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Ducktales Volume Three DVD Review

Reviewed: 12/08/2009

Another Day; Another Disney DVD Review.....


Welcome kiddies; it's time for another Disney Television Animation DVD Box Set Review and this time we review the third volume in the critically acclaimed DTVA series; Ducktales. Ducktales has been for the most part; one of the funnest rides I have had since TaleSpin. So how did the DVD set do compared the episodes themselves? Read on and find out.....

The DVD Box

Like all Disney DVD multiple disc sets the set comes in a cardboard box with a sleeve insert on the right side. The top, side and top front of the box has a blue kilt background which blends into green onto the bottom sides of the box. On the top front there is the Disney logo and the Ducktales logo below it along with volume three printed in yellow letters below the “ales” portion of the Ducktales logo. Below that is the yellow/orange trim and a picture of Scrooge and the nephews posing which is similar to the ones used in the previous Ducktales DVD sets. That's a little confusing to me. Below the picture and trim into the green background; there is the number of discs and the number of episodes printed in a slant along with the Disney DVD logo on the bottom right. It looks pretty sloppy for some reason. Oddly enough; the Canadian Home Video G rating sticker is on Scrooge's left foot. It usually is placed at the back of the disc and it looks like they tacked it on for no rhyme or reason. The left side of the box contains the Disney DVD logo in white on top, the side Disney logo, Ducktales logo and volume 3 written in white letters in the center. The stock number and a picture of Launchpad's head covers below. This looks fine in itself and pretty clean. The back of the box has the blue background on top; but the kilt effect is gone for some odd reason. The smaller version of the same logos from the top front are placed on the top left side and the ISBN number and bar code is on the top right. Below is the orange/yellow trim which only appears on the top and doesn't match the front side. The three pictures in the middle are television shots from Time Is Money Part One, All Ducks on Deck and Duck In The Iron Mask. The Duck In The Iron Mask shot is a little blurry; but the rest of the shots are fine. Below that is a vanilla background containing the summary below the pictures which is a fair and reasonable summary for the most part. On the left below the summary is a picture of Scrooge from Duck To The Future (check the Magica' holder for the dime) and to his right there are the tech specs, the websites; the usual logos, the total running time (546 minutes) and the usual legal crap is on the bottom in fine print. It is considered a 2007 release which is pretty much the last time we SAW DTVA sets sold before Disney decided to ditch it due to low sales in their DVD division; more so DTVA sets.

My Rating on the DVD Box: **** – There is a little more sloppiness than usual in the box cover; but it is still solid enough.

Disc One:

The disc cover use thin plastic cases similar to all Disney DVD's which use multiple discs. On the top of the front of the cover it shows the Disney logo on top of the Ducktales logo and the volume number in smaller letters below the Tales part of the Ducktales logo. Below the picture on the left side there is a volume number and disc number. I can understand the disc number being there; but the volume number is overkill in my view. It is on a weird slant for some odd reason and the Disney DVD logo is on the right side. For disc one; the background is light blue with orange/yellow trim in between the picture which is from Duck In The Iron Mask showing Scrooge talking to the nephews in their baseball uniforms along with Launchpad. The side of the disc is almost exactly the same as the box cover minus the small picture on the bottom replaced by the disc number and some color changes to the Disney DVD logo. The back of the disc uses more white in the background and shows a small version of the front logo on the top left side and then disc one is shown on the top right below the two proofs of purchase stubs which you could never remove from the label. Just below the logos there are three pictures and I'm happy to say that there are no animation errors to be found on the discs as well as they are from either the opening or from the correct episodes on the discs (the top left one is from Duck In The Iron Mask, the right one is from Launchpad's First Crash). Unlike the next two discs; the television shots are really clear.

Below the pictures is the summary which makes little sense since The Status Seeker had nothing to do with exploring an underwater world filled with octopi or crabs and the Jungle Duck was average at best. Duck To The Future and the Uncrashable Hindentanic are better choices for summaries. Dewey's baseball cap is to the left of the summary and below that is Dewey jumping into the air pumping his fist. Beside him is a explosion saying that there is over three hours of feather flying fun. Well; they are right about the fun; just not the feathers flying. The cartoon selection is to the right and below that is the same trim from the front (which doesn't seem to match the back properly). Underneath that there is the address and to the bottom right; there is the DVD logo, the Walt Disney Entertainment logo and if you are in Canada; the Canadian Home Video rating which is G (In Amercia; the set is not rated at all). Inside the disc cover; there is the usual four triangle punch out that I still don't like. The disc itself shows the same picture as the front; but it is lighter and is missing Launchpad completely. The Ducktales logo is even more sloppy onto the trim than before. The left side contains all the information as the back of the box including the stock number andf the bottom edge of the disc contains the address and copyrights. The total running time for Disc One is 182 minutes; the same as the rest of the discs.

Episode Rants For Disc One:

Ducktales - Duck To The Future Rant- Even Scrooge knew the meaning of content and values; why doesn't Eisner and Iger?

Ducktales - Jungle Duck Rant- Welcome to The Jungle; We Love Ducks and Games!

Ducktales - Launchpad's First Crash Rant- At least in theory...

Ducktales - Dime Enough For Luck Rant- With Friends Like Gladstone; Who Needs Enemies?!

Ducktales - Duck In The Iron Mask Rant- Aren't There Laws Against Using Agony Booth Bad Writers As Cartoon Writers?!

Ducktales - The Uncrashable Hindentantic Rant- Don't Give Launchpad Any More Incentive Than He Already Has.

Ducktales - The Status Seekers Rant- I'm Seeking The Status Of Master Ranter.

Ducktales - Nothing To Fear Rant- Except For Richard Merwin Writing This Episode.

My Thoughts:

Like all Disney DVD's before it; the first discs runs mostly Disney ads for the time it was released on future releases. There is also a menu option to see those ads as extras. The Ducktales menus are simple and use mostly footage from the television series; only they have been cleaned up further and sometimes look out of place at times. Like all Ducktales DVD sets; there are 5 chapter stops per episode which is nice of course. The picture quality and sound quality are still pretty good in spite of the show's age (although there is some blur and normal wear and tear in places). And like all Disney DVD sets; the episodes themselves are from the second run in syndication, but have not been edited to Toon Disney standards. So any gun pointing and shooting that happens in these episodes; actually happens in these episode. However; some dialog and scenes were likely edited from Time Is Money and Super Ducktales since their second syndication run (according to Chris Barat).

As for the episodes themselves; the first disc is in the middle of the disc quality order. The best episode was The Uncrashable Hindentantic which was the ultimate balloon ride with chaos, destruction, Flint acting like a Middle Eastern terrorist, Scrooge flirting with destruction to his reputation and of course the always funny Gloria Swansong and her Z-Grade acting skills. The episode promised a lot and it delivered in spades as Irwin got his movie, Launchpad got to crash a blimp, Gloria got her career back and Scrooge got to barely screw Flint out of a bet. I even laughed as Mrs. Beakly getting her just rewards for dressing up as Elmer Fudd. Only a few minor logic breaks prevented a perfect *****. Duck To The Future had only a few logic breaks (and some coloring mistakes from Wang) and it was Magica screwing Scrooge out of his lucky dime and showing the consequences as to why Scrooge protects the dime in the first place. The nephews acting like sick heels who took bad advice and don't get the importance of content and values. And of course; I really liked the prospect of Webby (being the telephone operator no less) and Doofus getting married and no matter how much they deny it; it's going to happen like Baloo and Rebecca marrying no matter how much Jymn Magon wants to deny that. This is basically a funny story about the importance of making and keeping customers in business.

Then we got Gladstone's debut in Dime Enough For Luck who was still funny in spite of the toned down nature of his character (for being too nice as Chris would say); and Magica Despell tearing down the house like she only can. I also love the irony of Scrooge blowing off Gladstone's love for using luck when Scrooge uses his lucky dime as a good luck charm. Gladstone of course learned nothing; but it worked since Scrooge wasn't a good teacher when it came to luck anyway. Again; a few silly logic breaks in that one. I think the Status Seekers is one of the few episodes in DTVA history that completely blew a TaleSpin plotline completely out of the water which in this case was My Fair Baloo. While the Status Seekers themselves were lower than the snobs in My Fair Baloo; the Charles UpStuck and Snobby Beagle Boy angle was really good for the most part. The only things I didn't like were some of the silly logic breaks with the tracking device and the deux ex machina jellyfish. Scrooge also got the business lesson in knowing your customer.

Nothing To Fear was downright nasty with the pathos near the point where Magica Despell uses red herring to get Scrooge and the nephews to turn on each other. While the pathos didn't completely catch; it was really close though. I didn't like the writing out of Doofus (nor Duckworth) from the facing fears angle and the whole thing would have been even more convincing (and more so to the audience) if Richard had waited until after Scrooge and the nephews figured it out who was doing this and make the pathos more nastier than they already were. I think it was a case of BS&P stepping in and toning it down out of fear for children. Launchpad's First Crash was a big disappointment in my view since a lot of the episode didn't make any sense to me (the tipping point was flying to the center of the earth) and Scrooge's acting stupid for most of it seemed to be for padding time and it hurt the character a lot. The man VS. woman thing was just there to suck and mostly it was Launchpad carrying that episode kicking and screaming. Grunta didn't help matters much either. It did have a really good ending though and Wang Films' animating was solid. Jungle Duck was just another middling episode with a cool death trap and an okay Tarzan character in Greydrake; but the story line was lacking in places. The whole evil uncle thing came out of nowhere and pretty much went the same place despite having a really cool character design. Everything else was standard Ducktales protocol. Finally; the biggest disappointment in my view was Duck In The Iron Mask (which I still stand by my review of it in spite of the counter review done by Chris Barat.) since I used to like it as a kid and I think I'll let my Review Line explain it for me:

Normally; I would explain the whole episode in a nutshell; but I cannot explain why this episode was ever created. The whole Dewey is mad because he looks like his nephews just came out of nowhere because they seemed to have no issue with it beforehand. This sounded like a response to movie critic Roger Ebert than anything else that could have been entertaining. Count Ray was a complete moron and I knew it was him the very moment I saw him instead of Count Roy due to his taller mustache and Arte Johnson voice. Couldn't it hurt to hire Maurice as Count Ray and make the scene with Count Roy and Scrooge in the prison tower be more memoriable and make me care about it? And why protect the nephews by putting them in a guest room? It only led to a plan by Dewey that broke logic (and they admitted that it was a break which makes it worse) with the mirrors (like nothing was going on when the mirrors were in clear view right?) and it just made the episode go on and on. This all killed Count Ray's heat right out of the starting gate. And personally; I wanted to see Ray get the iron pants and Roy was too much of a bouncing babyface to do it. He didn't have to put him in prison. Just make him wear the pants. That would have fitting. I don't know if that is a BS&P decision; or Glut is a total idiot. On the other hand; Pietro saved this episode from DUD/Negative Star status as he proved to be a really good slimy heel. Count Roy was actually fine as well as Scrooge and Launchpad. Also; despite the stupidity; there were not a lot of logic breaks and the animation was dead on which is a plus for Wang Films. Overall; this episode was a tale of two extremes; terrible premise, solid story, terrible punishment, good finish, lame ending. And that hurt any chance for this episode to be even average as the whole Dewey angle was causing problems for me to accept as a viewer. - My rant from Duck In The Iron Mask.

My Rating for Disc One: **** – Other than one really interesting thumbs down episode and a few disappointments from Launchpad's First Crash; this disc set is pretty solid. Even more so if you liked Duck In The Iron Mask which I didn't sadly.

Disc Two

The second disc has a yellow orange background with a picture of Scrooge being all wet on the dock with the nephews having the map from Time Is Money episode one on the front and the actual disc (minus the nephews with the map.). The back of the disc contains Louie standing with his hands behind his back and more television shots in the middle. The far left one is from the television opening; the remaining ones are from All Ducks On Deck. The shots look a bit blurry; but good enough. The total run time for this disc is 182 minutes long.

Disc 2 Episode Rants

Ducktales - Doctor Jekyll & Mr. McDuck Rant- Welcome to bad Saint Hallow Eve's Pranks Mr. McD!

Ducktales - Once Upon A Dime Rant- There was a future WildCat named Scrooge....

Ducktales - Spies In Their Eyes Rant- Welcome Back To Hell; Seaman Donald Duck!

Ducktales - All Ducks On Deck Rant- Enter the Phantom Blot!

Ducktales - Ducky Horror Picture Show Rant- Where is Tim Curry THE EVIL ONE when you need him...?!

Ducktales - Till Nephews Do Us Part Rant- If Anyone Objects To This Wedding; Please Shoot Scroogie Now Or Forever Hold Your Peace...

Ducktales - Time Is Money Part One: Marking Time Rant- The Story Arc That Made Ducktales Jump The Shark.

Ducktales - Time Is Money Part Two: The Duck Who Would Be King Rant- I Think We Finally Found Johnny Bravo's Soul Mate.

My Thoughts:

This disc is probably the best disc of the entire set and one of the best discs in the entire collection of DVD sets I have done for Disney DVD's. There are no thumbs down episodes to be found and there are three straight episodes that have *****. The weakest episode is Doctor Jekyll & Mr. McDuck (at *** ¼) which was just another Scooby Doo like episode which lost the suspense the moment Shedlock Jones showed the picture of Moody Doody and it become obvious that he was Jack The Tripper. Shedlock reminded me too much of Drake Mallard, the pratfalls were really silly and contrived and the logic of the perfume was wonky to say the least. Spies In Their Eyes was an average Ducktales love in with a good heel in Cinnamon Teal and of course Donald Duck being a zombie; but Cinnamon got McGruffin when her charges were never really cleared and I found the whole Grimitz court martial to be a complete joke considering the fetish of Grimitz's when things go kabooley. Once Upon A Dime is the origin story of Scrooge's life (at least in the Ducktales world) which had a really good 12-14 minutes of story; but the remainder of it was glossed over (even more so his Klondike days) and it felt like the rest of the story was stuck together with chewing gum just to set up the obvious (albeit correct booking decision) moral at the end. The characters were well developed though and there were few logic breaks.

Then there were three straight perfect episodes with All Ducks On Deck, The Ducky Horror Picture Show and Till Nephews Do Us Part. All Ducks On Deck was Donald's greatest moment in the series bar none as the nephews find out that Donald's tales were tall; but they didn't care as they were going to make him a hero no matter what...and failed. The Phantom Blot was awesome and the entire plot line was great as they made Ensign Plover convincing in not being Agent X. Grimitz got what he deserved for liking explosions, and we got a payoff to the medals and a funny ending with almost perfect animation. Ducky Horror Picture Show was a solid storyline that was perfect based on the sheer performances of the one shot monsters made this episode incredible. We got it all from funny monsters and their gimmicks; the monsters rights angle (which was paid off by a really protest), and it has a good finish. Maybe Richard Merwin's best episode ever. Till Nephews Due Us Part is probably one of the best comeback episodes I have ever seen as I thought this episode sucked as a kid; but it was awesome today. I liked Millie's heel act as being a trooper and making the nephews look like selfish brats even though the nephews did have a right to. The wedding was over the top with it's financial contexts, Donald chasing the wedding ring and of course the surreal finish with Goldie and the blunderbuss. One logic break; no animation mistakes makes it the third straight perfect episode.

Then there is the first two episodes of Time Is Money which are the de-facto best episodes of the story arc. Bubba had probably his finest hour in this story arc and more so in these two episodes. The first episode had a terrible finish with a contrived way to keep Bubba in the storyline. I also loved the ice pop fuel angle despite the alarm clock blandness of the Shortcut. The second episode was better with the Sen Sen love angle with Launchpad (LP making a snow statue of her; bumping into doors and of course the funny kissy-kissy stuff at the end); the Scooge joke, Mung-ho getting gonged to death and Sen-Sen working for destiny. Still; it was marred by lame dialog (the He-man promo comes to mind) and a few logic breaks. Good finish with the iron statue which fit into the entire destiny angle that they were shooting for.

My Rating On Disc Two: **** ¾ – The best disc of the entire set with three ***** episodes and none *** and under. I could live without any more Scooby Doo episodes though from Richard Merwin.

Disc Three

The disc cover has a purple/red background with a scene of the nephews hugging Mrs. Beakly from episode three of Time Is Money on the front (and on the disc itself). On the back we see a picture of Huey jumping for joy and his cap is coming off. The three main pictures on the back are from the television episodes Time Is Money episode three and four; along with Super Ducktales part one. The TV shots look a bit blurry (even more so the far left shot); but nothing major. The total episode running time for this disc is 182 minutes.

Disc 3 Episode Rants

Ducktales - Time Is Money Part Three: Bubba Trubba Rant- Now We Really Go Downhill....

Ducktales - Time Is Money Part Four: Ducks On The Lam Rant- Can You Smell The Excitement? Or is it Scrooge's New Prison Outfit?

Ducktales - Time Is Money Part Five: Ali Bubba's Cave Rant- Welcome to JTS Hell Scrooge McDuck!

Ducktales - Super Ducktales Part One: Liquid Assets Rant- Because Regular Ducktales Cannot Contain Fenton's Ego.

Ducktales - Super Ducktales Part Two: Frozen Assets Rant- What Is Magon's Fetish for Out Of Context Puns?!

Ducktales - Super Ducktales Part Three: Full Metal Duck Rant- Now That's Vanity!

Ducktales - Super Ducktales Part Four: Billionaire Beagle Boys Club Rant- What Is This: The Abridged Ducktales Series I Didn't Know About?!

Ducktales - Super Ducktales Part Five: Money To Burn Rant- Nothing Like A Bunch Of Robot Aliens To Screw The Story Over...

My Thoughts:

This volume is unique in that disc three contains absolutely nothing other than two major story arcs from the 1989 season. So we have two stories in eight episodes. Time Is Money Part Three was the best part of the disc for the Bubba The Cave Duck story arc and that isn't really saying much. The actual episode was mostly a padded filler for the chaos and mayhem Bubba was causing while Scrooge's paranoia started to show signs of tearing his apart. It wasn't until about eighteen minute mark that the stink really started to show when Scrooge and Bubba got involved directly. I really did love the school musical sequence (despite the fact that it's fodder for showing off the hypocrisy of realism in High School Musical) and the animation was quite decent. Time Is Money Parts four and five were terrible in the sense that the logic breaks became so gaping that nothing made sense. Strangely; the one thing that made me hate Scrooge in those two episodes wasn't nearly as bad or obscene as I thought it was going to be. Scrooge should have went to jail the first time in #4; but they padded on five more minutes and they had to render Scrooge as a total idiot who refused to shake someone's hand which would have ended the stupidity.

Then we do a really worse version of the Money Bin break in; only in reverse. The prison escape sequence was pretty good; but #5 pissed away any good will I had for the story arc by bringing Bubba back and then adding more and more logic breaks on top of that. Let's drop the imposter angle completely (even though the police didn't buy Duckworth's reasoning on Scrooge in the first place.); Bubba's Shortcut cave drawing spot, the logic break of Scrooge owning an island he should have lost and of course Flint's stupid throw to lose the diamonds completely in a logic break explosion. Wang Films also cracked under pressure and what was the payoff for keeping Bubba in the regular rotation? Two focus episodes at best. Super Ducktales was clearly the better story arc as Fenton Crackshell carried the episode kicking and screaming, even to the end when the episode faced massive overbooking of plot threads. This felt like Ducktales: The Abridged Series which was fine in the sense that most of it worked out good; but bad in the sense of the series running out of ideas as the cracks of Ducktales' greatness were slowly showing as plot lines were repeated again and again. The animation was better though and I ended up enjoying the story arc more than Time Is Money; but it didn't have the outstanding finish that it needed to have. This shows that maybe four parts is better than five in most cases. Pretty much the worst disc of the set; mostly caused by the last two parts of Time Is Money.

My Rating For Disc Three: *** ¾ - Super Ducktales episodes were very good; except for the finale which felt subdued due to the overbooking. Time Is Money was pretty much below average in it's last three episodes of the story arc. A mixed bag to be sure.

Extras

It is exactly like most of the other DTVA DVD sets. There are no extras present so therefore no rating.

Set Up

The set up for Ducktales is similar to most Disney DVD sets in that it has French subtitles along with English subtitles. Disney Captions of course continues it's creditability streak of sloppy dialog and missed dialog compared to the audio. There is also Dolby Digital Stereo Sound used here which is sometimes obvious in mono setup with some sounds missing from Super Ducktales for instance. Otherwise; it's par for the course in a series of them. And of course; there are ads on the first disc.

My Rating for Set Up: *** - No real surprises here as it's the usual crappy self from Disney Captions and some good enough audio features.

My Rating for the Entire DVD Set: **** (80%)


The Review Line:

Well; the first Ducktales DVD review is in the books; and it was pretty much like every other Disney DVD set released: Good picture; good sounds; a great selection of episodes (which are syndication episodes; not Toon Disney edited episodes) for the most part, crappy subtitles, no extras except ads and only a slightly sloppier box art was the difference if any. It sounds like a broken record; but it's another solid performance for a extra less set. Still; without any extras; it still leads to the conclusion that the sets were a failure sales wise and led Disney to cut the idea altogether soon after this. Why buy a $30-$50 set when Youtube provides the same episodes (although some of them on line are from Toon Disney and others are from Family Channel Canada which is based on syndication episodes) for nothing? Sure you have peace of mind when you buy it legally; but it's all meat and potatoes with no seasoning to make the taste become better to justify buying it again.

Bob Iger might have done a good service by putting the episodes on DVD; but the execution of it is lacking because Bob still doesn't know what audience the DVD sets are for. He's assuming it is for the new Disney fans rather than the fans who grew up with DTVA and The Disney Afternoon. They expect better than solid DVD sets with a goose egg in extras. They want to know more about how these series were made because the story is amazing considering the job the creators were doing. The whole DTVA story behind the creation would be just as interesting as the episodes we watched. Sadly; it won't happen now since it's clear to me Bob Iger is a demographics freak just like Michael Eisner. The only difference is Bob at least pays lip service to respecting the past (even if his execution of it is shot up all to hell) while Michael Eisner wanted to kill it. I do recommend the set because if you need to see the episodes and Disney somehow takes down the episodes from Youtube; this DVD is the only other place to see them. So....

I give this DVD set a thumbs up; and I'll see you next time.


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