which were allowed to happen more organically, rather than having one character question the cameo about his past like an overeager fangirl.

"Nailed it, I've always loved cloudkicking, or whatever it's called." What is it called? I don't really recall what it was named back then. This also seems like a Backstory of the Day, except that Dewey apparently doesn't even have a cloudkicking board, which he surely would have brought along otherwise. So, is this that trope, or is Dewey just exaggerating?

Of course Della is a bit disappointed with Dewey liking cloudkicking more than flying a plane, because he thinks being a pilot is boring. And apparently has never heard of stunt pilots, which is the obvious answer to "I want to fly in a more exciting way".

Kit keeps insisting he does a great job, which seems to argue the opposite. They're going to reveal he is a terrible pilot, aren't they?

"Oh, that, yeah. It was a long time ago." Wait, how does he know what it looks like. It was in a crate, and he didn't exactly have an opportunity to look at it. So how can he recognize this thing immediately, after (apparently) years.

Della asks for the flight log, but of course Kit doesn't keep one. Hasn't Molly taught him how to run a business? Why does he have the business anyway when he doesn't know how to run one? And it was Rebecca's business, not Baloo's, so shouldn't Molly have inherited it, if anything?

And Della immediately writes off the Sea Duck as a wreck, apparently. How she can tell is beyond me. It looks fine from the outside... until some random panel spontaneously pops off. Would have been a good idea to demonstrate the sorry state of the plane before that line; now Della comes off as a bit of a jerk.

Of course the Sunchaser is sinking, for no particular reason. I mean, Dewey landed it pretty much perfectly, and there was nothing to indicate that it was damaged. It just... spontaneously broke.

Why not have Dewey actually crash the plane while showboating? Then he could learn a lesson about safe flying, or something, which I guess is what the episode wants to go for. Then there would be some actual drama between Dewey and Della over wrecking her plane. Instead, Della doesn't seem to be all that upset, and the plane just sort of breaks down on its own. Now it just feels like a shoehorned excuse to get Kit involved in the plot, rather than Kit's involvement naturally following on Dewey wrecking the plane. Maybe even have him crash into the pier, so Kit has some actual beef in the game as well over them damaging his property, insisting he come along to find the treasure so he can be recompensated for the damage.

It's weird how afraid of interpersonal conflict this show is at times.

Kit is flying irresponsibly, using a crowbar as his co-pilot. How the crowbar corrected that turbulence dive is beyond me. Cartoon, I guess. Even though at the same time the episode wants us to think he is being dangerous. So... is it dangerous, or not? I guess for the moment... it is? Della is yelling about having to be the responsible one, at least. Though you never know, this show will change its mind about how realistic it wants to be about this at a moment's notice. They'll avoid any actual consequences through cartoon physics soon enough, you wait.

Also, Kit has the location marked on a map, despite saying earlier he didn't know where he lost it because he doesn't keep any logs. So... is he lying about it? Or is it just sloppy plotting?

So of course Kit immediately decides to teach Dewey how to air surf, when Dewey can't even keep balance on the board while it is laying still on the ground. And of course Dewey handles this perfectly. I mean, the episode wnats us to believe he is struggling, but he's standing up on that board, holding on to the tether just fine, even catching the board without thinking as he falls off. In other words, he is doing improbably well, all things considered.

And of course Don Karnage is there, right on cue. Apparently FOWL hired him to retrieve the stone thingy. Not sure why they didn't go after it much earlier, especially considering Kit clearly knew where it was.

Kit tells Dewey to throw off the pirates with some stunts, but of course Dewey can't, so Kit takes over. The pirates cut the rope, though, and they plummet to the water. And then Kit just grabs the wing and lands on the water.

They both wash up on the island, and Della immediately (and I do mean immediately) lands behind them on the coast, with no pirates in sight. Uh, yeah. Don't ask how she lost the pirates, especially since they were hot on her tale and apparently within sight of the island. Once again, an episode just resolves something off screen without so much as a comment, no matter how implausible it seems. There is simply no way Della could have lost the pirates and landed the plane on the coast within the time it took Kit and Dewey to reach the island. And besides... they made us miss a cool fight scene between Della and the pirates. But I guess the episode doesn't care about that. This is all about Dewey's rivalry with Karnage, after all. Can't have Della butt in on that.

"Any chance you remember where on the island you dropped it?" "Yeah, I didn't even know there was an island here." ... Then how did you know where to mark it on that map? He's very obviously lying here, but apparently Della doesn't call him out on it, even though she clearly saw the map earlier. The episode even went out of its way to point that out, so I'm not sure what's up with that.

Is it me, or does Kit sound a bit like a boy version of a Valley Girl? He kinda talks like a teenager too.

And then they run into a chimera gorilla/rhino. Clearly this island is full of them thanks to the statue.

Those tracks make no sense, by the way. It has a wide hoof-like middle toe with a splayed out finger circle on each side, with a clear nail edge on the middle toe, but when we see the animal's foot right after, it has three identical ape-like toes that run parallel and have no nail running to the ground, which clearly can't match the track. It's possible the tracks are not from that animal, but the way the scene plays out, you expect the trail and the beast to be related.

They run away, and Della throws Kit's board at the monster, making it cartwheel back into a cliff. That was rather cartoony for this show.

Oh, and the board is a boomerang now. Okay. Not sure if that's how it always worked or not.

Kit notes it's just like the chicken-goat from earlier.

"But where did it come from?" I think Kit just told you, Huey. Aren't you paying attention? Can't you put two and two together that this is related to the treasure, which you were actually reading about earlier, I might add? Man, and he's supposed to be the smart one.

Meanwhile, the pirates have already found the stone... which was just lying there. Well, that sure is convenient. Maybe a little too convenient, to be honest. At least show them searching for a bit, or something. This seems altogether too easy.

Oh, and of course the Ducks immediately stumble onto them just as they are about to leave with the stone. You can have some narrative coincidences, but this just stretches belief a little too far. It's like the characters are just teleporting from scene to scene to where they need to be. I don't feel like they're organically arriving where they need to be for the story to happen.

And I suspect that this part was re-edited from an earlier version, where the pirates didn't meet the Ducks in the sky at all. That explains why Della doesn't shake off or even notices the pirates (notice that she never comments on them once she lands), why she seems to arrive just as Dewey and Kit wash up on shore, and why this is never commented on again. I think the original scene was just them landing on the island, getting out of the plane together (or perhaps with Della landing with Kit and Dewey still outside, which would explain why they got in the water, without realizing they were outside at all), and then searching for the stone, finding it just as the pirates had found it, which would be the pirates' first appearance in the episode. That would seem like a pretty natural progression, but I guess the creators wanted a bit more of Karnage, so they added in his bit where he cuts the rope, which I'm guessing didn't happen in the original.

Which is well and good, but it leaves this sequence a bit of a mess, with Karnage coming in to cut the rope but seemingly not doing anything else and just disappearing right away without Della noticing, and apparently getting ahead of the Ducks somehow, despite not even knowing where to search.

Anyway, Karnage orders one of the pirates to pick up the stone, which merges her with an ant. And then it merges the other pirates with other animals as well, but this scene happens a bit too quickly, and it seems weird the pirates would keep touching the stone after the first transformation, in such rapid succession.

I'm also not sure what the rules on those transformations are. Some just make what you'd expect from a chimera, but others don't make any sense at all, like two pirates merging into one pirate with three arms and a fourth arm for a head (which can still scream, somehow), or a pirate with a parrot head, with a human head inside the parrot head. It's a weird range of normal chimeras to random mix and match critters.

I'm not sure why Karnage is so blase about all this.

"Alright, what was eight pirates is now just four pirate abominations, much easier." I'm not sure about that. I'm counting seven pirates, including Karnage; the big woman, the gruff-looking pilot guy, one-eyed yokel (who disappears out of a shot at one point), white dog-face, stripey shirt, and gold tooth guy. There are eight flashes of transformation, but we see only four results: big woman with the ant, one eye with stripey, white dog face with a snail, and gold tooth with a parrot. Karnage doesn't get transformed, so that leaves four transformations and two pirates unaccounted for, one of whom I don't think I've seen. So assuming those other two got transformed as well, that would make for six pirate abominations, with two transformations not accounted for, as we've run out of pirates at this point. In short, Della's line doesn't make sense, and neither does what we see on screen.

Editor!

And then Della decides to climb down the cliff to take a closer look, because... reasons. It's not like they couldn't see what was going on from up there. And why climb down the cliff instead of finding an easier way down? Of course she immediatley gets stuck on some sticky cocoon thing, so she can be in peril and in need of saving, which seems to be the main purpose of that scene. Because of course this episode needs to be about the kids, and Della can't have any agency in this story.

Kit and Dewey want to save Della with theatrics, while Huey thinks this is dumb and needlessly reckless. Of course they try anyway.

I'm getting constant vibes from Kit here that he is all talk and no action, which I'm not sure why they are going with that. He comes off as a bit of a loser, to be honest.

Dewey just plummets down the cliff in front of Karnage, who was apparently right in front of the cliff but couldn't hear them talking rather loudly a second ago.

I wish Karnage would stop going on about Dewey being "his greatest nemesis", because no, no he's not, and it feels a bit insulting to Baloo, who was much more of a consistent thorn in Karnage's side. I don't feel Dewey has earned that title of greatest nemesis with Karnage. Once again, this idea feels like what a fanfic writer would do: in these Karnage episodes, Dewey functions as something of a Marty Stu, immediately supplanting the original hero of the universe as the greatest enemy of the show's villain. And now he's also the hero's best friend, who is suddenly much less cool than in the original to allow for the new character to steal the spotlight, another typical Marty Stu trait.

So Dewey is captured, and Kit teleports into a pirate plane (seriously, how could he possibly have done that so quickly?), but immediatley crashes it, because Kit is a loser now, and it isn't his show any more.

And then a bear with butterfly wings gets out of the cocoon. Wait, does that mean the bear got combined with a caterpillar before? Wonder what that looked like.

Oh yeah, Wuzzles. Right. Well, I watched a few episode snippets (all that I could find, really), and this is not at all like the Wuzzles, beyond the superficial concept of chimerical creatures, which you hardly need the Wuzzles for. This seems like a waste of a cameo to me. I feel sorry for any Wuzzles fans for being fobbed off with them just being mindless monsters. Feels kinda mean from the creators.

"Dewey and Kit have created a bear with flight to attack me. How could they know I was afraid of both bugs and bears?" Why does Karnage think Dewey and Kit created the bear bug? He's seen how the stone works now, and it is perfectly clear the bear bug was already there before they arrived, so why does he think Dewey and Kit created it? That doesn't make any sense.

Also, you know, Della is right there, but apparently she's not worth commenting on. What, is she invisible to Karnage or something? Perhaps it's mutual, she doesn't seem to acknowledge him either. To her, he's just another pirate.

Oh, there's the last pirate, pilgrim hat girl. She doesn't seem to be transformed. Neither is gruff pilot guy. And eyepatch seems to be normal again, or is that someone else? But then there would be nine pirates, not eight. This episode can't keep its own details straight, it seems. Again: editor!

As an aside, we're two thirds of the way in, and still no Molly. Wasn't she supposed to be in this episode? Also, not a word about how Kit got Higher for Hire, or what happened to Baloo and Rebecca. Clearly the episode doesn't really care about that kind of details.

Della and the butterfly bear (missed chance to call it a Butterbear, by the way) fly off, and the pirates give chase. The flying bear is suddenly oddly docile with Della flying on its back and being chased by planes.

Dewey and Huey bicker over how to save Della, with Dewey saying that anyone can just fly a plane straight. And then Kit admits that he can't actually fly a plane. Yeah, that's just complete bunk. This kid was a co-pilot for Baloo, and I'm pretty sure has taken the controls plenty of times. There's no way he would not know how to fly a plane, let alone perform the simplest task of flying straight in calm weather. And saying his crowbar does most of the flying is just some weird nonsensical excuse.

"Listen, kid, I gave up the thing I was special at because I thought I was expected to do something else." Wait, what? But it was his childhood dream to be a pilot like Baloo. The cloud surfing thing was just something he was good at, but it was not his main driving passion: flying was. This kid ran away to be with sky pirates so he could fly. He was a co-pilot for Baloo, not because he had to, but because he wanted to become a pilot. Why is the episode suddenly treating flying as a dead end job for Kit? That doesn't fit his character at all.

"But you are great at cloudkicking, and you are great at flying." Uh... he is? Since when? I don't think this show has done enough to demonstrate Dewey's talent for flying for this moment to work.

So... Dewey's special talent here is... flying the plane steady. Okay, even if that's what we're going with,t hat still seems a bit unimpressive. Feels a bit mundane for a "shine at what you're good at" moment.

So Dewey flies the plane... very straight, I guess, while Kit does all the cool action stuff.

"I cannot keep it steady with all this extra weight." It's actually not that hard to keep a plane steady with someone on the wing once it is flying. Or is this supposed to be a fat joke at the expense of Kit?

"Hey, I'm perfectly proportionate for a bear my size." Oh, it is a fat joke. Wonderful.

... Why is the bear sort of pawing at Della. Also, it has claws. Why doesn't it use them on the ropes?

So Della cuts the stone loose, and it drops on top of the Sea Duck (somehow not punching a hole straight through it), and Dewey has to balance it on the nose of the plane, because... that's his arc for the episode, I guess. I'm honestly not sure if the episode is playing this straight or making fun of itself at this point.

"You're well past your prime, it's pathetic." He doesn't look a day older than Baloo. Where is this coming from? Kit is obviously very much in his prime. If anyone should be past his prime, it would be Karnage, who should be much older than he looks here.

"I'm doing it because I love it, and I'm great at it." As opposed to piloting, I guess, which you suddenly never loved at all.

Also, where is this idea coming from that cloudkicking is something only for kids? I never got that impression from the old show. I always took it as the show's version of surfing, which is very much a sport for adults as well as kids. And it's not like it is something only kids could do, as Kit is clearly demonstrating here.

There's an unspoken implication of childishness around cloudsurfing here, but honestly, it is basically jet skiing... behind a plane. I don't see the childishness in that, and I don't get why the episode is going for that angle here.

Kit busts the tail of Karnage's plane with his crowbar, and it spins out and crashes in the ocean. And of coruse he survives this, as well as his plane, which bobs on the water like it's a toy.

A Fter that, Dewey picks up Della, who jumps on the plane. And can stand on the wing despite going at full speed. And I guess the Butterbear is tame now. Not because of any interactions with the main characters or antyhing: it just becomes docile spontaneously. I think that would have worked better if the episode had shown Della bonding with the beast in some way.

"Be free, my noble friend." Very nice, but again, it doesn't really feel earned, because Della and the bear haven't really interacted at all. The bear was angry until it flew off, then was suddenly docile, and now is suddenly tame and friendly to Della, but it doesn't feel like it grew out of any connection between the two. It feels like the episode is following the story beats of this sort of befriending-the-wild-animal plot without putting in the work of actually showing Della befriending the bear. And ultimately that lack of work makes the moment feel rather hollow and unearned.

Kit returns to the plane and fist bumps Huey. Not sure why. I don't think these two even interacted before this moment. Have they even exchanged lines? Why are they having this congratulatory bro moment now? Again, it feels like a narrative pay-off to something that was never really established in the first place.

"I gotta admit, I think I've finally figured out my thing." You have? I didn't really realize that was even a question before this episode. I thought Dewey's thing was being an adventurer, like Scrooge. And has he ever shown any interest in actually flying before now? This seems to come a little out of nowhere. I'm guessing they just wanted a "following in your footsteps" moment for Della with one of her kids.

Oh, there's Molly. And she's in her Danger Woman costume. What was this episode trying to say about growing out of childish passtimes again? Did she seriously go into town dressed like that?

Also, Molly has the same body shape as her mom. Which is to say, skinny and curvy. Because she is a girl, of course. Talk about double standards on body image... Wasn't this show just having a line about Kit having a perfectly normal body for a bear? Then what is Molly supposed to be? She is a bear too, after all. Shouldn't she have a perfectly healthy amount of body fat too, then, like Kit?

It's kinda weird that a male bear can be fat because bears are fat, but a female bear must be skinny and curvy because women are skinny and curvy. Rather old-fashioned, too. To say nothing of sexist.

And Molly bought out Kit's company, because that's what Becky did with Baloo. Only now it doesn't make any sense, because how would Kit have gotten ownership of the business over Molly? And it's clearly not because Molly didn't care for it, because she is bold enough to basically buy out her childhood friend.

Which seems like a real dick move, by the way. It made sense for Becky and Baloo because they didn't know each other beforehand, and it was just business for Becky, but here it feels rather like a betrayal on Molly's part to just buy out her friend's business without so much as telling him. That's not how good friends should treat each other.

I also don't get Molly's apparent obsession with Danger Woman. That was a game she played when she was six, but it didn't feel like her defining character trait. Neither did cloudkicking for Kit, by the way. Which really seems to be a main problem for this cameo (and a recurring problem for the show as a whole, come to think of it): reducing characters to their most flashy, recognizable character traits. Or perhaps to the thing the writers happened to remember about the old show.

Molly makes an offer to let Kit be her sidekick as cloudkicker, and there's another fat joke. This episode is... low key kinda mean about fat people.

Meanwhile, Karnage is floating at sea, wondering if this is the end. But then he finds a piece of magic rock, and the proclaims this is the beginning of an encore, no doubt meaning he will return for the finale.

Well, that was a bit of a letdown, to be honest. Kit's characterization didn't feel very true to his original portayal at all, and Molly only made a token appearance. Both characters were also a bit flanderized into The One Thing Everyone Remembers About The Old Show, and I feel that was hardly necessary.

I find it a bit ironic that between Tale Spin and the Rescue Rangers, the latter had the better cameo, precisely because they didn't have any dialogue and only had a few quick scenes. It forced the creators of the show to cleave closer to the original depiction, which I feel works in the cameo's favour, whereas here they had enough leeway to make changes, as it turns out for the worse.

The Wuzzles cannot be considered a worthy cameo, I think, even with what little I know of that show. It just feels a bit odd to turn sentient characters into wild beasts, and that doesn't seem to do justice to the original.

The plotting also wasn't all that strong. Scene changes feel too much like the characters just teleporting around to where they need to be for the plot at times, and the main scene on the island seems to have been altered at some point, leaving some seams where it has been put back together.

The backstory for Kit hasn't been worked out enough, which feels unsatisfying for fans of the old show, and was needed considered how involved the cameo was, especially with the explicit time skip from that show. The cameo demanded a transitional backstory that we just didn't get.

Character interaction was also rather weak. Several characters just didn't interact at all, most notably Karnage and Della, who seemed to consistently not even notice each other. At least Della did get a bit more to do here, though she still clearly (and too strongly) plays second fiddle to the kids.

Also, why did this turn into a Dewey story? Isn't this season supposed to be about Huey's development? But Huey gets next to nothing to do in this episode. All he does is read about the treasure and tell Dewey and Kit to stop doing things they're bad at (which doesn't really feel like a great message to begin with; what about learning to get better at what you want to do?), which could easily have been done about Della. Nothing about it is particularly about Huey. He does have a moment with Kit, but this feels out of nowhere because the two have barely interacted at all.

I'm confused why Dewey needed to be the centre of this episode. Him wanting to be a pilot seems to come out of nowhere, or at least doesn't feel very relevant to the character. It just feels like Dewey is somewhat of a Creator's Pet for the show. And on top of that, they never really seem to have known what to do with Huey.