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TaleSpin Books: Ghost Ship Rant

Reviewed: 09/15/2015
Additional Commentary: 09/21/2025

Welcome To The Wacky World Of TaleSpin Books Part Four!

Original Release: ??1991??

We finally get to the end of the non-comic book stuff from America (there are a few things from Steet that were in French and I might try to translate them into English later on) which is a Golden Books release. (2025 Gregory Weagle Says: Steet and his TaleSpin Animation Source Page is gone down the memory and I haven't heard from him since.) Again; like the hardcover episodes and the audio books, it's designed for little children under the age of six, so a number of concessions have to be made in order to make it lawsuit resistant. (Peppa Pig didn't get the memo on that when Peppa Pig was vaccinated in the storybook, and the vaccine was merely mentioned on television.) Anyhow; the plot of this episode is that a ghost ship has been discovered in a part of Louie's who is giving strangers golden coins. Don Karnage wants the golden coins, so he plans to steal the ghost ship. How does this story fare? Let's rant on shall we...?!

Ghost Ship is written by Andrew Helfer and illustrated by Sue Dicacco. Andy according to Wikipedia (DANGER! DANGER!): A comic book creator best known for his work as an editor and writer at DC Comics, where he founded the Paradox Press imprint. Helfer joined DC in 1981 and assisted Joe Orlando in the special projects department. He became editor of the Justice League of America title with issue #245 (December 1985) and oversaw the title's revamp into Justice League International in 1987 by Keith Giffen, J. M. DeMatteis, and Kevin Maguire. Helfer edited The Man of Steel limited series by John Byrne and the subsequent relaunch of the Superman titles. As a writer, Helfer collaborated with artist José Luis García-López on a Deadman limited series in 1986 and with artist Bill Sienkiewicz on an ongoing series for The Shadow in the following year. Following Sienkiewicz's departure from The Shadow, Kyle Baker became the artist on the series and he and Helfer also produced a two-issue Justice, Inc. series. The Helfer-Baker run on The Shadow was cancelled in 1989 allegedly due to objections by Condé Nast Publications, the character's owner, to the tone of the series. As editor of Paradox Press, Helfer oversaw the development of Max Allan Collins' series Road to Perdition and John Wagner's A History of Violence, both of which became successful films. In 2006, Helfer collaborated with artist Randy DuBurke on Malcolm X: A Graphic Biography (2006) which has been recommended as part of a "Suggested Core List of Graphic Novel Titles for High School Students". He wrote the Presidential Material: John McCain one-shot biographical comic book for IDW Publishing in 2008. How very odd that a comic book writer would take such a side job as this.

Opening Moment #1: Shot of a flying dutchman in mid air against the night sky on a full moon. Baloo and Kit are positioned poorly as if they are watching something completely different instead of the flying dutchman. The usual logos for Golden Books, Disney and TaleSpin are on the cover. The inside cover has all the usual Golden Book trappings with the cursive writing in random spots, brownscale graphics of random stuff; some reading books and a place to write your name to gain ownership of the book. The page I see first is a shot of the ghost ship with the Disney, TaleSpin and Ghost Ship logo in orange. Not spooky enough; but this book is for small children, so there you go.

We begin this one in Louie's as Kit is watching Baloo play pinball. Interesting enough; this pinball machine has no flippers; which is great because while pinball as we know it exists in the TaleSpin (circa 1937); flippers didn't exist until 1947 when Gottileb introduced Humpty Dumpty. So, glad to see someone was on the ball here. (Sadly, the rest of the story was not good, which is rare for this brand, but it does happen.) Then a grey bear (with no claws as toes) -- wearing a yellow hat and Dale's shirt with purple and yellow splats on it -- enters breathless, but is still able to say that Baloo will never believe this. (The art style isn't much better either.) Baloo tells him to try him and the bear is a fishing bear. No rejected Rhinokey joke needed here. See; this bear was out fishing (For fish I assume because I have seen enough Breath Of Fire to realize that he might be fishing for something else.) on the other side of the island. I assume it's Louie's as he explains that he drifted into a foggy cove. Then a huge ship arrived and nearly cut his boat in two. So, was his boat destroyed? Probably not because the bear also reveals that he was passing by a pirate ship as he saw an old bearded pirate toss a coin to the bear and then the ship (and the pirate) disappeared. This is so Scooby Doo-ish; except in Scooby Doo, the pirate wouldn't have let him go; so I'm calling bullshit on this. Louie runs in and steals the coin from the bear's hand. He holds it up for all to see and basically states that it's a golden ragoon. However; Louie calls this impossible since all those ancient ragoons were stole by the pirate Festus LeForge (Very rich there Andrew.) two hundred years ago and the ship was lost at sea. Geez; where have we heard and seen a ghost pirate before: Oh yeah; Her Chance To Dream. I certain this will not be up to the quality that episode had to offer. (You ended up with no lies detected.) The bear claims that the pirate is back now and he shows the coin to more customers; which we don't see. The conversation on the next page shows three furries talking to each other. None of them look like the first stranger. The only one that matters is at the table as a grey bear; who might be Baloo's long lost punk of a son wearing a red headband and a red vest is sitting at the table with his arms folded looking at Louie. I think that is what he is doing.

Anyhow, the stranger proclaims that he's leaving to get more golden ragoons; and then according to the narration, the bear at the table is one of Don Karnage's air pirates. Oh boy! I can see dollar signs in an angle where Baloo discovers his long lost brother is an air pirate just like Kit Cloudkicker was. (If Disney didn't cater to rich white dudes while pretending to be "woke", whatever the hell that means, this storyline would become a major angle in the first series of a TaleSpin reboot. While Baloo is an adult, he's considered the comedy geek even in the original series, so this would make sense.) I should note that the source I'm using is the Story Books Read Along Kids Naptime on Youtube and the voice is as southern redneck as you can get. At least with the adults. I dread to see if Kit gets any lines in this story. (Sadly, that video has disappeared as well, and the one currently on Youtube has terrible quality and is split into at least six parts a one minute long.) We cut to outside as we see Louie is outside at a booth for refreshments giving out refreshments. The side characters in there look the same as the last page, except with different duds. Plus; their faces are poorly drawn. Even Hanho Heung-Up could do a better job than this. Anyhow; the guise of this is that news about the ghost ship spread quickly and thus Louie was using this to make some easy money. For one dollar, he'll take them to the ghost ship to see it. I was going to say how did Louie know about this; but the grey bear already told us before Louie grabbed the coin. Still calling bullshit on this. Louie off-screen takes the tourist to the secret cove (which clearly isn't a secret, Andrew) and Baloo and Kit follow him. They think this is bullshit already. Baloo agrees with Kit's response to the situation and Baloo points and says "Look". Look; Baloo did have a Southern-like accent in TaleSpin; but no one else does. His Kit voice really sucks by the way. He sounds like a middle age man with no accent. Just read the lines in your normal voice sir; no one is going to think less of you. (I'm still keeping this though despite the video being gone.) I should note that the pictures are at the secret cove already and that's where Louie set up shop. Okay.

Then the place gets foggy and a large ship comes in from the deep fog. The captain on board has a beard and mustache. He's wearing a royal navy jacket with yellow trim, a candy-cane striped shirt, grey pants, boots and a hat with a sword on his hip. The tourists gasped as it's three guys wearing the same duds as before; only colored different. There is zero continuity between pages for the background characters in this episode. Anyhow; the pirate proclaims that he's Festus LeForge and he throws a golden coin into the water. The tourists are so gleefully happy of this that they all dive into the water after the coin. Apparently; golden ragoons are legal tender and are worth a lot. By the way; there's no way Jymn Magon would ever allow that pirate to sound like a stereotypical pirate because that would give it away that this is a scam. Baloo and Kit hear the sounds of train engines because the Iron Vulture is a true Steampunk airship in storyline. Both look up to see the Iron Vulture has arrived. They open the bomb bay door and drop a giant anchor into the deck of the ghost ship with a loud crash. So in other words; the scam has been exposed because if it was a real ghost ship, then why are the coins real and why is the ship real? This must be Valkyrie Profile logic. Kit's next line is completely southern in voice by the reader. It also sucks. (Watch Seth Rogan try to make Kit sound like this if a reboot happens just to give the critics something to cry about.) Then we see Kit and Baloo bailing stage left as the Iron Vulture lifts the ghost ship into the sky. The artwork for Baloo and Kit's legs also suck. (I know TaleSpin was rushed in general; but this is sad.) Don Karnage speaks over the loud speaker proclaiming that he's the greatest pirate of all time. Geez; that actually sounds believable. Baloo and Kit are running to the SeaDuck to get at Don Karnage actually. So we are off-screen as the narration claims that they are inside the Iron Vulture. Very rich. Don Karnage cuts a promo about stealing treasure from the ghost of the greatest pirate of all time. So, Don Karnage's real name is Karnage LeForge? Huh. (No, it is not. It's supposed to be Anthrax, but that is copyrighted and problematic at the same time.) The voice of Don Karnage here sounds like a stereotypical pirate version of Jim Cummings doing the voice. Hilariously bad.

Then he tells the others to man the controls while he gets on the ship and meets Festus personally. We cut to Don Karnage on the ship and we discover that Festus LeForge looks like the grey bear stranger in the beginning of this story in a dumb pirates outfit. Whoa; I didn't see that one coming. "Festus" trembles in fear. Don proclaims that he's here for the golden ragoons as he brings out the cutlass and will fight to the death to get them. Don pulls Festus' beard and what a shock, it's the bear from the beginning of the episode. Now this is where I said in the "A Bad Reflection On You" re-rant when I said that Louie might be behind the disappearance of the Master Run pilots and uses mirrors: The bear proclaims that Louie isn't paying him enough for this and he quits. Yes; Louie L'Amour is behind the ghost ship. Now I saw that one coming a mile away. (Probably the biggest reason why this book sucked: It was just a retrend of A Bad Reflection On You and those two episodes ran rings around most DTVA episodes during the first Disney Afternoon run! Ghost Ship never stood a chance.) Don Karnage is shocked and appalled. "Festus" bails into the bowels of the ship as Don is chasing him. Don then notices a fog machine in the bowels of the ship. He goes over to the machine and proceeds to cut the fog machine causing even more fog. Apparently; Don Karnage spotted a second furry in their mists. I betcha they break logic here and it's Louie L'Amour, which makes no sense since Louie was at the refreshment stands when this was all happening and we didn't see him board the ship. Hissing sounds ensue for fun. Cut to outside as the SeaDuck is in the sky going towards the Iron Vulture as more fog that is looking more like smoke. Baloo cracks a joke about having trouble seeing where they are going. Kit proclaims that they better turn quick, they are heading straight for the mountains. I assume it's the Iron Vulture because the ship would run aground before getting to the mountains. We cut to Kit Cloudkicker on his white toilet seat-equse material airfoil. Seriously; there are no in between edges on that thing. Kit is being towed by Baloo towards the ghost ship. I should note that Kit's face is missing here too. (Again, this doesn't help this story book's chances of being decent and in fact makes it even worse now.)

Kit shouts a warning to the crew as Don Karnage comes up and notices the mountains. He yells at them to pull up at once. That sounds really stupid because the anchor is still attached to the ship; so even if they pull up over the mountains; the ghost ship is now going to plow into said mountains. I should also note that in the page with Kit on his airfoil; there were two shadow figures, while the next scene showed only one figure which is Don Karnage. Just bad continuity. Kit returns to the SeaDuck and enjoys watching the ghost ship get destroyed by the mountains. Kit proclaims that this must really hurt. It sure does Kit, it sure does. Less so than Kit missing one left arm in the shot. (Yeah, there is no way I can take the artwork seriously on this one. This is Mister T-equse levels of bad artwork here.) Then Don Karnage is hanging from the rope and looks all right. He's pissed off of course as he climbs the rope claiming that the crew did that on purpose, even though Don Karnage was the one who gave them the command. What an idiot?! He proclaims that he is going to make them walk the plank; which is so stupid. I realize that this is a preschool book; but Don Karnage doesn't make people walk the plank. That's MAVO's Air Pirate gimmick! He would just drop the pirates off the Iron Vulture like Dumptruck did to Kit in Plunder and Lightning. We head back to Louie's as Baloo and Louie are talking to each other inside the bar. Louie admits that the whole thing is a sham and that the golden ragoons were wooden nickels with gold paint on them. Louie admitted he hired two guys for this project; so the unseen second guy was the one Don Karnage was looking at when he saw the fog machine. At least the possible logic break is lopped off. He did the thing to improve business as Baloo says it's too bad because we see the same three tourists in shadow just outside the door and Baloo tells Louie that he's going to have to refund their money. That ends the Golden Book. This is an okay plot; but it's a mess as it is. This would require a giant re-write which would feature Baloo finding out his long lost son was an air pirate working for Don Karnage and there would be a lot more detail and thought put into it if it made television. Call it ** (40%). This was a total misfire even by children book standards; but Disney doesn't care, so there you go.

THE REVIEW LINE

That officially finishes up all the non-comic book stories and I have to say that they had good ideas; but the age limit and BS&P killed a lot of them dead. Again; this show had what it took, but when Disney treats it as filler; why should anyone care?! More so when the book is targeted at small children. (Yeah, Peppa Pig can get away with it because it's a preschool show from the start and no one is pretending that it's anything but a preschool show. TaleSpin doesn't have that excuse going for them.) Anyhow; the story wasn't horrible or anything, it was just there and felt out of character in places. I'm not going to ding the voice acting from my source because it's not an audio book. (The artwork was also terrible and had a lot of logic breaks that killed the story dead for me. The Magic Carpet book was worse, but at least that one featured Kit saving the day on a magic carpet which is great for a laugh if nothing else. This felt like a fluffy boring story book from Golden, what can you do?) So...

Thumbs down for this book and I'll see you all next time.

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