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Darkwing Duck DVD Volume Two Review
Reviewed: 03/11/2008
About as Constant as The Second Volume of Episodes In This Set....Almost anyway....
Well kiddies; it's another edition of DVD reviews from yours truly. Next up on the lineup is the volume set that I just completed doing episode rants on and that is Darkwing Duck Volume Two. The last volume was a bit of a mess as the video quality and audio quality were pretty good; but had episode quality problems which was up and down for the most part; a one chapter per episode rule, no extras and a lot of laughable mistakes from Disney Captions. So how does Volume 2 do in comparison? Read and find out.......
The DVD Box
As with all previous volumes; the Darkwing Duck Volume 2 DVD is a cardboard sleeve like box with an opening on it's right side. The front of the cover shows Darkwing Duck doing the victory sign with his left arm against the city of Saint Canard with spotlights and blue sky. It looks pretty good and a lot less sloppy than the first volume. The Disney logo, series name and volume number are on the top; with the Disney DVD logo on the bottom left and the volume number, includes 27 episodes (in the blue box) and number of disc (in a yellow circle) on the bottom right. The left side of the volume has a mostly black background about ¾ of the way; with blue on the remaining ¼. The Disney DVD logo is on the top; a smaller version of the top logos are on their sides centered in the middle and the number of discs, picture of Darkwing Ducks' face from the front in a small box and the production number on the bottom. The back of the cover contains the Disney logo, series name and volume number on the top left; with the ISBN and bar code on the top right corner.
The middle contains three pictures on the top middle; the left one is sample artwork while the others are television scans. They look really good; although Launchpad looking menacing is pretty out of character for him. Below the picture is a rounded off yellow square containing a couple of tag lines and a summary of the overall set of episodes. There is nothing special here; although I'm glad that they said a gaggle rather than a google since that would just be asking for a lawsuit that they could not win. There is a good picture of Launchpad (from his knees up) shown running on the bottom left side and some of the technical features of the film. Again; it's the same stuff we have seen in previous DTVA volumes. Also; the usual legal and tech stuff is written in white on the bottom is also the same as in previous DTVA volume along with the same background is the same as the front of the cover. Again; this is good for what it is and the summary is not insulting for fans of the series and good enough for the casual fan to pick up.
Artwork Error #1: The middle picture on the back of the DVD box is from Dirty Money which is not present in this Volume. It did exist in Volume 1 however.
My Rating on the DVD Box: **** ½ - Less sloppiness and better picture placement and quality helped this box a lot. The artwork error on the back hurts the mark a little.
Disc One:
As in the previous volumes; the discs come in plastic cases and show a large picture of stylish artwork from a certain episode. In this case it is from the episode The Secret Origins of Darkwing Duck which is a really good choice. The Disney logo, series name and volume number are on top; while the Disney DVD logo in on the bottom left and the episode numbers (28-36) and disc number are on the bottom right. The background in mostly several shades of blue which goes all around the disc cover and shows the background of Saint Canard. An interesting choice to say the least.
The left side shows the Disney DVD logo on the top, the Disney logo, name of series and volume number centered and placed sideways in the middle and the disc number and episode numbers (plus a production number I do believe) on the bottom along with a picture of art featuring Darkwing Duck. Talk about overkill here. This applies to all three discs. The back is basically the same as the back of the DVD cover except for the top which contains the disc number, episode numbers and Proof of Purchase tabs on top. In the middle left; there is the cartoon selection episode list along with a tag line which claims: Over three hours of laughs and thrills. I disagree with that as it is really only about two hours; but what can you do?
The summary is on the middle right and it is mostly average for the most part although they did everyone a favor by only quoting the best episodes; with the exception of Let's Get Respectable of course. The bottom right picture is Drake as Stinky in the same episode as the front. The television pictures on top are correct and this is the only disc in this volume that takes pictures from more than one episode. The other episode is Whiffle While You Work which is another good choice. The scans are really good and on par with TaleSpin actually. The bottom left contains the rating (if you live in Ontario), the DVD Video logo and the Walt Disney Home Entertainment Logo along with Buena Vista's Home Entertainment's address which will not be repeated here. The inside of the discs are basically the same and they use a larger triangle push button which is an improvement at the least from the sharper versions of it. The covers are cheap paper in that when you fold the disc cover; the paper sags with it.
Not exactly the best in craftsmanship if you ask me. The disc itself is similar to what it was in all volumes in terms of information; and the style is pretty much the same so I will not repeat it here. However; I will note that Avenger doesn't appear at all on the disc itself. I don't know why; so don't ask me. Then again; Disney did edit Hammerhead's gun in the first volume which was pointless and petty since the video is not rated to begin with and parents should be watching with their kids anyway since there is a lot of guns in the actual episodes themselves that can cause a lot more damage than seeing a mere gun on a menu screen. I'm just saying.
Episode Rants For Disc One:
All's Fahrenheit In Love & War Rant- This Rant Is Best Served At Absolute Zero!
Whiffle While You Work Rant- This is Pure Irony At It's Best..
Ghoul Of My Dreams Rant- The Nightmare Rant is Back; But It's More Dreamy This Time Around.
Adopt-A-Con Rant- More like Adopt-A-Scorn To Me!
Toys Czar Us Rant- WEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!
The Secret Origins of DARKWING..DUCK! Rant- It just sounds better this way.
Up, Up & Awry Rant- It's The Mega Volts VS. The Mega Ego Maniacs!!
Life, The NegaVerse & Everything Rant- I smell a lawsuit in DIC's future!
Dry Hard Rant- Rubber Terrorism; Who Knew It Would Be More EVIL Than The Real Thing?
My Thoughts: Okay; let's begin with the overall quality of the DVD set. The menus are the usual still picture menu selections with Darkwing Duck Theme music in the background. At least the artwork makes sense in this one despite being a little bit blurry due to the use of TV stills. The episode menu selections are the same; but there is no music in the background. That's awfully strange since Gummi Bears had two different pieces of music for their selections. The usual set up menu is there for English subtitles and French audio which was actually missing from the TaleSpin Volume 2 DVD. And of course; there is a selection for all those Disney ads you saw from the beginning of the first disc. Again; nothing unusual. The episodes themselves uses the five chapters per episode rule which is excellent for those who want to skip scenes they don't like.
This is similar to the TaleSpin Volume 2 DVD set. The overall video quality is mostly good; but the over showing of this series is very apparent compared to TaleSpin as some episodes show some obvious signs of wear and tear in a few places. It's not as bad as something over shown back in the 1970's; but it shows that Darkwing Duck has been shown too much for it's own good. The audio track is as good as you could hope for with Dolby Digital Stereo Sound. I should note that none of the missing audio tracks that I experienced was Disney's fault; it was a problem with my DVD and even that was solved by stopping and replaying the disc. Again; this disc set will live and die by the episode quality and sadly; the result is not much different from the previous volume.
The series is at a certain point where there are three types of episodes. The first type is when the episodes are great; they are really great. Whiffle While You Work, Ghoul Of My Dreams, Toys Czar Us, The Secret Origins Of Darkwing Duck, Life, The Negaverse & Everything and Dry Hard fit the bill in this case. Whiffle was Quackerjack's second awesome performance as he plays the ultimate Sustainer who gets disrupted by the video game Whiffle Boy who is sweeping the nation and causing a rift between the awesome playing Gosalyn and the always hypocritical and lack of life parent Drake Mallard. This episode is so funny and relevant on so many levels to anyone who has ever played video games at some point in their lives. It's a really good story and it didn't sound like a bad commentary for getting rid of them like so many television shows are doing nowadays due to games like Grand Theft Auto getting a lot of bad (and for the most part undeserved bad) press. Kennedy Cartoons couldn't ruin it despite every attempt to do so. More on them later on by the way. Toys Czar Us was just as good despite a few bad spots in place; but I felt that they did a great job in developing the relationship of Gosalyn and Drake without having to resort to too many pathos. And of course; the writers showed some guts in writing it as if Quackerjack was a sexual predator (albeit a goofy demented one) who lures children into dangerous situations. I'm sure this plot line would give some pause today at the very least.
The Secret Origins of Darkwing Duck and Life, The Negaverse & Everything were the best episodes on the volume and in Negaverse's case; the sixth best episode in DTVA history. Both also exposed a huge problem with this series in that the writers couldn't write an excellent episode without having to reality bend. Negaverse was actually one of those episodes that was clearly written for the TaleSpin audience because it was a perfect balance of comedy, adventure and character interactions. It also had no logic breaks, no blown spots and a really good finish and ending without any overkill whatsoever. This is how to write an episode with a cartoon duck; something the writers seem to keep forgetting half of the time since Ducktales The Bubba Duck era. The Secret Origins was a laugh fest as nothing made sense; but since it was a story told by an egomaniac who lies through his teeth called Drake Mallard; it was absolutely funny. One of the few times where Drake finally sounded funny. Ghoul Of My Dreams was the first Morgana story while Morgana acts like a heel with a decent sleeping villain in Nodoff. Watch for the ending as it was pretty funny to see this all was just a dream that actually ended as a good dream. Usually; it's a bad dream that actually ends with the person waking up. Finally; there is Dry Hard which was another very good origin story for the Liquidator which was marred a bit by bad logic breaks caused by Kennedy Cartoons bad animation; what a surprise. Sadly; Bud Flood never really got much of a chance after this one other than his Fearsome Five appearances. The second type of episode is when the episode is bad; it's beyond awful. All's F In Love & War and Up, Up & Awry are two examples of this. All's F I knew was going to be a stinker before I even ranted on it and it delivered big time; even becoming the first negative star episode in DTVA history. Nothing went right as Isis really sucked as a villain, the logic breaks were through the roof, the animation was sub-par, Launchpad was useless, a bad Scooby Doo Chase Sequence, the whole gold plating thing was absurd even for this series and the finish made no sense whatsoever. Not only that; this was the first episode in the volume! If a casual fan bought this and watched it in order; I betcha he would want his money back after seeing it. This is one of those times where episode placement was important and Disney failed in even that.
However; for me, the worst episode was Up, Up & Awry despite being well above DUD. The reason is that I was looking forward to this episode as it was the return of Gizmo Duck in a solo effort to get Drake's goat and show Drake the proper way to do his gimmick. He delivered of course which was a good thing because this episode could have easily been the worst episode in DTVA history until Dirtysomething (unless Ammonia Pine proves me wrong again.). And I blame it mostly on Kennedy Cartoons who just found ways to screw up almost every spot and break logic in ways no one could ever pull off. It was the biggest mess I have ever seen. Add on the fact that Megavolt was buried by the writers in that he did almost nothing in this one along with Gosalyn and DTVA ruined the whole Darkwing Duck/Ducktales crossover. Well; at least Barbera got her cameo from Ducktales despite sounding quite terrible here. The last type of episode is that I was expecting a mess but it the episode was pretty solid in spite of it. Adopt-A-Con fits here nicely as it was a solid story and the animation was ok for the most part. I just could not get into the storyline because I didn't find it funny or amusing. I guess I'm a thin-skinned poop head in thinking that having a criminal pay back to society just isn't funny and that it is a very serious matter. Still; you got to give Disney credit for not making it look like a mess. Oh; and Darkwing Duck really showed how thin skinned the way he assaulted Tuskerinni for no reason whatsoever. Kit at least had a reason to go off-screen and beat up a bum since the bum took the sack of money.
My Rating for Disc One: *** ¾ - I would have easily given this one **** had it not been for the first episode in the volume; despite the massive disappointment Up, Up & Awry's was. The Secret Origins of Darkwing Duck and Life, The Negaverse & Everything are simply awesome in a TaleSpin kind of way which shows that DTVA did have some live left before they whizzed it away with Goof Troop.
Disc Two
The second disc is pretty much the same as the first in terms of style as nearly very piece of artwork is from the episode Darkwing Doubloon. The front cover is a stylish artwork style (which actually fits perfectly with the rest of the artwork) along with the large back picture below; with television shots on the top back cover. While the continuity is really good for the most part; the shot quality is pretty much on par with TaleSpin Volume 2: Very good; but slightly blurry.
Disc 2 Episode Rants
Heavy Mental Rant- Controlling Children's Brains; One Episode At A Time!
Disguise The Limit Rant- "I'm A Rotten Kind Of Guy!"- NegaDuck. "No crap; Sherlock!!" - Gregory Weagle.
Planet of The Capes Rant- Dumb People Breed Dumb Superheroes.
Darkwing Doubloon Rant- Just As Justice Ducks as Sailors?! WHAT THE HELL---?!
It's A Wonderful Leaf Rant- Bushroot Ruins Christmas.. That'll make him a good heel...I think...
Twitching Channels Rant- UnAmerican USA!!
Dances With Bigfoot Rant- This is what happens when you watch too many Crimson Avenger episodes!
Twin Beaks Rant- Now THIS is Creepy!
The Incredible Bulk Rant- Why Does Reggie Get These Episodes?
My Thoughts: The episode quality of Disc 2 is a sign of what was happening at DTVA at the time of production in that nearly every episode no matter how good or bad it was was infected with the inability to end an episode properly without going into the thought process of seeing Drake Mallard as just a cartoon duck. Heavy Mental was one example of an episode that was really good for the most part with Launchpad using his usual psychic powers against the evils of a military agent of SHUSH who was using some Goof Troop rejects to become evil super villains to pound Drake into silly putty. Sadly; the episode should have ended with Major Synapse dying when his brain exploded; but they carried on for another two minutes and made Launchpad look quite weak in the process. Disguise The Limit was another one which had a really good NegaDuck making Drake's life miserable for my pleasure so much so that Drake does the end around to end all end around by zapping himself with a changing ray in order to be NegaDuck; who turns even more violent than the original since the copy is a stereotype rather than an actual character. It hurt NegaDuck a bit due to looking weak in comparison. Again; a couple of logic breaks near the end hurt the episode badly; but we at least got an excellent blow off from the multiple Darkwing Duck clones at the end.
Planet of the Capes and Darkwing Doubloon were examples of episodes that were entertaining somewhat; but were total messes in the end. Planet of the Cape was ruined by a terrible villain in Ordinary Guy and a moral that was placed as an afterthought because the writers didn't write in a finish about three minutes before it actually happened which was about 20 seconds near the end because the writers were too interested in keeping the mutants happy with spot after spot that just didn't click. It should have ended with the superheroes zapping each other and then breaking the ray before beating Ordinary Guy into a steaming pile of goo. Darkwing Doubloon was basically Just As Justice Ducks as sailors. Seriously; that is what the writers thought would work. It was pretty fun actually; but it was a bad example of Kennedy's work as the editing, logic breaks and blown spots were clearly obvious once you see them. And NegaDuck hogged the spotlight the entire time and the villains barely got their licks in. It's A Wonderful Leaf was an excellent Christmas comedy episode marred by a brainfart decision to do a contrived pathos spot near the end the episode where Honker and his family loses his gifts completely and Drake dresses as Santa to give them back. They played it as a pathos scene and not as a comedy scene (with only Tank getting the goofy spots which doesn't work with him being that he wasn't that good in the series). I said this before and I'll say it again: Darkwing Duck is a comedy series and trying to do pathos against a real pathos like TaleSpin is going to get you laughed out of existence. There is absolutely no way this episode was going to beat Jolly Molly Christmas or A Christmas Carol so why even try? They had a great episode already with enough laughs and Bushroot redeeming himself as a tragic heel and they ruin a full mark episode because they wanted to try something that wasn't going to work.
Twitching Channels and Twin Beaks were the only two episodes that actually were excellent from start to finish and reminded me of classic DTVA: Very few logic breaks; few blown spots; no overkill; excellent plotting, excellent pacing and some wonderful scenes that made me laugh in this case. Twin Beaks was a creepy episode where despite not seeming to make sense; the writers managed to allow it to make sense. Plus; the writers did an excellent job in making us think Bushroot was behind all this (one of the few times I was behind Drake actually) when it was really the mutant cabbages running wild from the space cows (seriously) turning people into zombie. It worked a lot better than Night of the Living Spud that's for sure as a horror comedy. Bushroot as a face was pretty effective and he even got the last laugh when he turned heel by stealing a mutant cabbage. I don't believe he ever used that cabbage in the series actually. Twiching Channels was really great as Drake and Sparky get themselves zapped from the television world into the real world in another reality bending adventure which showed how problematic the series was becoming when DTVA couldn't write good enough episodes in the cartoon world. Drake of course wants his money from the cartoon designers and there were various ribs on the cartoon world/real world mixing. It was also the ultimate example that even the writers were admitting that Cartoon Duck Syndrome exists judging by the kids reaction to Darkwing Duck in the real world. Plus; Whity Hertford and R.J. Williams made appearances as voices (I believe this was R.J. Williams' last voice appearance in all of Disney actually).
The Incredible Bulk was similar to Planet of the Capes with the afterthought moral; but it was a lot less messy and Bushroot was on in this one; plus at least it had a proper finish and good ending to it. Dances With Bigfoot was the worst episode of the disc and probably the second worst (negative star) episode in DTVA history so far (until Dirtysomething) as Gosalyn attempts to bury Drake and the whole plot line was contrived, forced and a complete mess. The low light of the episode was Drake walking in lava without causing much damage whatsoever. It was treated like hot orange jello. Ironically; that bad spot was mocked relentlessly by The Simpson in the episode where the Simpsons family went to Japan and got caught in one of those wacky game shows ala Takeshi's Castle. The finish involved The Simpsons getting the plane ticket and falling into a volcano filled with hot orange jello. And let's not forget the natives being stereotype males and PC females while we are at it. Delicate Bone Structure was a cool name for a native name though; I'll give them that. I think Dottie's appearance in this episode led her to a life of crime as part of her body appeared in In Like Blunt. However; I must be seeing things.
My Rating On Disc Two: *** 1/4 – While the overall quality is pretty much the same as it usually was in the previous volume; the negative star episode drops this disc down a notch.
Disc Three
Artwork Error #2: The front of the plastic disc cover and on the disc is from Apes of Wrath I do believe which doesn't exist in this volume. It exists in Volume 1 however. Other than Avenger not appearing on the disc on Disc One; these are the only artwork errors in the entire volume which is a breath of fresh air when it comes to Disney's packaging department.
Disc three follows a similar theme to the previous two discs in that the artwork is mostly television shots from the same episode: Stressed To Kill; and the front cover art for the disc and plastic cover is from either Apes of Wrath or You Sweat Your Life depending on what mood I was in when doing this review. I do like the front cover through so it can be forgiven; very stylish. The television shots are much better than Gummi Bears; and about on par with TaleSpin's television shots from Volume 2 DVD of TaleSpin.
Disc 3 Episode Rants
My Valentine Ghoul Rant- I wondered why this episode got so much heat?!
A Duck By Any Other Name Rant- Proof that Drake is REALLY STUPID!
Let's Get Respectable! Rant- Save this for Quack Pack; it's going to need it!
In Like Blunt Rant- Are they saying that Don Blunt is gay?!
Quack of Ages Rant- Toys go Dark Ages on Drake's Sorry Little Butt!
Time & Punishment Rant- DARKWARRIOR..DUCK is really AWESOME BABEE!!
Stressed To Kill Rant- First Kill Reference in a DTVA Episode title?! DARKWING...DUCK is SO Hardcore..NOT!!
The Darkwing Squad Rant- Don't screw with Vlad the Russian Stereotype Impaler!
Dead Duck Rant- How I feel after watching bad cartoons.
My Thoughts: Out of all the discs in this set; this one is the best one quality wise with one really bad episode in Let's Get Respectable. That episode features Drake bumping for his life while doing a silly symbolic parody that actually has relevance today: The Wii marketing. Or at the very least; the way Sustainers see it. I believe in Sean Malstorm's line of thinking when it comes to Nintendo's marketing so there you go. Sadly; the episode was not entertaining as the joke died due to contrived spots and lack of any internal logic from the writers. NegaDuck was okay in this one which is quite sad since he has been improving with each episode since Just Us Justice Ducks which indicated a problem with writing and not with his character despite all the flaws that I mentioned. Or maybe Jim Cummings is that darn good. I don't know. There were two middling episodes; with one of them being a major disappointment with In Like Blunt. It started off well with an insane villain in Phineas Sharp and Derek Blunt who is stiff as a spear and a downright angry fury being who hate gimmicks despite being hypocritical in using plot device gimmicks. He really gave Drake the hard time that Drake deserved. Sadly; the episode went off the rails the moment Phineas and Derek started acting very wussy since it was completely out of nowhere for Phineas and Derek to act that way from the middle of Act 2 onward; and Phineas laser gun basically buried him for good. Also; Hammerhead's second appearance was handled badly as Hammerhead sounded like a dumb bully rather than the greasy “I'm smarter than anyone but my boss” heel that he was in the pilot episode. At least Ammonia Pine and Steelbeak got a decent cameo appearance and of course Drake finally buried Flintheart and Magicia DeSpell.
A Duck By Any Other Name was basically a better redo of Double Darkwings: The Darkwing Decoy gimmicks sucks badly; but it was better because there was no Jamalaya Jake (and his Granny), Gosalyn was dead on in this one; Launchpad looked strong; Tuskerinni is a better villain and Drake was his usual stupid self. Plus; it has the most fitting death trap in the entire series: The Popcorn Popper of Death. The remaining episodes were very good to excellent including Time & Punishment which is in my top ten of best episodes in DTVA history; penciled in as #5: A nice comical take on a police state and it gave Darkwing Duck the much needed sympathy that he was lacking in the previous episode due to the fact that he was such a jerk most of the time. It goes like this: If you think Darkwing Duck is bad; Darkwarrior Duck is far worse although Darkwarrior was an awesome monster heel. And it also allowed the child to be responsible for this happening. In Old Man & The SeaDuck; it was Kit's fault for choosing a dangerous path home that caused Baloo to lose his piloting skills just to avoid losing his hearing. In this case; it was Gosalyn disobeying Drake for not staying put and trying to run interference which led her to disappear via the Time Top. My Valentine Ghoul was another great episode which featured Morgana's love/hate relationship with a jerk like Drake and NegaDuck taking advantage of it by trying to convince Morgana that Drake hates her because she will always be a criminal. Then the whole story adds a third angle (something TaleSpin did a lot) by having Gosalyn create a love potion which just backfires like crazy. It was so funny and it caused some problems when Gosalyn was stuck with the power of love and started seducing NegaDuck which caused the episode to be skipped on Toon Disney.
The Darkwing Squad is the first really good episode where SHUSH actually looked strong for a change as Steelbeak was caught due to their ability to make themselves look weak. The plan was indeed fiendishly clever and it redeemed both J. Gander and SHUSH in general. The Vlad wants to kill Drake is a good one too since there are a lot of villains who would love to do that to Drake. Dead Duck was the first episode to feature an actual death (at least in dream sequence anyway) of Drake; a trip to heaven and hell (although they whispered hell and Satan despite saying Lucifer at least once) and a lot of good dead jokes. Plus; they made Sparky really look strong (until the end where Launchpad tied Sparky to the chair which was fitting and ironic; but weaken Sparky quite a bit as the monster heel who kills.) and Death was excellent in his role (thanks to deadpan perfectionist Tony Jay). And of course; it was all just a dream which actually made sense considering that Disney would not allow an on-screen death in DTVA and the alternative would be for Drake to do the Peter Griffin spot which is to say it and it comes true.
Stressed to Kill was a surprising fun little romp where Quackerjack and Sparky set the town on fire literally. Bad logic break of no one dying despite an entire city being on fire aside; Drake was really on his game as he was beyond funny when he was stressed out and almost so when he had no stress. Plus; the heels screwed themselves when they commit arson and go too far with it as their backup plans involved asking the no-stress citizens of Saint Canard for help and they don't care. Sparky and Quacky have probably the best chemistry of the Fearsome Five and I'm surprised that they didn't get as many episodes as they did. Finally; there was Quack of Ages as Quackerjack goes back to kill the yo-yo and alter toy history. The story was pretty dull and some of the spots were just there to waste time; but Quackerjack literally carried this episode on it's back kicking and screaming with his usual over the top antics. The dragon's overselling was pretty funny as I'm a little surprised that they did a version of the TaleSpin comic episode Knight Freight near the end of Act 2. Herb of course was himself as we got a pretty funny “origin” story (since it makes no sense anyway) where King Herb and Binky get engaged.
My Rating For Disc Three: *** 3/4 - There was only one bad episode in the entire lot and the rest were either average or really good. While Cartoon Syndrome was a problem in almost every episode; at least it wasn't a complete mess like in other discs.
Extras
It is exactly like the TaleSpin DVD sets. There are no extras present so therefore no rating.
Set Up
Like in previous volumes; the Set Up is pretty much the same in that there is an English Captions option and has French Audio. I have not heard the French Audio track; but the English Captions continue to be less than perfect. While Disney Captions was better in this one compared to the first volume; there were still areas where they missed words and sometimes cannot tell the difference between speaking and cursing. Oh; and let's not forget, only the bad guys can throw raspberries in Disney Captions despite the good guys doing it in the actual full voice version of the show.
My Rating for Set Up: *** 3/4- Pretty much the same rating as the previous volume; but did slightly improved due to Disney Captions not doing some really laughable work.
My Rating for the Entire DVD Set: ***3/4 (75%)
The Review Line:
Well; this volume is an improvement from the first volume due mostly to keeping the French audio and the five chapters per episode rule; however, the problems due to episode quality still are a major problem for this series. While there are a lot of keepers; there are at least four episodes that are pretty much unwatchable; and many more that would have a lot better if the writers and animators would stop thinking Cartoon Duck and start thinking Animated Duck. The sloppiness is showing in obvious places which make TaleSpin look even better than it already was by comparison. There is still about 40 episodes left in the series and this series is coming dangerously close to being a show where it really didn't age as well as even Ducktales has. I am going to say this; if I see three more thumbs down in this series, then this series to me is even worse than Ducktales was. I put Ducktales at **** and Darkwing Duck at **** ½ on my profile and now I'm considering downgrading Darkwing Duck from a Top five cartoon to being dangerously close to being on the bottom end of the Top Ten. This is not a good sign for the series in general.
Overall; the box set is very good; but again the episode quality is so violently up and down that the roller coaster ride really hurts the show overall. It doesn't help that the first episode in the first disc on the second volume was a negative star episode and in some areas; the overplaying of this series has hurt the video quality. I just hope Volume 3 is a vast improvement in episode quality because if it isn't; then hindsight shows how much Cartoon Duck Syndrome infected the reviewers who proclaimed that TaleSpin was contrived and forced and proclaimed Darkwing Duck as the comedy god to end all gods. So....
I give this DVD a thumbs in the middle; and I'll see you next time.