DUCKTALES RETROSPECTIVE: Episode 100, "The Golden Goose, Part 2"

All good things, etc. and so on... And what better way to close the book on DuckTales: The Series than with a "battle to save the planet" that doesn't involve invading aliens or sketchy science?

If we attend to GeoX's suggestion about the title, then that really should read "The Golden Goose Part I, Part 2."  Under the extra-special circs, I'm willing to let that slide.

"The Golden Goose" was, of course, one of two two-part stories that closed out "Golden Age" WDTVA series, the other being Gummi Bears' "King Igthorn."  It's worth pausing for a moment to compare the approaches taken by these two productions and to consider how -- in my opinion, at least -- "Goose" managed to do right what "King" did wrong.  Now, there's no denying that "King"'s narrative had the massive sweep that Gummis fans had been expecting ever since the Great Gummis' potential return, the city of Ursalia, and the Barbic Bears had been introduced as side elements of the series.  We got payoffs on just about everything (though the still-unseen Great Gummis' vague final promise to return "soon" did disappoint some folks), and virtually every major character of the series got something to do during the course of the 45 minutes.  And that was the problem.  "King" was so ambitious that a good deal of the dialogue was of the "directional" type that you might have heard in an old-time movie serial ("we're going to go with X and rescue Y while you do Z"), and such dramatic moments as the destruction of Gummi Glen by the wood-eating bug Big Tooth, the villains' acquisition of massive quantities of Gummiberry Juice, and Duke Igthorn's long-awaited takeover of Dunwyn Castle whizzed by too quickly to have the walloping impact that they should have. "King" was still an enjoyable ride, but, despite the praiseworthy ambition of the undertaking, a "Peggy Lee" sort of feeling ("Is that all there is?") nonetheless lingered in its wake.

At first glance, "The Golden Goose" seems to suffer from a problem diametrically opposite to that of "King Igthorn" -- not "Is that all there is?" so much as "Is there any THERE there?".  A year before Darkwing Duck's debut, the strangely depopulated Duckburg of "Goose" seems more like the bare-streeted St. Canard during a battle between DW and one of his supervillain foes.  There's no sign of Bubba Duck, Fenton Crackshell, or Gizmoduck.  The minimalist approach seems completely at odds with the apocalyptic vision of the narrative, leaching away a great deal of the "epic scope" that we would normally hope to see in such a tale.  And yet, I would argue that the scantily-furnished stage is actually appropriate here, given that the script chooses to focus on characters' inner turmoil just as much as it does their external challenges.  The decision to strip down to the basics makes the characters' feelings and decisions -- Scrooge's concern for his Nephews, Scrooge's choice to put the fate of the world ahead of any personal considerations, Dijon's fall and subsequent redemption -- seem to carry all the more weight.  Not that there isn't a healthy helping of action, humor, and suspense in this concluding chapter, but we're more inclined to remember the moral dilemmas (there's that phrase again...) and, in Scrooge's case, the satisfying conclusion of a character journey that began with a cranky old Duck swiping cheese samples and ends with a similarly old, but wiser, Duck demonstrating that he has thoroughly internalized all of those proclamations about the value of family and has gained sufficient largeness of soul to extend his vision of "family" to the worldwide community.  There are a few annoying logical hiccups in the story as a whole, but they are not enough to overcome the overflowing feeling of "Heart" that makes "Goose" a classic, almost in spite of itself.

After Frank Welker provides an appropriately non-fruity, on-point summation of the events of Part 1, we cut to the discovery of the statuefied HD&L.  While the reactions of Webby, Duckworth, and Mrs. Beakley are pretty much what we might have expected of them -- actually, Webby manages to keep her cool a bit better than did her gramma, which is pretty remarkable -- Scrooge's is both dramatic and symbolically significant.  He immediately blames his own "greed for gold" for the boys' fate, even though he is clearly not responsible for what has happened to them.  His quick assumption of liability is even more impressive than his shaking-off of the "Gold Fever" in "Too Much of a Gold Thing."  In that case, it took the intervention of Mrs. Beakley reminding him of "what's important" to jolt him out of his obsession.  Here, Scrooge makes the pivot all by himself, with no hesitation whatsoever.  The solution to Moral Dilemma Number 2 (as I described it in my review of Part 1) is already clear: no matter what happens in the future, Scrooge will unquestionably put the welfare of his Nephews ahead of any potential monetary gain.  Incidentally, I think that this lends some credence to my earlier speculation that Scrooge might have been able to maintain some "control" and use the Golden Goose in a more rational and responsible manner after a night of (literally) sleeping on the matter.  When Flintheart Glomgold and the Beagle Boys have their chances to use and/or take control of the Goose, they will demonstrate no such restraint.

In order to set up the remainder of the ep, we're going to have to get an info dump at some point, and Poupon provides one as soon as he arrives at the Mansion, with Dijon in reluctant tow.  Poupon's explanation of the Goose's transformative powers and the possible fate of the world lasts for about one minute and 45 seconds, which wouldn't bother me so much, except for the occasional shots of a frozen Mrs. Beakley and Duckworth staring off into space like goons as he does so.  They should care about the fate of HD&L, too, so this was extremely bad form by Wang Films.  Thankfully, the scene is redeemed by Poupon's dramatic description of the effects of "The Golden Death" ("And all life will be ending... for little golden Ducks... for everyone!") and, of course, Scrooge's decision to let Poupon have the vial of "mystical water" to neutralize the Goose and save the world, as opposed to using it on HD&L right then and there.  Moral Dilemma Number 3 is thereby resolved with crystal clarity, and our opinion of Scrooge as a moral being can't help but be improved as a result.  It's essentially the DT version of Scrooge's dramatic decision to help the outer-space aborigines in Carl Barks' "Island in the Sky," but with considerably more global import involved.

Evidently on something of a roll, Scrooge resorts to some ingenious reverse psychology to keep Webby out of harm's way.  Far from another example of the DT writers showing contempt for Webby -- much less an example of what GeoX called "sub-TOM SAWYER horseshit" -- this exchange shows how much respect Scrooge has gained for Webby's maturity level.  His approach is based on the belief that Webby is responsible enough to willingly take on the task of keeping HD&L safe from further harm (and thereby be protected from harm herself), provided that the offer is tendered in the proper manner.  Scrooge evidently knows enough about the wee lassie to gauge that she isn't likely to resort to, you know, "Plan B" (except under atypical circumstances, such as kidnapping).

The balance of Act One is taken up with some wacky slapstick doings at Glomgold's "abandoned" auto factory.  You'll understand the quote marks when you take a very close look at the upper portion of the following screenshot...

... and, true to this somewhat dubious beginning, the rest of the sequence can fairly be said to be Part 2's weak point.  Granted, there are some decent moments, such as Launchpad's last (real) crash (for a while, anyway)...

... and Dijon's complete cock-up of Moral Dilemma Number 4, in which he opts to indulge his petty kleptomania rather than "dogface up" and deliver the Goose to his brother.  Based on this incident, I guess that we DO have to regard "Attack of the Metal Mites" as canon.  How would Glomgold have known about Dijon's propensity to steal unless Flinty had had some kind of dealings with him in the past?

In between these high points, however, comes... wait for it... yet ANOTHER conveyor-belt sequence.  Sigh.  A little bit of originality, especially in a climactic adventure like this, doesn't seem like too much to ask, does it?  As to how the machinery in this supposedly "abandoned" factory suddenly can operate like (extremely snarky) clockwork...well, to borrow a line of Scrooge's in the DuckTales Remastered video game, "I'm not even going to dignify that with a response."

"G. who gets slapped"?

The conclusion of Act One, with Glomgold advancing on the captured heroes while holding out the Goose, quickly brings the goofiness to a halt and warns the viewer that some serious stuff is about to go down.  And so it does, as the Goose begins its sequence of transformations, first taking on a life of its own and turning on those who would manipulate it.  The climax of these attacks is chilling in its stark simplicity, with the cornered, cringing Glomgold meeting his fate (which will, of course, implicitly be reversed once "The Golden Death" is overcome, but it's what we SEE that is remembered) and the Goose then flying away, emitting only a few lonely caws.  Leave it to Wang to then muddy the moment a bit by having Poupon speak what is clearly Dijon's line, "Poor Mr. Gloomduck!"  (There's no question that this was a goof, as the voice is definitely that of Richard Libertini, the voice of Dijon.)

Now that the Goose is sentient, I should point out that the creature, far from being some sort of mechanical MacGuffin, is very much of a personality in its own right.  A cranky, somewhat obnoxious personality, but a personality nonetheless.  Such small touches as the Goose charging or lunging madly at various characters, reacting quizzically to Scrooge's use of a goose call in the park, and, later, trying to dope out Dijon's intentions inside the roadside bush, go well beyond what one might have expected here.

Poupon, aggrieved by Dijon's failure at the factory, dismisses Moral Dilemma Number 5 in a heartbeat, brushing aside any notion of forgiveness and angrily demanding that Dijon leave his sight forevermore.  Harsh, to be sure, but not entirely unjustified, given that keeping the world safe from "The Golden Death" is the Brotherhood of the Goose's first and foremost function.  (In Part 1, Poupon mentioned that the Brotherhood also acts "in service to others," but we never do get any details as to what that might entail.  As long as "service" doesn't involve serving the Goose "with gravy and stuffing," as Burger might suggest, I'm OK with the vagueness.)

Following that extremely strange detour to Launchpad's hangar -- surely, they could have pursued the Goose into downtown Duckburg while looking out for a place to get nets at the same time? And why are they watching TV at a time like this, since Scrooge has already pointed out where the Goose was heading? -- Scrooge, LP, and Poupon chase their elusive quarry through an all-but-desolate city setting, winding up at the park.  The slapstick gags here are decidedly muted, an appropriate approach in light of the fact that the crisis is getting graver.  The Beagle Boys' destruction of the water vial is the perfect capper, demonstrating that the Beagles, like Glomgold, are enmeshed in the tendrils of greed, completely heedless of the potential consequences.  Poupon doesn't cover himself in glory in this scene, either; his unnecessary description of what the water will do to the Goose gives the Beagles enough time to stop him before he can actually pour the water.  You already covered this subject back at the Mansion, Poupon; time to be "up 'n doon" instead.

And then... (it is still spine-tingling, no matter how hard-bitten you have become in the quarter-century since then...)

Of course, "The Golden Death" disseminates itself around the world with an exquisite sense of dramatic timing.  It starts off at a crawl, quickly picks up steam, is moving at a sufficiently fast clip to keep up with Launchpad's Joyrider as the latter flies across the ocean, can visibly be seen moving across the globe in the long shot from space, buzzes through Barkladesh like a house afire, and then slows down right before it reaches the door to the temple's fountain room, just long enough to allow Scrooge to save the day.  A very accommodating sort of apocalypse, I must say.  Despite the inconsistency, the mere fact that the "Death" is progressing through what appears to be a completely lifeless landscape makes a signature moment like the loss of Poupon seem all the more compelling and meaningful.  It's like the opposite of a zombie movie or TV show, in that there are very few characters here as opposed to hordes of shambling dead-walkers, but the end results of the two approaches are the same -- they help us to invest all the more in the characters on the side of good.

The rest of Scrooge's family, of course, is caught up in the golden wave along the way.  I like to think of the episode's occasional cutbacks to the Mansion -- and to Gyro's futile efforts to turn the boys back to normal -- as a subtle comment on the vanity of human endeavors in the face of overpowering forces beyond human understanding.  Or, perhaps, it's simply a reflection of the fact that Gyro Gearloose is having an EXTREMELY bad day.  An unfortunate circumstance, given that this is the character's last animated appearance, but it's not as if Gyro hasn't already experienced more than his share of failures during the course of the series.

Thankfully, the forsaken Dijon passes Moral Dilemma Number 6 with flying colors when he decides that he owes it to his brother to return the captured Goose.  As GeoX notes, it is kind of unlikely that Dijon would instantly, and correctly, recognize this generic-looking white goose as THE Goose, and we never do find out when and where Dijon managed to swipe Scrooge's cane, but... poetic license.  I can live with it.  (It would be nice to think that Dijon recognized the Goose's personality, based on what he had seen of it at the factory.  That would have been a worthy justification of the decision to depict the Goose as more than just an anonymous mayhem-maker.)

The climax cannot honestly be faulted.  Oh, it can be flyspecked, since (1) Launchpad magically has enough gas in his Joyrider to fly across a good portion of the Earth's surface without stopping to refuel, and (2) despite LP's claim and Scrooge's subsequent order to crash, there does seem to be enough of a flat surface on the temple mount for LP to make a normal landing.  But you definitely can't say that the episode doesn't drag all of us through a very rough knothole before salvation arrives.

The Mansion wrap-up scene is a bit truncated, but we do get to see all of our principals (save Gyro, for some reason) alive and happy again.  Best of all, we get the concluding hug between Scrooge and HD&L, which it would have been a positive crime to have omitted.  Regarding the rehashing of the ending of DuckTales: The Movie, I didn't have any issue with it back in 1990, but I have to admit that I'm somewhat less enamored of it now.  We know that Dijon, thanks to his decision to return the Goose, now possesses a sense of responsibility and "connectedness" to others that he never had before and, needless to say, did not have at the conclusion of DT:TM.  Why compromise that moral advance for the sake of a cheap gag?  This is one area in which I think "King Igthorn" has the advantage over "The Golden Goose."  The ending of "King" may have fallen short of satisfying the wishes of viewers for all of the loose ends of the series to be completely knotted, but it did possess a certain appropriateness that a fadeout chase does not deliver.  Even rerunning the ending of "Once Upon a Dime" and setting the final scene in the Money Bin would have been better than this.

I can't rank "The Golden Goose" with the very best episodes of DuckTales' first season.  The stripped-down approach may make sense in this context, but it pales in comparison to the richness on display in "Treasure of the Golden Suns" and such half-hours as "Raiders of the Lost Harp" and "The Uncrashable Hindentanic."  One might compare it to "Hero for Hire," which used a not-entirely-dissimilar straightforward approach to make some fairly profound points about Launchpad's character, but you then come up against the undeniable fact that the animation of "Goose" simply doesn't measure up to that of "Hire."  I think that it is fair to say, though, that "Goose" ranks as the second-best of DT's multi-part story lines, carrying more emotional punch than "Catch as Cash Can," avoiding the "falling-off" and "too much slapstick" issues that affected "Super DuckTales," and... well, let's leave "Time in Money" to rest in pieces, shall we?  A solid enough adventure, with equally solid character development -- and, oh, yes, that bit about saving the world... that's a thoroughly respectable way in which to draw the curtain on the series.

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I can't recall who drew this family portrait, but it's a nice one!

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"DuckBlurbs"

(GeoX) As I said about gold…Scrooge is trapped in this gold sack, but then it cracks open like an egg when it's struck with a gold statuette. I just do not think gold works remotely in that fashion…
("Christopher") The Golden Goose doesn't seem to change the thickness of substances, so if the bedsheet-turned into a sack was turned, it probably was like a few thickness[es] of aluminum foil- too tough for Scrooge to punch through, but easily punctured and then ripped apart once the thick, solid gold statue hit it. I'd need to watch the episode in slow-motion, but I don't think it cracked so much as tore. 

I'll accept Christopher's argument on this issue.  BTW, Geo... note that yet another statue of Scrooge makes its appearance.  Perhaps Scrooge has a higher self-regard than even we realize? 

(GeoX) In spite of the decidedly inconsistent nature of the show, I feel vaguely bereft. 

You can only imagine how I feel.

("Christopher")   Anyway, most of the episodes are all about locating a lost treasure or learning just how important family and friends are in a way that is so heartwarming you want to throw up. Most of the time, Scrooge is just adding more cash to the money bin. Now, he's SAVING THE ENTIRE WORLD. Rag on multi-quadrillionaires all you want, but all of the living creatures on earth owe Scrooge (and Launchpad, Dijon, and Poupon) their lives. This is the biggest thing they've ever done, and notice that Scrooge is [so] happy that HDL can move that he never thinks of using the fact that he's a savior of the world as [a] way to get the upper hand on business deals.

Exactly, exactly, exactly.  Give that man a cheroot.

(Greg) Interesting Moment #1: We get the preview of the episode from part one...IN A TWO PARTER! Something TaleSpin and Darkwing Duck never got in their two parters. I believe the narrator for this is Frank Welker [Ed. - yes] since he sounds like Poupon without the accent. Anyhow; at the end of the preview; it's clear there is a Toon Disney edit because when Big Time is about to touch the nephews, he yells gold, then the screen freezes and the scene quickly cuts to the STOCK FOOTAGE OF DOOM. Whoever thought it was a good idea to cut out the nephews turning to gold is on something and they should CUT THE F'N DOSE! Even more so when the scene was completely UNCUT the day before on TOON DISNEY no less. Idiots!

This was clearly a very conscious decision to maintain a bit of suspense for those viewers who might not have seen the transformation because they hadn't seen Part 1. Which makes little sense, actually, because the narration had already TOLD us about "the Golden Goose's golden touch," and the flashback ended with Big Time about to touch Louie on the head.  Simply showing the transformation at the end of the flashback might, in fact, have been the smarter choice here.  (BTW, I don't believe that there was any cut here.)

(Greg) So we cut back to the golden mansion and head to the office as Gyro is running tests on the golden statues of the nephews. Sadly; the numbers do not look good for the nephews as the computer laser doesn't work. G[yr]o checks the printer paper coming out of the printer and speaks some of the most absurd science talk ever that no scientist would be caught dead saying.

Based on the appearance of Gyro's... machine... thingy, it appears that Helper/Little Bulb, or at least part of him, managed to wangle a cameo of sorts.

Psst, Duckworth, Mrs. B... Over here!  Over here!!

(Greg) [The conveyor-belt sequence] IS the Satanic version of How It's Made. AHHAHAHAHAHA!

Except that we START in an "abandoned" factory in this case.  In How It's Made, they typically display the item of interest IN a desolate warehouse, junk-filled basement, weed-strewn back lot, etc. before cutting to the real factory where the manufacturing process takes place.

(Greg) [Dijon] peeps under the bushes and ponders over if he should touch the goose because if he touches wrong he turns to gold. However; he at least must redeem himself even if his brother doesn't want any part of him again thus showing that Dijon is not really a heel; but a misguided soul.

I think that this sums Dijon up pretty well.

Next: Some final thoughts, and a look ahead.

DUCKTALES RETROSPECTIVE: Episode 97, "Attack of the Metal Mites"

In my comments on "Liquid Assets," I identified three key moments that I consider to be the three biggest events in the history of DuckTales.  There should be little debate, however, as to the single most shocking moment in the annals of the series.  Sorry, Joe, but it's not the appearance of The Phantom Blot in "All Ducks on Deck," as thoroughly unexpected as that was.  For sheer, jaw-dropping improbability, the blue ribbon simply has to go to the Disney Afternoon closing credits for Monday, September 17, 1990.  In that era, you may recall, all four shows in the block ran their credits at the end of the two hours, together with "teasers" for the episodes to be run on the next edition of DAft.  Wonder of wonders, the "teaser" for DuckTales' 9/18/90 offering showed material that was clearly from an episode that had not previously been known to exist.  Even what little we knew about "The Duck Who Knew Too Much" and "Scrooge's Last Adventure," the two 1989-copyright episodes that had yet to be broadcast, did not match up with the stuff we were seeing on that tiny inset screen.  This was mind-blowing enough, but then, guess who favored us with his out-of-left-field presence -- ironically, falling OUT of the audience's view when he first appeared on screen:

Dijon: "Oh noooooooo!!"

Audience:  "No wayyyyy!!"

The appearance of "Attack of the Metal Mites" led to immediate, and highly understandable, speculation as to how many additional "completely new" eps the 1990-91 season was going to deliver.  Little did we know at the time that WDTVA had contracted to produce just enough material (namely, four half-hours) to bring the total number of DT eps to 100.  Perhaps, we should have gotten the hint when "The Golden Goose" gave us its "climactic" end-of-the-world scenario, but I recall waiting and hoping for a little while longer that more new eps might, just might, come our way.  Of course, this kind of thing was S.O.P. for the era before the existence of social media and the Internet.

WDTVA might have exhibited tidy-mindedness in its decision to wrap up its DT manifest on a nice, round number, but it also evidently did not want to put any more resources into the 1990 DT eps than it absolutely had to.  Nothing in the DT "Final Four" looked as horribly sloppy as, let's say, some of the 1990-copyright episodes of Gummi Bears, but some penny-pinching is nonetheless noticeable.  Some of it is disquietingly blatant, e.g., the sequence outside the First Interfeather Bank in "Mites" in which Dijon lets Glomgold's metal-eating bugs loose to devour an armored car.  In the first scene below, the screen freezes as we hear the bugs chomping away.  In the second, the car literally vanishes in a cloud of dust before our eyes, with no transition scene whatsoever.  And, yes, the whole thing REALLY looks that bad in "real time."

Dijon subsequently appears in a sewer as the bugs go marching by, with his muzzle conveniently placed so that the animators don't have to show his mouth moving as he speaks some dialogue.  Shades of UPA's Dick Tracy Show showing Dick holding the Two-Way Wrist Radio over his mouth as he talked to his "field agents."

These mingy moments tend to stand out in the mind's eye, precisely because they are so at variance with even some of the weaker examples of animation from the series' first two seasons.  A closer look, however, reveals an even more troubling trait: a tendency to mount "normal" scenes with as small a number of background characters and other extraneous details as possible.  Consider:

(1) Dijon is generally seen sneaking around in deserted or near-deserted streets.

"Is that my cue I am hearing?"

(2) Scrooge calls for the National Guard, and ONE tank shows up.  (I'd like to think that the Goose Guard from "Attack of the Fifty-Foot Webby" would have provided a more effective response.)

(3)  For a bunch of pests who are supposedly "multiplying" -- exactly how this parthenogenetic phenomenon is being accomplished, we are never told -- the mites remain relatively few in number throughout.  A single bubble from Gyro's bubble-gum-blowing robot is apparently sufficient to trap ALL of them at once, despite what the earlier consumption of the tank and the missile might have led us to believe.

(4)  The massive media coverage of the mites' attack on Scrooge's Money Bin is handled by Walter Kronduck and a pair of cameramen and draws a vast throng of... um... ten denizens, in addition to Scrooge, HD&L, Webby, and Fenton.  And Scrooge shouldn't even BE there, because, in the immediately previous scene, we saw him fondling some of his "precious friends" inside the vault.

The simplicity of Jeffrey Scott's central plot, and the slightly shopworn nature of the subplot (Fenton reacting to the mites' destruction of the Gizmosuit by losing confidence in himself, only to come through in the end, as in "Money to Burn" and "A Case of Mistaken Secret Identity"), further add to the impression of straitedness.  It must be admitted, however, that the effects of the "stripdown" aren't quite as deleterious here as they are in "The Golden Goose," which marries an adventure tale that SHOULD have been a true epic to a razor-thin cast and sparsely populated settings.  It speaks to the overall excellence of "Goose" that the two-part finale managed to get away with it and be a big success despite the self-imposed limitations, largely due to a stimulating injection of some real "Heart."  The effects of cheapness on a modest effort like "Mites," by contrast, only serve to make the episode seem... well, a bit more modest.  GeoX observed that "Mites" "very much feels like your average early first-season episode" -- decent plot and characterizations, reasonably good action -- and that's pretty much correct, I think, even given that the visual accompaniment is a bit more poverty-stricken than we have grown accustomed to. 

Glomgold's determination to destroy Scrooge's money, rather than to simply try to outearn him or thwart one of his financial deals, goes well beyond anything Carl Barks tried to do with the character in terms of its potential direct impact on the McDuck quadzillions.  Yes, even including Flinty's attempt to shrink Scrooge's money pile with the "Jivaro Juice" in "The Money Champ."  Reduction in size is not obliteration, and the Glomgold of "Money Champ" worried about what his "dear mother" would think of him for stooping so low, even as he dealt with the witch doctor out of sheer desperation.  By contrast, Greg's invocation of Duke Igthorn's use of the wood-devouring bug Big Tooth in "King Igthorn," the Gummi Bears two-part finale, may give Glomgold too much credit, since the physical destruction triggered by Big Tooth's arrival ultimately had an impact on the entire kingdom of Dunwyn.  (Of course, you could always argue that the ingestion of Scrooge's fortune would have had just as great of a long-term economic impact on Duckburg, but that depends upon how seriously you take some of the claims that have gone before in DT.)

The use of bugs as a menace has some precedent in such Barks stories as "Donald Duck and the Titanic Ants" (DONALD DUCK #60, July 1958) and "Billions in the Hole" (UNCLE $CROOGE #33, March 1961).  For a more exact analogy, however, you have to turn to "The March of the Giant Termants" (DONALD DUCK #133, September 1970, drawn by Tony Strobl and Steve Steere).  In this story, the Beagle Boys, with the unwilling help of a kidnapped bugologist, breed bugs that can chew through metal.  Using commands from a fife, they march the bugs to the Bin and swipe some loot, only for Dewey to steal a march on them and use his Junior Woodchuck Fife and Drum Corps training to foil the plot.  The JW-inspired efforts to thwart the metal mites, we should remember, are actually every bit as successful as they were in "Termants"; it certainly wasn't the JWs fault that Dijon just happened to stumble onto the scene at the wrong time.

At the time "Mites" first aired, I was quite pleased and surprised to see Dijon reappear as a "special guest lackey" a mere month after he had been introduced to the public in DuckTales: The Movie.  Glomgold reaps the full harvest of his complaint in "Master of the Djinni" that "you just can't get good lackeys these days," with Dijon's overcooked obsequiousness and perpetual surname-strangling driving Flinty increasingly mad.  Upon further review, however, I am no longer quite so certain that Dijon should have been reintroduced in THIS particular episode.  In a sense, he actually isn't reintroduced at all, as no character except Glomgold seems to take the slightest notice of his presence, let alone recognize who he is (as, surely, Scrooge, HD&L, and Webby should).  Scrooge obliviously running over the "Dijon bridge" after the mites is only the most obvious example of this peculiar case of localized astigmatism. 

A far more troublesome example of this almost willful ignorance, at least to my mind, comes when Dijon is trying to lure the mites away from the ruins of the Duckburg Bean Factory and back towards the Bin with some metal scrap. In a sequence that lasts about 35 seconds but seems to take two or three times that long, Dijon runs out of scrap, plops the empty bag on his head, cowers for a moment in the finest "Cringing Ay-rab" style, pauses, exits stage left, returns with a new bag of metal, and leads the mites back across the screen, all in plain sight of Scrooge and Gizmoduck. It makes sense that Gizmoduck wouldn't recognize Dijon, but Scrooge???  What is the purpose of using Dijon in this role if the past relationship between Dijon and other cast members isn't going to be addressed?

"Amigos, what are you waiting for?!"

In retrospect, it probably would have been a better idea for DT to have held off on reintroducing Dijon until "The Golden Goose."  In that story, his past reputation IS a key plot point, and Scrooge's initial reaction to his presence in Barkladesh DOES take Dijon's reputation for thievery (which was, let us remember, amplified by his getaway with a pantload of Scrooge's money in DT:TM's very last scene) into account.  Dijon's soul-searching and partial rehabilitation in "Goose" would then have seemed even more meaningful than they ultimately were.  Using Dijon just to USE him... well, it was certainly nice and all, but it's hard to see what it accomplished.

Fenton's emotional travails here, as I mentioned above, should be more than familiar to the attentive longtime viewer.  What's particularly noteworthy is how quickly Fenton despairs after his Gizmosuit is gulped.  It's the Crackshell equivalent of Scrooge's passive acceptance of his fate in "The Money Vanishes" and much of the first act of "Scrooge's Last Adventure."  Fenton's meltdown is so complete that he describes his role as Scrooge's accountant as "worthless" and intends to quit McDuck Enterprises entirely.  More dubiously, he's STILL ready to resign even after he has cleverly used his Gizmo-call to attract the mites to himself and trap them with the convenient giant magnet.  Not until he captures the one missing mite "with no super-stuff" does he (rather abruptly) return to his normal self.  The character changes here are not exactly subtle, or anything close to it.

A good deal of the Fenton-Gizmo action here, of course, takes place in full view and/or earshot of the public (or what little of it could be troubled enough to be on set).  After the following concatenation of events, how could ANYONE in Duckburg, including the supposedly still-ignorant members of the main cast, possibly NOT be aware that Fenton and Gizmoduck are one and the same:

(1)  Fenton and Scrooge have their amusing little conversation about Fenton turning to Gizmoduck to save the Bean Factory right in front of Walter Cronduck and a cameraman.  Their attempts at "whispering" here can only be described as pathetic.

(2) Fenton screams his code phrase in the Bean Factory, and the Gizmosuit comes flying in from several miles away to encase him (nice trick if you can do it!).

(3) Fenton becomes "unsuited" right in front of a TV news crew, which is then seen running towards him.

(4) Fenton yells for the mites from outside the Bin in such a manner that Scrooge, HD&L, Webby, and Gyro can clearly hear him and can subsequently clearly see the visual consequences (the mites encasing Fenton in a Gizmosuit-like manner).

(5) HD&L compliment Fenton for his quick thinking without making any mention of the fact that Fenton has just revealed that he is Gizmoduck.

My best guess, if you want to know the truth, is that Jeffrey Scott, who wrote the scripts for all four of the DT eps of the Disney Afternoon era -- another sign of corporate cheapskatery, if you ask me -- was simply NEVER TOLD about the whole secret-identity issue.  The fact that we will see similar evidence in "New Gizmo-Kids on the Block" of Fenton's secret ID being accepted as a given lends some additional support to my theory, I think.  I'm not sure whether we should blame Scott so much as we should the uncredited story editor(s), who should have done a better job of making sure that Scott was up to date on the particulars of the series.  Of course, that's assuming that Scott even had a story editor.  No such credit is given, nor will it be for any of the remaining new episodes.  The phrase "we don't want it good so much as we want it Thursday" comes to mind.

I don't want to be too harsh on Scott.  Giving him the benefit of the doubt on the matter of adequate advance preparation and the unnecessary inclusion of Dijon -- which, for all we know, may have been mandated to WDTVA by Disney higher-ups in order to take advantage of the publicity surrounding the movie -- he turns in an honest, workmanlike effort here, though one that does raise a number of questions about basic biology, physics, and such (as if those issues have never come to the fore before during DT!).  All the cast members who appear get meaningful things to do, and Scott gives us one of the finest Warner Bros.-style sight gags of the entire series when the mites cross the street and discomfit the decidedly atypical Walk/Don't Walk sign:

Then, too, Act Three makes up for the rather sedately paced Acts One and Two by building up some legitimate suspense as the mites get nearer and nearer to Scrooge's vault.  I haven't a clue how the mites managed to get into the vault through the security camera, but there can be no complaints about the effectiveness of the "last-minute cavalry call," with Fenton pulling the mites away just as they are about to nosh on the top layer of coins.

For a supposed "hands-off," minimalist production, "Metal Mites" isn't half-bad.  Unfortunately, Scott would not be fortunate enough to get away with it the next time.

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"DuckBlurbs"

(GeoX)   I knew from the Wikipedia episode list that [Dijon] was going to reappear in the final two-parter, but seeing him here was an unwelcome surprise. My mind just reels that someone somewhere at some point announced "a cringing, sycophantic, avaricious A-rab stereotype? Boys, we've got ourselves a winner!" Jeez. Though I suppose if it's between him and the Ducktales Beagles, there isn't much to choose.

Assuming that WDTVA was bound and determined (or were bound and directed by someone) to use a character from the movie, Dijon was the only logical choice.  Merlock was presumably destroyed due to his talisman-less fall from the heavens, while Gene, the "boy-version" of the transformed Genie, doesn't seem to add much to the table that HD&L don't already possess.  Even Bubba is a more distinctive character than Gene.  Whether Dijon should have been introduced here, as opposed to "The Golden Goose," is another question.

(GeoX) I like the idea that Fenton can count all of Scrooge's money at a rapid rate while frantically tunneling through the piles of cash.

Fenton gets more chances to display his amazing counting abilities here than at any time outside of the "Super DuckTales" serial.  Strange; that shtick could probably have made for a number of funny side gags along the way.

(GeoX) Gizmoduck, on deploying his head-copter to save a worker from a mite-eaten catwalk: "And you thought my head was only full of brains!" "No! I'd never think that!"

I like this exchange, because it's fun to hear a Duckburgian evince a highly negative, even cynical, attitude towards Gizmoduck's doings.  In the past, Gizmoduck has been feted, celebrated, been subjected to intense media examination, and so forth.  Evidently, the novelty of having a (somewhat fallible) superhero in town is beginning to wear off, and more quickly with some of the denizens than with others.

(GeoX) Webby as a Junior Woodchuck, recalling "Merit-Time Adventure." I'm down with that.

Ditto, and I think it says something about the Junior Woodchucks' willingness to make its distaff members feel welcomed that Webby is allowed to wear blue here after sporting pink in "Merit-Time." Too bad that Scott fumbled the ball a bit by mistakenly calling the JW Guidebook the JW Manual (which was, I believe, Barks' original name for the tome).  Additional evidence that Scott was flying at least partially blind here?

(Greg) So we head to Flint's mansion and into Flint's office as Flint is talking to Dijon. That's right; they introduced this guy without any build up at all. Although to be fair; this is not his first appearance as that was the Ducktales Movie a few months earlier. However; the problem is that most fans of the series probably never got to watch the movie and thus didn't see Dijon's first appearance or origin story.

I think that it was reasonable for WDTVA to assume that most (at the very least) of the regular DT watchers had gone to see the movie.  I agree, though, that it would have made more sense to have provided a bit more background justifying Dijon's presence.  (Not that anyone ultimately noticed his presence, anyway...)

(Greg) Sadly; since Wang Films cannot animate a collapsing factory properly we quickly scene change to the sidewalk in front of Scrooge's mansion at the gate. We see Webby and the nephews (Louie) with a lemonade like stand as we discover that they are giving away free soda crackers and some of the denizens start taking them. Then we pan over to a real lemonade stand as Huey and Dewey are selling lemonade for a dollar (still better than the $2.25 lemonade in a bottle that the businesses sell; so I cannot complain) as everyone mobs the two nephews and Dewey has to tell them to relax. Huey then sees Scrooge in the window and asks how they are doing and Scrooge calls it better than expected. Then Fenton arrives with Scrooge at the window as Scrooge has the Gruffi pose and wants to do a cracker/lemonade franchise. You would think that after what happened in Duck To The Future and Yuppy Ducks that Scrooge would take the hint and NOT be trying to leech ideas off of his nephews. They are hardly shrew[d] Scroogie.

The obvious question here is: How can we square the actions and attitudes of the kids and Scrooge with the events of "Duck to the Future," in particular?  Actually, it's not that hard, though the manner in which the actions and attitudes are portrayed isn't particularly helpful.  In "Future," as the Nephews ran the second (post-Scrooge's-advice) version of their lemonade stand, they actively trying to cheat people by selling lemonade as water and were cheating their employee, Doofus, besides.  Even Gosalyn Mallard's selling of hose water as "bottled water" in a parched St. Canard in the Darkwing Duck episode "Dry Hard" didn't sink as low as this.  HD&L and Webby's saltine-cracker-and-lemonade emporium, by contrast, is... well, let's call it an example of "sharp practice," as opposed to outright dishonesty.  Scrooge's reaction to the initiative suggests that he thinks of the gambit as an example of being "smarter than the smarties."  The problem is that the characters' reactions seem to be hinting that we should put a more negative spin on things.  Scrooge rubs his hands in a conniving way when he praises the "shrewdness" of his "wee Nephews," while the kids take rather too much... well, pleasure a bit later in talking about their chili-peppers-and-water idea.  More matter-of-fact reactions by Scrooge and the kids would have cleared up the contradiction a bit.

(Greg) Then in one of those moments that annoys me; we see Louie and Webby with the water hose. Wait; we clearly didn't see Webby run in so how did she teleport over to here now?!

I simply assumed that she got a late start for some reason (perhaps she was gathering up some supplies) and ran over to join HD&L a bit later.

(Greg) Webby proclaims that the bugs will be here any minute and Huey points out that the door is made of metal and it will turn to Swiss cheese. Scrooge runs into the storage office and returns with...cement? Yeah; we are suppose[d] to buy that Scrooge had wet cement prepared beforehand just for such a moment.

It came from the same mysterious location where Dijon got the extra bag of metal scrap, Walter Cronduck's cameramen got their spare cameras, and... you get the picture.

(Greg)  So we head to Flint's mansion as Flint is checking his gold coins and then out of nowhere; Dijon appears from the open window. Even Flint demands to know about this outrage as Dijon has some news to share with him. The bad news is that Scrooge is making billions with the wrecking business which makes Flint groan in pain.

Vic Lockman would be proud of this ending... just as the late Hal Smith should be proud of that fadeout shriek.  That would have been a fitting note on which to end Glomgold's animated career, though I'm certainly not going to carp about his appearance in "The Golden Goose."

Next: Episode 98, "New Gizmo-Kids on the Block."