"Magica's Shadow War" reminds me a bit -- A BIT -- of those low-budget, black-and-white, late-50s-early-60s "horror shockers" that Mystery Science Theater 3000 parodied to such grand comedic effect. Those movies tended to be 5% "shock" and 95% verbal exposition, giving contemporary audiences plenty of time between "shocks" to get candy and popcorn, visit the restroom, or do... whatever. "Shadow War" is also extremely talky; if you don't feel like rewatching the episode to confirm this observation, Randy Lofficier's original episode script is available online for you to peruse. Even so, despite occasional dragginess and questionable leaps of logic, "Shadow War" succeeds in establishing a fairly legitimate mood of spooky ambiance, and the characters involved are, of course, much more interesting than the cardboard humans who "starred" in those low-budget cheapies, though Lofficier may have ultimately tried to shoehorn in too many cast members whose presence really wasn't needed. The decision to broadcast "Shadow War" immediately after "Robot Robbers," with its similar theme of "Scrooge being forced to cooperate with lifelong adversaries," may have taken some of the edge off of the former's initial effectiveness. On balance, however, the episode remains very entertaining, giving Magica one of her meatiest and most memorable roles in the series.
Reading the original version of "Shadow War" reveals that Lofficier and/or her story editors actually added to the planned dialogue in certain places in order to make character plots and motivations a bit clearer, while also trimming a few superfluous scenes and gags in order to bring the script in under the 22-minute time limit. It's not hard to understand why the opening business with HD&L going gaga over Gyro's new camera was downplayed a bit; the gag with Mrs. Beakley was clever enough, but the "flashing" of Scrooge didn't really go anywhere and made little sense besides (why would an inventor, even one as... er... unpredictable as Gyro, create a flash camera that has the potential of bleaching colored objects? Wouldn't that defeat the purpose of creating the camera in the first place?). Still, it wouldn't have hurt for HD&L to have used the camera once during the middle of the episode, just to remind the audience that it still existed, before bringing it (or should I say, them) during the final scene in the Money Bin. It's also too bad that no one thought to insert an "in-joke" reference linking HD&L's sudden camera-philia to their Unca Donald's newfound obsession with picture-taking (seen most memorably in "Three Ducks of the Condor").
The "shooting script" also eliminated a longish sequence in which the Ducks, having failed to stop the shadows at the baseball diamond, must elude them in a department store. Instead, we cut from the "monster shadow" scaring the Ducks in the alley to the scene in the Money Bin where Scrooge has to "spit out" his apology to Magica for not taking her earlier advice on how to stop the shadow-scheme. With the shadows already having been established as legitimate menaces, this excision made sense.
Along with GeoX, I must confess to being underwhelmed at the ep's development of the shadows' relationship to the "real world" and the low level of plausibility of the evil shadow's "enslavement" scheme. The idea that "shadows must grab the shadows" of things in order to steal them was quite clever, and the scene involving Magica and Vacation van Honk was staged in such a way that it was possible to accept that Magica's shadow was grabbing the shadow of VVH's wallet rather than the wallet itself, but I can't for the life of me understand why the shadow would want the wallet in the first place. Was it planning to shadow-spend the penumbra of VVH's pelf at the local umbra-ella store? To say the least, this was a clumsy way of foreshadowing (hyuck) the shadow's ultimate turn to the dark(er) side.
The shadow's transformation and announcement of its plans at the end of Act One was a similar case of an imaginative idea being undercut by some poorly-thought-out execution. We are simply asked to believe that all shadows would be willing to follow the example of the evil shadow in wanting to "enslave" their masters. I think that we can safely assume, however, that the shade of an evil sorceress would not be a good template to impose on the shadows of the rest of the world. As it is, the evil shadow only acquires allies after Scrooge's stadium plan has backfired and produced an infestation of "little black Magicas." Also, we never learn exactly what "enslavement" might mean, or why Scrooge's dime is needed in order for the "master spell" to work. Lofficier's original script gave us even less of an explanation than did the filmed version, but neither version is really successful. It's a tribute to June Foray's voice acting and some high-quality visuals that the evil shadow still comes across as a legitimate threat, as confused and confusing as its scheme might be.
With the "power-lighting" of Scrooge's house for the purposes of Dime-protection, we begin the accumulation of unnecessary characters -- and, in some cases, the questionable absence of characters who logically should be present. Launchpad doesn't really contribute all that much to the proceedings; in fact, I'm shocked, shocked that Scrooge gave him the all-important job of hooking up the lights at the stadium. Scrooge should certainly know by now that that way lies madness. Mrs. Beakley shows up at the Money Bin during the final "entrapment" scene, along with Webby, whose presence comes completely out of nowhere. Why would Scrooge even want to put Webby in danger like that? (And things could have been worse; Lofficier originally wanted to throw Doofus into the mix as well.) Meanwhile, Duckworth, who was present when Scrooge freed Magica from the closet, (rather ominously) disappears from the narrative after having been told by Scrooge to "keep an eye" on Magica, and Gyro, who presumably would have been needed to provide the Nephews with the three cameras used to "foof" the evil shadow out of existence, doesn't appear at all. DuckTales was usually quite good about giving its major cast members something useful to do whenever they appeared, which makes the "wotthehell" use of the cast here seem all the more peculiar.
Making up for some of the slackness in the earlier part of the episode, acts two and three feature some neat set pieces -- the shadow's failed attempt to steal the Dime from Scrooge's mansion, the showdown at the stadium, and, of course, the Money Bin climax. In keeping with the somewhat more mischievous, prank-loving side that they displayed at the start of the episode, HD&L use imaginative shadow-puppetry to foil the first raid. Aside from being a good gag in and of itself, this nicely foreshadows (hyuck, again) how the Nephews will foil Magica's "heel turn" at the end. The stadium scene follows in the footsteps of the earlier "shadow must steal the shadow" meme in showing that at least some thought was given to how the shadows should operate, with the boys deducing that the shadows are less powerful when the lights are off, an entirely plausible notion. Unfortunately, this makes the lack of a coherent explanation for the evil shadow's scheme all the more frustrating.
The highlighted Scrooge-Magica alliance SHOULD have been even more memorable than the Scrooge-Glomgold teamup in "Robot Robbers," primarily because Scrooge possesses something specific that Magica wants (namely, the Old #1 Dime), and therefore, there was greater potential here for Scrooge to undergo a meaningful inner conflict. Unfortunately, as GeoX pointed out, the execution falls a bit flat, because we never do learn why Old #1 is needed in order to bring the shadows to heel.
Despite all its flaws, "Shadow War" is still a fun watch, mostly because Magica is on stage most of the time. Episodes like "Send in the Clones" and the later "Raiders of the Lost Harp" marry Magica's personality to far stronger plots and wind up as classics. Here, by contrast, "the saucy sorceress" carries a less successful storyline across the finish line.
.
.
.
"DuckBlurbs"
(GeoX) We learn that Ratface's new name is "Poe," which would be more apropos
if we hadn't learned in "Send in the Clones" that he's not a raven by
birth, but rather Magica's transformed brother. Unless the writers have
forgotten about that detail. Who knows.
I think that Lofficier was aware of it, as suggested by this passage from the original script:
MAGICA (VO-CONT) Poe, vake up! Come here! Mr. Poe opens an eye, shakes himself, and
flies next to the closet. MR. POE Squawk? What? Squawk? MAGICA (VO) Go und get help! Quack, er, Quick! Remember, you don't vant to spend your
life es bird, no? ANGLE ON MR. POE MR. POE (vigorously) Squawk! Nevermore! MAGICA (VO) So, go! Find zomeone to get me out ov here!
The specific reference to the scenario of "Send in the Clones" was omitted in the final script. Too bad.
(GeoX) Customs officer to Magica: "Lizard tails, bat shrieks, pickled worms--no fruit! All seems to be in order!"
I can easily imagine Carl Barks using a gag like this in one of his Magica stories. It has a certain satirical sting that he would appreciate. Of course, 9/11 has probably rendered this gag somewhat less amusing.
(Greg) So we head to the Money Bin as Scrooge
talks about spring cleaning to start the day off right. I guess he
had to rehire everyone after the Armstrong incident two rants ago; so
it makes perfect sense. And he is doing more inside the vault as he
has the magnifying glass looking for dust and debris. I only have one
thing to say about this: Who in the hell gave him that apron he is
wearing? That I think drops Scrooge McDuck down a notch on the
dignity scale in my view.
In Lofficier's original script, Scrooge was also supposed to wear an "Aunt Jemima" kerchief on his head. How many "dignity notches" would that cost him?
(Greg) Louie breathes a sigh of relief and the all clear as
Scrooge decides to go to the Money Bin for safety since it's
airtight. One problem: If it's airtight; then the ducks would die due
to lack of oxygen.
That would be a problem, wouldn't it? It's also rather surprising that Scrooge didn't keep Old #1 in the Bin for safety's sake before he went out to do battle with the shadows. Not until "Dime Enough for Luck" will we see Old #1 stored in the Bin(and with elaborate defenses, to boot). Even that arrangement will prove temporary, as the dime will be right back in McDuck Mansion in "Once Upon a Dime."
(Greg) [The evil shadow] gets blown out of existence
and I just realized something: If Scrooge hasn't told the nephews to
return the camera to Gyro; they could have poof[ed] her out of existence
without Magica's help or the dime. So this was awfully contrived
after all.
This might still make sense if you accept that Old #1 wasn't strong enough to completely destroy the evil shadow, but was strong enough to weaken it to the point where the cameras could finish the job.
Next: Episode 36, "Catch as Cash Can, Part One: A Drain on the Economy."
Here's a really neat image I happened across recently -- a veritable deluge of "Distaff Disney" characters. Whoever put this together does appear to have missed a few, however. Can you figure out which ones?
In 1948, Carl Barks was right on the cusp of his artistic and thematic "Golden Age," and his mind was a-bubble with ideas and, even more to the point, new characters. The first two stories in this latest Fantagraphics collection represent, if not two of the best Barks tales, then two of the most fateful tales Barks ever crafted, in the sense that they permanently expanded his stable of major continuing players, and with characters of his own creation. In the volume's headlined story, Barks made the fateful decision to bring back Uncle Scrooge, while in "Wintertime Wager," the ten-pager that immediately follows Barks' tale of Scottish Gothic, Gladstone Gander makes his first appearance. Intriguingly, given Gladstone and Scrooge's ultimate importance in Barks' world, Barks was a bit quicker in exploiting the former than he was the latter; the insufferable gander would pop up in two more tales in WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES before the end of 1948, while Scrooge didn't make his WDC&S debut until November of that year. In these earliest roles, Scrooge and Gladstone are far from the characters they would ultimately become, but one can almost sense Barks' pleasure at hitting upon "keepers" who held far more promise for extensive use in future stories than his previous creations of Herbert and Neighbor Jones.
"The Old Castle's Secret" has its share of weaknesses -- overly convenient happenings, frankly bizarre "red herrings" strewn across the reader's path -- but has remained a favorite of Duck fans for years simply because of its legitimately spooky ambiance and (of course) the return of Scrooge. Throughout much of the adventure, Barks maintains some humorous continuity with "Christmas on Bear Mountain," specifically, with that story's theme of "who really is/isn't a brave man." Both Donald and Scrooge talk good games about braving ghosts to search the ancestral McDuck Manse, but, just as they did in "Bear Mountain," they both fold like accordions in the face of either real or perceived danger. Oddly enough, as the story begins, Scrooge appears to have forgone his post-"Bear Mountain" belief that Donald really is a brave man; he doesn't even make particular mention of Don's initial attempt to sneak out of his responsibility. This incident must have left a mark, though; later, when Scrooge and HD&L are trapped on a castle battlement, Scrooge dismisses the idea that Donald will come to rescue them. Donald and Scrooge's ultimate participation in the solution of the mystery (with the Nephews, of course, doing the lion's share of the work) might thus be considered a final resolution of the whole "brave man" controversy. The two older Ducks may not be as brave as they make themselves out to be, but they turn out to be brave enough to contribute to the successful completion of a peril-filled task.
The 1948 Gladstone is simply a loudmouthed rival of Donald's, as opposed to the ridiculously lucky "walking repudiation of the work ethic" that Barks would begin to develop in "Luck of the North." Fittingly, the two characters are pretty much on the same moral plane in these early stories, engaging in constant bouts of one-up-duckship. "Wintertime Wager" does provide a small hint of the future, however, by showing Gladstone as being ruthless enough to want to kick Donald out of his house on "the coldest day of the year" on the basis of a silly summertime bet. Already, Barks seems to have the idea that, however often Donald may bring his problems upon himself, the reader should somehow want Donald to get the better of his cousin. The contest simply hasn't entered the realm of the metaphysical as of yet.
The other two long stories reprinted here are "Sheriff of Bullet Valley" and "Darkest Africa," the latter of which has at long last been "fully restored" to something approaching the original version that appeared in MARCH OF COMICS. All praise to Fantagraphics for this long-overdue reclamation job, but the story isn't particularly great; I actually prefer the "Forbidden Valley" remake. "Bullet Valley"'s clever satire of the gap between Wild West movies and technology-augmented Wild West reality, by contrast, still holds up extremely well. Most of the 1948 ten-pagers are still taken up with the crowd-pleasing theme of Donald's braggadocio and overconfidence getting him into trouble, and it's noteworthy that the best of the lot, the Dr. Spock-spoofing "Spoil the Rod," turns the template on its head, with Donald's humility and willingness to defer to an "expert" leading him to follow Professor Pulpheart Clabberhead's advice and let HD&L do what they will in what would today be called the boys' effort to "find themselves." As with all good satire, you don't have to be aware of the specific idea being joshed in order to enjoy this story, but it helps. Between the successful satire of "Spoil the Rod" and "Bullet Valley" and the important additions to the Barksian cast of characters, this volume, while far from Barks' best work, gives more than a few hints of the glories to come.
You know, I never really appreciated just how many times a DuckTales episode title card featured McDuck Mansion...
With "Robot Robbers," we get our first adaptation of a Barks story since "Lost Crown of Genghis Khan." By this time, the stiffness and sludginess that plagued many of the early Barks adaptations have been leached out of the series, and the freer approach is on clear display here. Michael Keyes takes the essence of Barks' tale of giant, Beagle Boy-controlled rob... er, "person-shaped vehicles" (side glance at GeoX) on the loose and gussies it up with a somewhat more believable backstory and a subtle, and clever, moral (Scrooge worrying whether he's no longer as "hep" to new business opportunities as he used to be). The multiple references to the events of "Armstrong" (not to mention the physical references -- note the e-x-t-r-e-m-e similarities in the basic designs of Armstrong and the quartet of colossal constructors) create a natural bond between the two episodes, but the quality of Michael Keyes' script for "Robbers" is unquestionably better, particularly in the area of humor. Intriguingly, however, Barks' original story and the TV adaptation wind up having almost exactly the same strengths and weaknesses. (BTW, if you're interested in reading a relatively inexpensive version of Barks' story, you can find it in the second volume of Gemstone's CARL BARKS' GREATEST DUCKTALES STORIES collection. Check out the preface for a couple of familiar names.)
Keyes' decision to make Glomgold the ultimate source of the robots (unlike GeoX, I'm going to dispense with the quotation marks; after all, what else could one possibly call these gizmos?) is such a natural one that I'm surprised Barks didn't think of it first. It would even have made sense in terms of Barks' development of Flinty from an antagonistic, yet basically honest, rival in "The Second Richest Duck" to a ruthless baddie in "So Far and No Safari." The Glomgold of "Robbers" hovers somewhere between these two poles; he breaks no laws by outhustling Scrooge and hiring Gyro to build the robots, yet he bullies disguised apple-saleslady Ma Beagle and brags about taking candy from babies. Can one imagine this Glomgold chiseling to win the money-piling contest in "The Money Champ"? Certainly -- but he's not yet a lost cause, as is later demonstrated by his decision to work (albeit reluctantly) with Scrooge to stop the robot rampage.
I also find it easier to buy Keyes' conception that a private enterprise (Glomgold Construction) commissioned the robots for a very specific purpose. In Barks' story, the fact that the Mayor of Duckburg was so obsessed with keeping the robots from harm even after the Beagle Boys had stolen them never seemed to fully jibe with the notion that the robots had been created with the exceptionally vague mission of "easing man's burdens." If the government is going to lay out that much money for such a project, then wouldn't it stand to reason (at least, in the comparatively idealistic world in which Duckburg resides) that it should have a much clearer notion of what the robots were intended to do in the first place?
Gyro and Launchpad's willingness to work for Flinty isn't all that surprising when you consider that, in the context of the series' production order, this is the first time that they have ever been seen interacting with Glomgold in any way. Unless Scrooge had explicitly warned them about Flinty's nature -- which, as noted above, is not yet completely fallen -- their cooperation with Glomgold would seem to bea perfectly respectable method of trying to scratch out a living, especially when you consider the wages that Scrooge normally pays.
Just as Glomgold is not yet a deep-dyed villain, Ma Beagle is not yet the slightly buffoonish figure that she became in certain second-season eps. GeoX's description of her as "a very entertaining mastermind type" seems spot-on, arguably even more so than it was during her first appearance in "Hero for Hire." Here, after all, she has to trigger the entire scheme by herself, using both mental and physical resources to secure the use of a robot and break her boys out of the slammer. Given that Gyro was apparently able to control the behavior of the other three robots by pulling the requisite levers in his own robot, I'm actually surprised that Ma didn't try to pull off this caper all by herself. As we see at episode's end (not to mention the end of "Hero for Hire"), Ma's "family ties" aren'tthat strong, and her decision to waste time (and the robots' power) by window-shopping before attacking the Money Bin bespeaks a rather high level of self-centeredness, so she would certainly seen capable of performing a solo act.
As in "Hero for Hire," Ma teams up with Bankjob and Babyface here, suggesting that such an alliance might become a regular occurrence. It didn't, quite, though Bankjob came pretty close; he appeared in Western guise with "Grandma Beagle" in "Once Upon a Dime" and was one of the Beagles robbing the bank with Ma at the conclusion of "Till Nephews Do Us Part." "Time Teasers" was the only episode in which Bankjob played a meaningful role without Ma. Even Babyface was more detached from Ma's symbolic umbilical cord, thanks to his extra role in "Send in the Clones." Needless to say, I would have vastly preferred that Keyes stuck to the complete "Hero for Hire" template and used Bebop/Bugle as opposed to the bizarre... um... conflation of Burger and Bouncer that we were presented with here. I have no earthly idea how such an obvious goof managed to slip under the radar at this late date. I mean, wouldn't Chuck McCann, who voiced both characters, have pointed out that something was wrong during the recording session? I suppose it's possible that the voice track was recorded far enough in advance of the animation process that the voices weren't completely settled yet, but SOMEONE should have caught this error and asked for dialogue relooping somewhere along the line.
The similarities between Armstrong and Gyro's robots become even more apparent when we see the monstrous mayhem-makers in animated action. The stiff-legged loping, flapping arms, and constricted movements are almost identical; only the scale is different. Granted, it would have been fun had the animators really let themselves go and given the robots the freedom of movement to engage in the fisticuffs and wild action that we saw in Barks' story...
... but what the behemoths lack in pizazz, they make up for with clever bits of characterization. The infamous "giant robot hockey game" (with Glomgold as the unwilling puck) is the sequence that everyone remembers...
... but we shouldn't forget the scene in which the police have surrounded the robots and the Beagles reflexively raise their arms in surrender before suddenly remembering that they now possess a size advantage (Bankjob: "The bigger we are, the smaller they are!"). The sheer familiarity (thanks to the opening credits) of the "high-five" slap (followed by the mildly risque comment about the Beagles being "tired of being Number 2") should not obscure the appeal of yet another cute gag.
The limited nature of the animated robots' physical activities does become a debit during the attack on the Money Bin. In place of Barks' robots' enthusiastic use of custom-built sledgehammers and memorable "slam-dunk" of the Bin (which reveals that Barks' Bin, like the DT Money Bin, doesn't have a basement)...
... the DT robots do little more than paw at the Bin to reveal its hidden infrastructure (which, BTW, the animators seem to have some trouble drawing consistently). Effective, and probably more realistic, but certainly not as artistically gripping.
Just as the robots are running out of juice, however, the ep starts its finishing kick, and a good finish it is for the most part. First, we get the expected bitching between the newly allied Scrooge and Glomgold, with Flinty's expressed desire to bill Scrooge for "ruining" his robots in the reservoir providing the scantiest sort of "fig leaf" to justify Glomgold's ultimately getting stuck with the bill for repairing the city. This may not satisfy a lot of viewers, but at least Keyes tried to foreshadow the ending; Barks, by contrast, showed the Mayor billing Scrooge simply because he was the only citizen with enough money to pay for the damages.
Gyro's use of diverted power to zap the 'bots is also carried off well. Between this, the smashing of half the city, and the breaking of the reservoir dam, Duckburg suffered a fate here not unlike that endured by St. Canard in any number of Darkwing Duck episodes. Duckburg being a slightly "realer" place, a good deal of the damage occurred off-camera. I wonder how everyone in Duckburg felt about having their power disrupted in such a dramatic manner.
Greg raised a question regarding the staging of the climactic "entrapment" scene inside the loading bay. I think that I can see why he was confused on the issue of where the Ducks' platform is relative to the robot. At first, it briefly looks as if the Ducks are at breast height, but, in all subsequent shots, they are the same height as the robot's head, which would mean that they would not be covered by the cement if the cement buried the robot up to its neck. A more serious question, at least to my mind, is the following: Is this facility the same as the robots' storage shed, which (1) looks completely different and (2) was partially destroyed when the Beagles busted out? I don't think the "G-Barn" is the promised "second largest money vault in the world"; the robots had barely started to build the bank complex before they knocked off for the day. So what could it be? Can you imagine the parsimonious Glomgold building two such massive structures when only one might do?
The ending scene is slightly unsatisfying for the reason given by GeoX, but, as noted above, Barks didn't wrap his story up much better.
I think it's safe to say that, if you like one version of the "Robot Robbers" story, then you will like them both -- and I do. The only reason that "Robbers" ran during the first week of syndication was probably because it was a follow-up to the visually splashy "Armstrong," but the episode does manage to hold its own in some fairly distinguished company.
.
.
.
"DuckBlurbs"
(Greg) Flint then shows Scrooge towards
another area as it is the cement pouring procedure. So we see in the
far shot as the robots grab four cement mixers and rips them from the
trucks (!!!) and squeezes the cement into the foundation like piping
a cake. One of the mixers drops on the ground and is stepped on by a
robot as Scrooge is about to blow Flint off; and then he eats cement
as he gets buried in a cement statue. HAHA! I am so loving this as
Flint can only smile on that one. He knocks on five second drying
cement (of course) as he goes to Gyro and orders him to break the old
stiff out. Gyro agrees and invokes the finger jackhammer and
jackhammers the statue breaking the cement to break the stiff free.
This sequence is a weird mixture of the inspired and the inappropriate. Thanks to his decision to specifically make the robots machines designed for construction, Keyes has the freedom to improvise on that basic idea and show "themed" gags, as opposed to the more or less scattershot "mankind's-burden-easing" gags depicted by Barks. However, I really don't think that the "Scrooge in cement" gag is a DuckTales sort of gag; it seems more appropriate for Darkwing Duck or some other more comedic WDTVA series. (I'm sure that many of us can think of characters from such series that probably deserved to get buried in cement, if not subsequently deposited in the nearest river.)
(Greg) Bankjob then invokes the finger drill
on the green door (good thinking there guys!); but it stops as he
wonders if he is losing his touch. HAHA! Baggy [or whoever] tries some biting; but
no dice there either. We cut to Ma Beagle looking in the book of doom
and finds out that the batteries are low. How did she deduce that
when she couldn't [originally] comprehend the book to save her life?
Maybe she located the "Quick Start User's Guide" in the interim? . . .
I'm feeling a touch nostalgic today, so I'll close with a trio of late-80s DuckTales-themed tidbits for you to savor.
Here's an early illo for the first season of The Disney Afternoon, circa 1988. They were still getting the particulars of TaleSpin sorted out at this time.
Vintage DuckTales commercial bumpers and commercials from 1989. Advertising a comic-book convention during a DT broadcast?! If only Disney had taken the hint during the Disney Comics era.
...And you just knew that I was going to post this one sooner or later. The most fondly remembered DuckTales commercial, perchance? It would certainly be my choice, though the "Quiet on the set!" commercial with HD&L and the Beagle Boys and the "original million-dollar duck" (a reference that people probably had a hard time getting even then) featuring Scrooge, and the one with Webby that I posted a while ago are also particular favorites.
With abuse-of-power scandals popping like Fourth of July crackers in Washington, this seemed like a good time to kick back and read about a President who has long been patronized for doing too little while in office. As Amity Shlaes makes clear in this new biography of Calvin Coolidge, purposely pulling back on the reins of government actually requires more effort than is typically expended by a more activist leader. During his five years in office, President Coolidge certainly found it so.
For all of its considerable detail, I did find Shlaes' narrative to be lacking in certain areas and inartfully crafted in others. Coolidge's money-saving economic policies get most of the attention, as they should, but there is little on Coolidge Administration foreign policy save for the last-minute drive to ratify the war-"outlawing" Kellogg-Briand Pact. The U.S. was not "isolationist" during the 1920s in any meaningful sense of the word, but Shlaes inadvertently leaves that impression. As to Shlaes' style, it is best described as "lumpy." Characters are repeatedly reintroduced to us, while other figures who might have been expected to get much more attention, such as Coolidge's secretary C. Bascom Slemp, barely rate a mention. The short-shrifting of Slemp (whom blacks, who at the time were still heavily Republican, harshly criticized) seems particularly unfortunate because he was a Virginia Republican at a time when Southern Republicans were rare; including him as a major player would have added some depth to the comparatively scanty discussion of Coolidge's policies towards the South and black civil rights.
If you are interested in learning about Coolidge's life, personality, and Presidency, this is a fairly decent introductory book, but I still came away somewhat disappointed. Several more runs through the editorial mill would, I believe, have strengthened both the content and the prose.
It's been a while since I expressed my intention to "take the plunge into the trough" and try the popular IDW comic-book adaptation of MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDSHIP IS MAGIC. Before doing so, however, I felt it necessary to view some of the key episodes of the TV series. Thanks to the magic of YouTube and the helpful suggestions of my friend Mark Lungo, I've now seen enough to essay some comments on... um, the TV series. (Don't worry, the comics reviews will be on their way soon.)
MLP: FIM turned out to be a pleasant surprise, emphasis on "pleasant." Essentially, it's a very slicked-up, somewhat more culturally aware reboot of a 1980s toy-based cartoon series (surprise, huh?), bearing approximately the same relationship to its Reagan-era namesake that the Ziegfeld Follies did to run-of-the-mill vaudeville. That may sound like damning with faint praise, but it really isn't. The trouble with many of those old chatchka-centered productions was that they did so surprisingly little to make their animated versions appealingin and of themselves.The original MLP certainly fell into that category: it's tough to imagine doing anything really splashy or innovative with characters with such unimaginative basic designs. Say what you will about the literary quality of 1980s Transformers episodes, but at least those machine-robot-things looked cool, and it's possible to imagine a talented writer taking those visual stimuli and turning them loose in a really first-rate action-adventure. (Not that one has appeared yet... sorry, Michael Bay.)
The televised MLP: FIM stories that I've seen thus far -- the two-part pilot story "Friendship is Magic," the two-parter "A Canterlot Wedding," and "The Cutie Mark Chronicles" -- have all been similar in terms of strengths and weaknesses. Taking several hints (OK, more than a few) from the increased popularity of anime, MLP:FIM quickly accomplishes the first goal of an animated series: it's lots of fun to look at. The characters are well-designed, the facial expressions are amusing, and the visual effects are often quite remarkable. With that in mind, I must admit that I actually prefer the comic-book versions of the characters. The comic-book artists seem to be doing an excellent job of adapting the characters to the demands of telling a story without being locked into the TV show's somewhat more stiff and stylized visual template.
The characterizations of the six "mane" ponies (you knew that I had to go there...) will be tolerably familiar to any fan of Adventures of the Gummi Bears. That series took the basic Smurfs idea of characters based on single personality traits and added some additional complexity to each character without really straying too far from the basic template. Thus, we have Twilight Sparkle = brainy, Applejack = tomboy, Pinkie Pie = nutty, Rainbow Dash = brash Peppermint Patty type (at least, I think so), Fluttershy = shy nature girl, Rarity = beautiful egotist. This, I must admit, represents a somewhat wider cross-section of humanity (or should I say, "equine-inity") than do the Glen Gummis. Wisely, MLP:FIM avoids the trap of relying TOO heavily on six character types by introducing several corralsful of additional ponies, many of whom have their own individual followings among the series' maniacal fan base. In a more Smurfs-like twist, each pony has a "specialty" indicated by a "cutie mark" on his or her flank. This apparently is a continuation of a tradition dating back to the original MLP series ("Generation One" or "G1" to the cognoscenti). I can see this notion possibly becoming a problem as the TV writers run short of ideas and start creating "one-trick ponies" left and right with the carelessness of a Vic Lockman creating "specialist" Beagle Boys. At least the writers seem to be aware of the potential for trouble; three young ponies calling themselves "The Cutie Mark Crusaders" furnish one of the show's running gags by engaging in a perpetual hunt for the "specialty" that will lift them out of the ranks of the "blank-flanked." I am sure that there is a lively debate going as to when (if?) the Crusaders will finally get their marks. (Probably at or around the same time that Springfield is blown up, a laLittle House on the Prairie's Walnut Grove, in what I have predicted for years will be the final act of The Simpsons.)
The plotting in the episodes I've watched has been... well, not that bad, but certainly nothing to write home about. The villains, or, as the MLP:FIM wiki has it, "antagonists" -- since when did the term "villain" become un-PC?! -- tend to kick into "rant-about-my-plan" mode with disquieting suddenness, and the attraction of the stories is created far more by of the flashy, candy-colored visuals than by any particularly imaginative scripting. Queen Chrysalis, a changeling who is the vil... er,antiponyof "A Canterlot Wedding," is featured in the comic-book series' first four-issue story arc, so I'll soon have a bit more of a handle on her.
Perhaps the most remarkable (and startling) thing about MLP:FIM is its cheerfully pagan worldview! The natives of Equestria have a literal "ruler-God" in the noble person of Princess Celestia, who is literally responsible for raising the sun each morning. "Friendship is Harmony" resolves Celestia's millennium-old conflict with her renegade younger sister Princess Luna, a conflict that has the marks of Manicheanism stamped all over it. The ponies celebrate such holidays as the Summer Sun Festival, Hearth-Warming Eve, and Nightmare Night. Are you getting the picture?And I haven't even mentioned Twilight Sparkle and Celestia's use of magic. To be fair, Twilight can't tap her full magical potential until she performs the decidedly non-ethereal task of making friends with the other "Elements of Harmony." Still, I can't believe that the show hasn't been more vigorously protested by folks who frown upon things like this.
On balance, MLP:FIM is a very attractive show; I'd even go so far as to say that it's the best animated series I've personally sampled since Kim Possible. But it will have to go some to rank with the best WDTVA series of the late 80s and early 90s. Try as the creators might to add complexity and depth to the basic scenario, the world of MLP:FIM is necessarily constricted by the fact that it's a world of, well, little ponies. Equestria doesn't yet seem to me like a "real place" in the ways that Duckburg, Cape Suzette, or even St. Canard and Dunwyn do. Hopefully, the comic book will address this issue and give the ponies a chance to strut their stuff on a somewhat broader stage.
