I've made it no secret that I love animation as a medium, art form, and story telling tool. I find that some stories are better suited for animation than a live action adaptation. There's a lot more freedom with animation to exaggerate emotions and character features.
So about DuckTales...WooHoo!
I enjoyed what little of the original DuckTales I was able to watch, but I knew that it was flawed. Deeply flawed. The DuckTales movie featured a very racially insensitive character who also appears in the final season of the show. And though I can probably credit "The Curse of Castle McDuck" with my interest in ancient British culture, I admit that seeing Uncle Scrooge take advantage of the Druids in the episode made me feel a little uncomfortable even as a kid.
Because I have no life and a Disney+ subscription, I opted to finally watch all of the original DuckTales episodes to get a better idea where the reboot (which is fantastic by the way) came from.
I'll be honest, I didn't have that much hope that an 80s cartoon would hold up well after nearly 30 years...and I was sort of right. The original DuckTales is definitely entertaining and easy to just kind of leave on in the background while I clean my apartment.
But there are also a lot flaws. Deep, deep flaws. Thankfully, most of these weren't carried over to the new series.
Like a lot of 80s entertainment, depictions of characters not coded as alabaster white are more than a little problematic...especially characters that are coded as being middle eastern (one of my biggest complaints of the movie I mentioned earlier as well). There's also some classist stereotypes that are also harmful.
I can confidently say that the reboot took steps to either update characters to not have these same problematic issues or has opted to remove the character entirely. Fenton and his mother, for example, goes from being a white trailer trash characters in the original to middle class Latinos, one of whom now works in law enforcement, in the reboot (I 100% prefer Fenton's mom in the reboot to the original). The character Dijon seems to have vanished completely (not that I'm going to complain about that). And efforts have been made to have more inclusive, less culturally insensitive story narratives in the reboot.
Another thing the reboot has going for it that the original doesn't is character development.
The reboot DuckTails has also made an effort to give better characterization to its leads. In the original nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, were fairly generic boys who were pretty much interchangeable - so much so that it looks like they all shared a voice actor. Webby was basically the annoying little sister trope. Mrs. Beakley seemed to serve no purpose in most of the original episodes. And Duckworth was just there to be a butler.
The only character who has any emotional arc in the original is Scrooge and that's a shallow assessment at best.
Now the reboot has character arcs galore.
To start, the boys now each have distinct personalities and I can tell them apart (not only because of the different voice actors) by their mannerisms. Louie is definately the "laziest of the bunch with a laidback posture, while Huey is much more mature and responsible. Dewey is an energetic ball of energy in pretty much ever scene he is in (especially if Webby is with him) and it shows. I don't even need the color schemes to tell the triplets apart.
Both Dewey and Louie have great emotional story arcs over the 2 seasons I've watched of the reboot. Louie definitely takes after Scrooge in his money hungry ways, but lacks the hard work ethic Scrooge has. He also is very dissapointed that he wasn't named Rocket like his mother (Della) wanted to name him. Dewey's character journey is equally interesting and often involves Webby as an accomplice/instigator to their antics. Much of season 1 is dedicated to him finding out what happened to his and his brother's mom and the conclusion is really good.
If I had one complaint about the reboot's treatment of the triplets, it's that Huey seems like an afterthought or is treated as a the "stick-in-the-mud" in most of the episodes. As I've only seen the first two seasons (and an occasional episode in Season 3), I can only hope that eventually Huey gets the same character development his brothers are getting.
Webby is probably one of my favorite characters in the reboot and probably wouldn't exist as she is today with out characters like Mable Pines from Gravity Falls. She's hyper and feeds into Dewey's energy, which makes them have a great relationship. She also no longer feels like a "tag-a-long" but a fully realized character with her own motivations. I love the episodes that really focus on her and the friends (not just Dewey and his brothers) she makes.
That leads in to Mrs. Beakley. Like I said earlier, in the original, she's just kind of there to mother and tsk the children. In the reboot, she's basically a retired Bond girl and I love it. She's strict and worries, but is also fully capable of protecting the kids. She works for Scrooge before the series starts (which means that Webby grows up in Scrooge's house) and we get the impression that her employment is more as a deceptive bodyguard than housekeeper or nanny.
Duckworth they turned into a ghost. He's not a nice ghost either and it's implied a couple of times that he didn't make it into heaven in the afterlife, but managed to get somewhere else.
Scrooge is updated too. He's still the money loving adventurer, but his backstory is better fleshed out, we get to meet his parents, and he really truly loves his family...even more than his money. He's still the pinnacle of the "good capitalist" trope, but he's given a much more rounded character.
I could go on and on about the DuckTales reboot, but that isn't the purpose of this post. I watched the original cartoon to see where and how the reboot made it's updates. I can safely say that the reboot is a lot better than the original in pretty much every way. Though it's deeply flawed, I can understand why people love and still watch it.
Do I recommend the original DuckTales? Not really.
Is the reboot DuckTales a perfect masterpiece? No, it has its flaws like any story - though it might take another 30 years to recognize that.
Go watch the reboot and when you run out of those episodes, check out Gravity Falls or The Proud Family or Kim Possible.
In another 30 years, we'll probably get another reboot of these classic cartoons. Transformers seems to have a new cartoon every five years or so. The My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic did a fantastic job at rebooting the series. I do hope that some of the cartoons I grew up with get an updated reboot eventually. I'd love to see a modern take on Hey Arnold, Rugrats, or Code Name Kids Next Door - especially that last one as two-by-four technology must have improved since the early 2000s.
What are some stories from your childhood that you hope get a reboot? I've already listed a few of mine, but I've got a whole list that grows every year. Nostalgia is powerful, but that shouldn't mean that something we enjoy isn't free from criticism. The adults in the room can still share their love of DuckTales with their kids, but I hope it's with the reboot.
If you enjoyed this post (or it really pissed you off) please like, share, and/or leave a comment. I love hearing from my readers and I hope y'all like hearing from me.
Until next week.
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