Book Review: THE COMPLETE LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE, Vol. 10: 1941-43 by Harold Gray (IDW Publishing, 2014)

** SPOILERS **

For LITTLE ORPHAN ANNIE, World War II can be said to have "begun" in May 1942, when "Daddy" Warbucks, supposedly killed after leading a "mysterious" (and non-American) army aboard, suddenly returns stateside (albeit only temporarily).  The mere fact that Harold Gray doesn't perform any sort of buildup to the Prodigal Tycoon's latest comeback is the signal for a quickening of the strip's pace, as if Gray were trying to match America's rapid buildup for war.  Soon, "Colonel" Annie is performing her most noteworthy homefront service by organizing neighborhood children into the Junior Commandos.  The idea quickly spread to the real world and inspired thousands of children to mimic Annie and her compadres in collecting scrap metal and fats, keeping the perimeters around the homes of sleeping war workers quiet, and performing similar useful tasks.  While developing the JC's activities, Gray struck a brief but noteworthy blow for equal rights by devoting a Sunday page to a young black child's acceptance into the organization.  Jeet Heer's introduction to this latest collection of strips details the reader blowback -- both positive and negative -- that resulted from this departure.  Gray never used the black character again, which seems a shame.

Heer points out that making Annie the head of the Junior Commandos helped Gray get around the dilemma that, as a young girl, she couldn't imitate other comic-strip heroes of the era and join the armed forces.  Still, he couldn't help giving Annie opportunities to blow up the occasional marauding U-boat, culminating in a lengthy -- entirely too lengthy, to be honest -- early-1943 continuity in which Annie and her friends trap dozens of Nazis in a creepy, trap-ridden castle that wouldn't have seemed out of place in an episode of Scooby-Doo.  The similarity to Scooby is more than superficial, as the plot peters out into a series of repetitive confrontations with the Nazis.  (Thankfully, these are not accompanied by forced group laughs.)  The sag in storytelling acumen is matched by a sudden decline in the quality of the strip's art.  Heer speculates that Gray might have been feeling the emotional aftereffects of his father's death in a car crash.  Just as significant may have been a slight change in the dimensions of the daily strip, with panels elongating vertically and narrowing horizontally.  Suddenly, Gray shifts from his usual practice of drawing figures from the waist up to drawing full figures, and the change is not a fruitful one, especially since many of the new drawings are "shot from a distance."  Gray seems to have had problems with this perspective, as far too many of the adult human full figures frequently resemble peas awkwardly perched atop open ladders.

Gray's inability to corral the unwieldy castle sequence, coupled with renewed irritation at the inconveniences of wartime life, seem to have goaded him into doing a rethink.  The immediate future will see the return of more nakedly partisan material to the strip, culminating with the notorious "FDR is dead, so 'Daddy' Warbucks is alive" incident of 1945.  It can't be said that the cartoonist hadn't already done his bits for the war effort, though.

Comics Reviews: MY LITTLE PONY: FRIENDS FOREVER #3 and #4 (March and April 2014, IDW Publishing)

I haven't had the chance to start reading it yet, but "Reflections," Katie Cook and Andy Price's ongoing story arc in IDW's main MY LITTLE PONY title, bids fair to be the duo's most audacious effort yet.  Reports are that it's a riff on the famous Star Trek episode "Mirror, Mirror," but with an unexpected twist that will probably pitch a lot of Bronies into hotchpot... that is, once season 4 concludes this coming weekend and they can turn their full attention back to what's been going on between the slick covers.  I'm going to hold off on reviewing "Reflections" until the full arc is complete, just as I did with the title's original four-part epics.

Meanwhile, the FRIENDS FOREVER title has been plonking along with serviceable stories that don't, at least to my mind, seem to be making the most of the promising premise of teamups of various MLP characters.  The two most recent issues, both written by Ted Anderson, each have their moments of charm, but are generally forgettable.  Issue #3 finds Princess Celestia and Spike engaging in a fairly generic adventure (without Twilight Sparkle, of course -- check the subtitle).  I suppose that we are fortunate to have gotten this particular teamup at all, since Spike has been season four's designated patsy and Celestia has had precious few recent animated appearances.  The slightly clunky Agnes Garbowska art, however, is something of a turn-off.  In #4, Twilight and her brother Shining Armor get some quality time together in the Crystal Empire, where, wouldn't you just know it, there's a mysterious "Crystal Ghost" knocking around the palace and stealing books from the Royal Library.  With Twilight and Shining having engaged in numerous mystery-chasing escapades during their growing-up years, the pair jump at the new chance to do the Scooby-Doo "thang."  (Knowing how Twilight feels about books, it could easily have turned into a scenario out of Buffy, the Vampire Slayer.)  Oddly enough, the regular MLP title recently had a two-part adventure about a tome-guzzling bookworm.  I didn't review that particular one because, quite frankly, the narrative completely baffled me.  This version at least has the virtue of being reasonably simple to follow, and the Amy Mebberson art is nice.  Let's just say, however, that I had hoped for more... combustible pairings in this title.  A couple more promising ones are reportedly on the way, so I still have reasonably high hopes for the success of FRIENDS FOREVER.

More Hoops, More Hooves

This week, for the first time ever, Stevenson's men's basketball team received a vote in the d3hoops.com Top 25 poll.  The Mustangs are 6-1 following a couple of tough conference road wins at Hood and at Arcadia, the latter in double OT.  The girls have also rebounded from an 0-3 start, posting four straight wins and taking first place in their conference.  This bids fair to be SU's most interesting season of hoops in quite a while.

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**PONY SPOILERS**

The first two half-hour episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Season 4 were pretty decent, all things considered, but they were a "fur piece" from completely nit-free.  "Castle Mane-ia" went all Scooby-Doo on us as the "Mane 6" (well, most of them, anyway) took turns having the bejabbers scared out of them in the abandoned castle that once belonged to Princesses Luna and Celestia.  Before you ask:  Yes, the ponies were split up, but no, they didn't split up DURING the adventure; they actually arrived at the castle in groups.  Sounds overly convenient, I know, but there it is.  The ep introduced what looks to be the "official replacement" for the moral-bearing "letters to Princess Celestia" and teased us at the very end with the unresolved appearance of a mysterious figure; no clue as of yet as to who said figure might be, though.

"Daring Don't" delivered a real sucker punch as it was revealed that Rainbow Dash's "fictional" heroine, Daring Do, actually does exist and that her book-length adventures are merely retellings of her real exploits.  After playing the compleat fangirl for a while, Rainbow Dash gets to help the notoriously solitary Daring on her latest mission.  The episode incorporates ideas from Indiana Jones movies, The Lord of the Rings, and (yes, indeed) DuckTales, and the mixture makes for a lot of fun... but hoo, boy, does it open up a giant can of worms regarding what is "real" and what is "fictional" in the MLP universe.  I find it extremely hard to believe that Daring Do, her archvillainous opponent Ahuizotl, Ahuizotl's minions, and a giant, vaguely Mayan-esque temple have existed in Equestria for this long without anypony getting wise to the fact or intervening in the struggle.  And I don't even have an elaborate series of fanfics about "the real Daring Do" hanging in the balance.

DUCKTALES RETROSPECTIVE: Episode 60, "Nothing to Fear"

Somewhat surprisingly, the "Face Your Fears" plot doesn't seem to be as common a trope in animated series as one might think.  Perhaps that might explain the unevenness with which DuckTales handled "Nothing to Fear."  There's nothing egregiously wrong with most of the episode -- at least up to a point -- but writers Richard Merwin, Tedd Anasti, and Patsy Cameron commit a couple of unforced errors that could easily have been avoided had the plot been edited more crisply.  Perhaps Anasti and Cameron should have concentrated on their standard editorial duties and left Merwin to handle the bulk of the writing chores himself.  In the end, the gaffes don't ruin the ep, but they certainly do compromise it a great deal.

"Fear" does get one major thing right, as Greg noted in his episode summary.  The various "fears" with which our "magic fear cloud"-beset friends (in this case, Scrooge, HD&L, Doofus, and Duckworth) are confronted begin in a relatively minor key, with relatively comical or semi-comical visions, and then ramp up in the latter part of the episode to more challenging apparitions that begin to tear at the characters' psyches.  Duckworth is the only character who gets off relatively easy, but that's only because, after he is spooked by the limo-turned-panther and the vacuum-turned-snake-like... er... thing...

... he completely disappears from the narrative in Act Three, save for a brief bow after the entr'acte in which he declares that he's "pulling out" and runs off to -- well, you tell me.  It's hard for me to fathom how Merwin, Anasti, and Cameron could have allowed this particular "story thread" to snap.  Perhaps they had trouble figuring out a worthy psychological challenge for Duckworth (Getting fired?  Been there and done that.  Losing his ability to perform mundane household tasks?  Wouldn't exactly make for riveting television.) and simply hoped that folks wouldn't notice Duckworth's departure.  It might have been simpler to have written Duckworth out of the story altogether and concentrated on Scrooge and the boys.  Duckworth does have something substantial to contribute to the ep (apart from fear of tasks that he professed to love in "Duckworth's Revolt"), but strictly on a humorous level, as we'll see.

Doofus fares a little better than Duckworth, but not much.  The threat of the "big banana" that grows from his would-be banana snack is too absurd to be taken entirely seriously, try though the animators, designers, and the inevitable Frank Welker might to render the thing a "fruitful" menace...

... but then, the McDucks' "favorite neighbor" (GeoX would probably interpret this as meaning that Doofus lives in a nearby dumpster) faces a much more serious, and horribly credible, peril in the pompadoured, leather-jacketed person of Bully Beagle.  (I wonder why Bully doesn't wear a Beagle Boy-style number plate.  He probably thought it would be uncool, or something.)

Uhmmmm... no comment.

Obviously, giving Doofus the chance to face down a threat who always "picks on him" would be the perfect way for HD&L's pal to break the fear-spell... except that it never happens.  Beginning with the scene in which the "anti-Scrooge" bursts into HD&L's room, Doofus never appears again.  Greg specifically mentioned this flaw in his review, and it is easy to see why he did so while omitting any mention of Duckworth.  Doofus' torment had progressed to the point at which we really NEEDED to see him join the others in beating back their fears.

Scrooge and HD&L, of course, get fear-blasted with both bete noire-bearing barrels, and it's a credit to Merwin, Anasti, and Cameron that, on balance, the supposedly "protected" Nephews receive the rougher treatment.  The boys' spooking starts slowly, with video-game villain Commander Gander.  It is admittedly something of a stretch to imagine a late-1980s video-game character -- even one in a game that amazingly predicts the future by including a voice track -- frightening HD&L to such an extent.  Aside from the fact that they've only previously glimpsed Gander as a crudely pixilated, clumsily animated image on a small TV screen, the boys have been on enough adventures by now that dealing with a large, bellowing adversary should not be that intimidating.  Gander does give it a good try, though, shooting up the lads' room and channeling the famous closing scene of The Great Train Robbery (1903) by firing his ray gun straight at the "fourth wall" at one point.

The screws tighten on the boys when their teacher, Mrs. Quackenbush, shows up in what can only be described as a semi-psychotic mood.  A considerably toned-down Mrs. Q. will reappear on several occasions during the second season.  Perhaps "Fear" was anticipating the raft of "demonic and/or sadistic teachers and principals" that would infest such WDTVA series of the late 90s as Pepper Ann and Recess.

Then, of course, we get the spirit-killing blow, as "anti-Scrooge" shows up to give the tearful boys a verbal lashing and tell them "the truth" of how he really feels about their presence in his home.  Since Scrooge truly was initially reluctant to take in HD&L at the start of "Treasure of the Golden Suns," one can easily imagine the thought of Scrooge changing his mind being buried in the boys' subconscious for some time, awaiting only the right stimulus to bring it to the surface.  The only thing that could have made this scene more disturbing was to have had "no-good" Donald appear and tell the reeling HD&L that HE didn't want them anymore, either, and that they would have to go back and live with their mother Della.  Considering how certain fanfic writers have chosen to deal with such a scenario, perhaps it's all for the best that the ep didn't go there.

As for Scrooge, he gets the hectoring bill collectors, followed by the equally squirm-inducing "anti-Nephews."  Actually, the creditors' assault comes in two distinct phases: the initial "We own you, McDuck!" scene at the Mansion, and the scene at the (supposedly empty) Money Bin in which they threaten to take HD&L away from Scrooge "forever." We've seen the first scenario before in the comics, often couched in semi-comical terms. The second obviously ups the ante where the psychological stakes are concerned.

I'd argue that the "Nega-HD&L" are even scarier than "anti-Scrooge," for several reasons: (1) Russi Taylor really does make them sound like brats, a nontrivial accomplishment given their standard voices; (2) their greedy desire to get their hands on Scrooge's "dough" is a painful inversion of Scrooge's original stinginess when the boys came to live with him; and, of course, (3) they literally shake an old man down for a few coins and bills.  A little "mature lighting" might have made this scene even nastier, but it's plenty distasteful just the way it is.

Of course, by the time all of this goes down, we already know full well that Magica De Spell is behind the appearance of the "fear cloud."  Not that we probably wouldn't have been able to dope it out ourselves had she not appeared until the ep's end -- if the sudden appearance of the cloud at the start hadn't convinced us, then the "unnatural" fact that the cloud follows Scrooge's limo during the trip to the Money Bin would have been the giveaway that a magical force was behind the whole thing -- but I really wish that Merwin, Anasti, and Cameron had at least tried to prolong the suspense until the last minute.  One of the advantages of this approach, as Greg noted, is that eliminating the unnecessary "cackling Magica" scenes would have freed up the air time to allow Doofus, and perhaps even Duckworth, to conquer their demons alongside Scrooge and HD&L.  Perhaps Merwin should have indulged his inner "Scooby-Doo fanboy" and insisted that the symbolic "lifting of the mask" be deferred until the end.

After Magica finally DOES arrive on the scene, we get the reasonably satisfying, if rather truncated and formulaic, "facedown" sequence.  Magica may have made a mistake by bringing the various fears back to the fore in such an unimaginative fashion, lining them all up like targets in a shooting gallery.  She seems to have forgotten that the effectiveness of the fears was a combination of both character and setting (think of "anti-Scrooge" flinging HD&L's bedroom door open and literally penning the boys in their room).  Setting 'em up and allowing Scrooge and HD&L to knock 'em down makes things almost too easy for our heroes -- plus, of course, not all of the heroes (or victims) are present to begin with.  Still, it's fitting that Magica's own worst fear leads to her ultimate downfall.

Despite its many flaws, I do enjoy "Fear" quite a bit.  The production values are generally impressive, with lighting and sound effects used to ramp up the tension as the effects of the "fear cloud" grow "worse, and worse, and WORSE."  The forbidding scene in which the cloud arrives on top of the Mansion is neatly bookended by the fadeout long shot, lending a nice sense of closure to the drama as a whole.

The episode also benefits from having a certain intriguing "rhythm" to it.  Carl Barks once said of one of his best "ten-pagers" in WALT DISNEY'S COMICS AND STORIES that it could "almost have been set to music," and "Fear" packs its own passel of internal vibrations.  The repetitions of "Commander Gander... big banana... limo monster" and "Figured it out, did you?" have almost a mantra-like effect at times, and the serious business of the characters being assaulted by their fears is delightfully punctuated by the "closet routine" between Scrooge and Duckworth, which I've compared to a Senor Wences routine in the past.  (I'm also tempted to compare it to the well-worn "Scooby-Doo Door Routine," but there's only one door involved.)  At one point during the closet capers, Scrooge, as if to comment on the strangeness of the situation, appears to break the "fourth wall," just as he did in "The Uncrashable Hindentanic."

Finally, of course, there's the touching scene in which the crushed Scrooge and HD&L reconcile with one another and then decide to face their fears.  Sure, this scene might have been even better had the Nephews been voiced by a real child, but let's give all due props to Russi Taylor and Alan Young for their sincere efforts here.  Could Brian Cummings have pulled off the same feat had Doofus been present?  Er, we're still waiting for the jury to finish its deliberations on that one.

Overall, "Fear" is a decent episode that could have been so much MORE with just a little extra editorial TLC.  As I noted above, the major change that I would have made would have been to have reduced the number of affected characters -- certainly not to one, as was done in the excellent My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic episode "Sleepless in Ponyville," but to Scrooge and HD&L, with Doofus possibly along for the ride (provided that the unnecessary Magica teasers were tossed).  But even the compromised version of the episode has its undeniable charms.

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"DuckBlurbs"

(Greg) The nephews use the Frisbees as a shield and run back inside. They decide to try to do their homework (I thought the Frisbees WERE part of homework?)...

Only as long as the weather was decent enough to use them as an excuse to perform outside "experimentation," I guess.

(Greg) So Scrooge leaves the room as we cut to the hallway with Doofus and Bully Beagle fighting each other and Doofus managing to hang in there. I wonder if Toon Disney would cut that one out; knowing the [Virginia Tech] school shootings in 1999. 

No guns were involved in the making of that rasslin' match, so I would imagine not.  The more intriguing question is: How would the current anti-bullying movement interpret the Doofus/Bully interactions here?

Next: Episode 61, "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. McDuck."

The GUIDE Makes Me Perplexed

Five cogent comments on TV GUIDE's recently published list of "the 60 greatest cartoons of all time":

(1)  What, precisely, qualifies as a "TV cartoon"?  TVG doesn't seem to know.  Putting rebroadcasts of classic theatrical cartoons on the same "level" as made-for-TV series makes no sense, unless you're talking about things like the early-60s Popeye cartoons or The Bugs Bunny Show.

(2)  NO Disney Afternoon series???  Well, Disney has no one to blame but itself for that sad fact, given how little respect its video and PR divisions have shown for the marvelous products of the "WDTVA Golden Age."  I'm not going to grouse about the presence of Kim Possible on the list, but it's hard to countenance Phineas and Ferb making the cut but such series as DuckTales, TaleSpin, Darkwing Duck, and Gargoyles being left out.

(3)  There isn't quite as much "presentism" apparent in this list as I'd originally feared.  Sure, there's a clear overrepresentation of 21st-century series, but the inclusion of Huckleberry Hound, Yogi Bear, The Flintstones, and several other "old-screen" Hanna-Barbera favorites -- not to mention the evergreen Rocky and Bullwinkle -- should be at least somewhat gratifying to those of us of a certain age (including those who, like me, watched these shows in syndication).  Listing Scooby-Doo at #5 may be pushing things, however.

(4)  I'm a bit surprised at the lack of anime series on the list.  Not that I was seriously expecting Astro Boy or Kimba the White Lion to make the cut, but no Speed Racer?  No Pokemon?  No Sailor Moon?  The latter two omissions are particularly noteworthy -- and chilling.  I have in my mind's eye visions of San Diego Cons of 15 to 20 years ago, at which Poke-players and cosplaying "Moonies" were such a massive presence.  (Then again, people selling and collecting Pogs were also easily found at that time.)  Bronies are currently all kinds of excited over My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic's appearance on the list.  Let us hope that history does not repeat itself.

(5)  Jem and the Holograms... Thundercats...  He-Man.  The rest is silence.

Book Review: WALT DISNEY'S MICKEY MOUSE COLOR SUNDAYS Vol. 1: CALL OF THE WILD by Floyd Gottfredson (Fantagraphics, 2013)

With four superbly-mounted and highly praised volumes of Floyd Gottfredson's MICKEY MOUSE daily strip behind it, Fantagraphics "opens up the magic paintbox" with its first collection of MICKEY Sunday strips, covering the years 1932-1935.  The "many colors you'll find" here, especially in the early strips, may be a bit surprising.  The Sunday version of MICKEY represented the first time that most people had seen Mickey and friends in anything other than the black and white of the contemporary animated shorts, and so it took a while for the characters' chromaticity to develop any consistency.  Poor Pluto gets the most schizophrenic treatment: his tint changes from brown with a pink muzzle (in the first Sunday, which was actually drawn by Earl Duvall), to light brown, to dark brown, to pink, to white as the proverbial sheet!  (That last choice suggests that Pluto may be a distant relation of that notoriously cowardly canine Scooby-Doo.)  Mickey and Minnie endure a short period in which their faces are flesh-colored before settling down to the standard Kabuki mask look, while the early, squat, long-beaked version of Donald Duck is yellow, or, as he probably would have put it, "yella."  The whole process of color restoration here is nothing if not thorough.

During his time on the Sunday page, Gottfredson alternated sequences of "done-in-one" gag strips with short continuities.  The complexity of the latter gradually ramped up until they approached daily continuities "in miniature" -- and with a slightly lower "seriousness" quotient.  "Dr. Oofgay's Secret Serum" (1934) tackles the same basic trope as the earlier daily story "Blaggard Castle," with a scientist's invention altering Horace Horsecollar's personality, but the metamorphosis occurs in the context of a gag-laden camping trip, occurs by accident (Horace sitting on a serum-filled needle), and is caused by a much dottier and more "lovable" miracle-provider than the fearsome trio of Professors Ecks, Doublex, and Triplex.  In "Hoppy the Kangaroo" (1935), Mickey undergoes a test run in the "training an unwanted gift animal to win an athletic contest" sweepstakes several months before having to deal with Oscar the Ostrich in the daily strip, but the stakes are nowhere near as high; Mickey's simply trying to best Pete and Pete's trained gorilla, as opposed to staying out of jail for non-payment of debts.  "Rumplewatt the Giant" (1934) and "Foray to Mount Fishflake" (1934-35) is arguably the most "Sunday-centric" of this collection's continuities, primarily because they're very consciously constructed in a cliffhanger format within the general Sunday format itself, complete with "To Be Continued" boxes and first-panel recaps from Mickey.

Early on, Gottfredson seems to have realized that the Sunday page was a good vehicle for the introduction and/or development of new characters.  Various bands of cute-on-the-surface-but-anarchic-underneath Nephews who come to disrupt Mickey's home life ultimately settle down to the twin urchins who will become Morty and Ferdie, while "The Case of the Vanishing Coats" (1935) gets several weeks' jump on the daily strip's "Editor-in-Grief" in terms of being the strip's first continued story to feature Donald Duck.  "Coats" might be considered the template for all future Donald and Mickey teamups, albeit with a considerably rawer version of Donald (though Don's not really all that intolerable in this brief tale, with his antics mostly limited to one well-meaning false arrest) and a solution that is, in all honesty, pretty lame.  In gag strips, Don "enjoys" (if that's the word) a brief period as the successor to Mickey's role as comical fall guy before literally being shifted "upstairs" to the SILLY SYMPHONIES "topper" page and, later, to his own stand-alone strip.  Goofy (nee Dippy Dog/Dawg) makes appearances in "The Lair of Wolf Barker" (1933), the first of the major Sunday continuities, and "Mount Fishflake"; the sideways logic that will so memorably inform so many of his gag-strip appearances in the late 30s has just barely begun to blossom.

The volume's ancillaries include a fine essay by J. B. Kaufman detailing the development of the Sunday page, David Gerstein and Sergio Lama's description of the earliest attempts to bring MICKEY (or a strange-looking approximation of same) to Italy, and Joe Torcivia's not-to-be-missed explanation of why Mickey's tall tale of "Rumplewatt the Giant" qualifies as the "Longest Short Story Ever Told."  Thankfully, we won't have to wait long for the other volume of Gottfredson's Sunday best to drop on our doorsteps; COLOR SUNDAYS VOL. 2 is scheduled to be released in October.

DUCKTALES RETROSPECTIVE: Episode 43, "Back Out in the Outback"

At long last, we've reached the edge of "Vanderquack Valley."  "Back Out in the Outback" is arguably the first DuckTales episode the acceptance of which depends primarily on one's opinion of the show's most controversial first-season creation.  Two main reasons why:

1.  Webby gives her first extended "solo performance" during her lengthy sojourn out back of... er, the front of... (yeah, it was a pretty lame attempt at humor even when Launchpad used it).  In all of Webby's previous appearances, including those like "Cold Ducks" and "Merit-Time Adventure" in which she was a focal character, she participated in the adventure as part of a larger group.  Here, we are fed several stiff doses of 100-proof Vanderquack... and if you don't have a taste for the character in general, then you are REALLY going to have a tough time swallowing these.

2.  The character trait of Webby's that is most emphasized here -- her famed "way with animals" -- is exactly the kind that tends to drive those who dislike Webby completely nutsoid.  Even GeoX, who claims to have less of a problem with Webby's cuteness than some, used words and phrases like "sugar shock" and "vomitous" when describing Webby's bonding with the "shy" Australian critters.

Now, I'm a Webby fan from way back, so I have less of a problem with "Outback" than most folks... and Webby's performance is hardly the only reason why.  It's yet another attempt by Richard Merwin to capture that old Scooby-Doo magic within the DT framework, and it's the most successful, primarily because Merwin dispenses with the whole idea of a "phony ghost" and makes the mysterious "willywisp" menace a technology-based one.  He also makes a legitimate attempt, however transparent it might seem in retrospect, to chuck a "red herring" in our path at the end of Act Two.  The supporting players are decently characterized, the animation is generally excellent, and, true to Scrooge's constant requests for "teamwork," everyone gets something to do -- though it takes certain individuals (I'm looking at you, HD&L and Launchpad) longer to get their duck-billed platypi in a row than others.  The fact that the ultimate villain turned to the dark side because he resented Scrooge's exploitation -- a storyline that seems more appropriate for a first-season episode of Batman: The Animated Series -- gives the ep an extra dash of seriousness and is very much in line with Merwin's generally more negative characterization of Scrooge.  Finally, Webby's activities are far from all being cutesy-wootsey; she does face some legitimate perils, with her reactions to them being sold well by Russi Taylor... and how many times does one get to see "The Wrath of Vanderquack" in all its infrequent glory, as we do when Webby directs the four-footed troops to pen up the villains?

Greg's credits for "Outback" identified the wrong James A. Markovich as the source of the story, but he was correct in one sense -- this was, indeed, "The Other J.A.M."'s first writing assignment for animation.  Markovich has only one other writing credit to his name, so you'll forgive me if I continue to analyze this as a Richard Merwin episode, even though Merwin "only" did the teleplay. 

"Outback" is actually the third Duck story of which I am aware in which the Ducks visited a besieged Aussie sheep station (or farm, or range, or ranch -- take your pick).  Barks took two bonzer wallops at the task, one in the 40s and the other (with Scrooge added) in the 60s.  As GeoX noted, "Outback" has relatively little in common with either of these.  "Adventure Down Under" (FOUR COLOR #159, August 1947) finds Donald and the boys, who've been sent to Australia in a rather contrived manner, trying to help a rancher fight off a nasty "kangaroo queen," only to ultimately bond with the animal.  Donald plays the Webby role in this story, though it's more out of sheer necessity/desperation than anything else.

"Queen of the Wild Dog Pack" (UNCLE $CROOGE #62, March 1966) edges a little closer to the spirit of "Outback," with the titular barbaric babe leading a pack of dingoes in raids on the sheep at Scrooge's station... and Scrooge spending most of the story stuck on "rant" mode.  In this case, rather than harping on "teamwork," Scrooge is obsessed with showing his would-be heirs "where and how" he makes his money and how hard he has to work to keep up the inflow.  Since Donald and HD&L have had ample opportunities to observe such things first-hand in previous Barks stories, this suddenly prevalent character trait seems a bit contrived... as, in all honesty, does Scrooge's sudden fixation on cooperation in "Outback."

One way in which I wish "Outback" could have borrowed from "Dog Pack" is for HD&L's neglect of Webby to have been the result of their sudden infatuation with pop singer Tweedy Teentwirp.  The boys actually are treated rather harshly in the episode; Webby literally gives them NO CHANCE to begin looking after her before plunging into the forest after the joey.  Having the boys be distracted by the music would have put something of an onus on them to match the arguments among Scrooge, Launchpad, Sundowner, and Dashing Duke Duggan.

And GeoX thought WEBBY's dialogue was "vomitous"...

I can certainly appreciate Greg's approval of "Sundowner" as the name of the Rob Paulsen-voiced heart-of-gold bloke with the malodorous clothes that could probably stand up all by themselves, but the use of this term could be considered misleading.  According to Wikipedia, "sundowner" is one of the names given in Australia to a transient worker who drifts from ranch to ranch looking for employment.  The movie The Sundowners (1960) centered around a conflict between characters who wanted to maintain the on-the-go lifestyle and characters who wanted to settle down.  The irony of "Outback," of course, is that Sundowner is, in Scrooge's words, a "loyal, trustworthy, low-paid employee" who seems perfectly content with his stationary lot.  Even the burly Duke Duggan (Peter Cullen) wants to stay at the ranch -- provided that he can run it and exploit the nearby opal mines, of course.

So, what was the source of those stains on Sundowner's pants?

As Greg might put it, "I smell a fanfic coming" -- and, boy, do I ever! 

Greg, with tongue somewhat in cheek, compared Duke Duggan to the equally "D-riffic" Daring Dan Dawson from the TaleSpin episode "Stormy Weather."  One way in which these "neat and tidy" nogoodniks are alike, of course, is that it's pretty clear early on that they are not to be trusted, even before they actually do anything underhanded.  Dan Dawson sows seeds of conflict between Kit and Baloo, while Duke wrestles a pissed-off Launchpad for control of the "aeroplane" (much to Scrooge's ineffectual "teamwork"-touting dismay) and bullies Sundowner on a couple of occasions.  I'd argue that Merwin is a little more successful at keeping us guessing than is "Stormy Weather"'s writer Jan Strnad, but that's mostly because Sundowner is on site to serve as a potential distractor.  The "red herring" approach seems to have worked to a certain extent, as Greg goes from claiming "it's clear now that Sundowner is the boss of this heel operation" to later avowing that he easily saw through the "REALLY STUPID" ruse at the end of Act Two.  C'mon, Greg, you can't have it both ways.  Let's give Merwin some credit for his effort here.

As one might expect, there's an abundance of cute stuff on display when Webby first meets the creatures who will ultimately become her antipodeal allies.  All too quickly, however, things take a turn for the worse when the "grownup wartyhogs" show up, and the ensuing adventure really does cause Webby to ruin her dress...

... at least in theory.  I think that the intensity level of this scene could have been raised by the simple act of giving Webby a couple of substantial tears in her roseate raiment.  Nothing egregious, mind you, just a little more physical evidence that she had to put some real physical effort into this escape.  Even her losing her bow, as she did during "Rightful Owners," would have been acceptable.  As things turned out, the Quacky Patch doll took more real abuse than Webby did during this sequence.

 

As for those other menaces, the "willywisps," their animation is one of the true highlights of the episode; it really does leave you wondering what these mysterious gizmos could possibly be.  Much like the level of punishment doled out to Webby, the "fear factor" of the "willywisps" could probably have been amplified a tad, in this case by including a few additional scenes in which the glowing disks imperil our friends in the "real" Outback.  As seen on TV, the landscape around Scrooge's ranch is rather more lush than the barren region we might expect (and which Barks depicted in both of his Australian stories).  The climactic attack on Scrooge and Sundowner, which takes place in a rocky area that wouldn't have been out of place in "Dinosaur Ducks," could have served as the template for similar action... though it must be admitted that the night assaults (including the one that opens the episode) are pretty cool, as well.

Unfortunately, I'm in agreement with GeoX that the Nephews' plan to smash the "willywisps" with real boomerangs is probably the ep's weakest point.  It's not the "slingshot enough boomerangs into the air and hope that some will hit the target" business that bothers me so much as the fact that all of the 'rangs return to the Ducks' plane in perfect order, as if they'd originally been thrown in an orderly fashion.  Not bloody likely, as any Australians watching this would no doubt put it.

Luckily, Webby compensates for the wobbliness of the older Ducks' designs by turning in a superb third act, belatedly fulfilling Scrooge's insistence on "teamwork" by getting the koala and kangaroo to help her rescue the stranded "wartyhog"...

... and then leading her "animal legion" to victory.  You can't say that Merwin didn't pay off the "Webby's way with animals" theme in full here.

If you can tolerate the presence of Webby at center stage, "Outback" is an enjoyable enough episode, a pleasant reminder of America's infatuation with all things Australian in the mid- to late 1980s.

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"DuckBlurbs"

(GeoX) Is it just me, or does Alan Young play up Scrooge's Scottish accent more than usual here? Most peculiar.

I didn't notice it.  I wonder whether you were listening to Scrooge's line "That was a terrible landing, Launchpad!" and hearing an unusually lengthy rolling of the "R"'s.  I think that that could be attributed to the fact that the plane was shaking violently when Scrooge spoke.

(GeoX) It was pretty obvious from the moment he appeared that the manager of the ranch, Duke, would turn out to be a bad guy; I hoped briefly that they'd surprise us by not having this come to pass, but no such luck. I wonder if there's an intentional critique here: sure, Duke's bad and all, but, as he explains it, "Scrooge has gotten rich off the sweat of my brow long enough" (or something like that; I didn't write it down), and Scrooge at one point remarks "you and Duke aren't just my friends--you're my trustworthy, low-paid employees." It's a funny line, but maybe if Scrooge weren't so exploit[at]ive, he wouldn't have problems like this. Then again, the other employee, Sundowner, gets rewarded for accepting his lot, so I dunno. Highly questionable, is what I find this.

Since Scrooge is supposed to be the "hero" in both DuckTales and the UNCLE $CROOGE comics, it's not surprising that the "alienated employee" plot line doesn't turn up all that often.  I think it's a reasonable hook on which to hang a story, at least if you're interested in characterizing Scrooge "warts and all."  Scrooge does seem to have a lot of employees who tolerate low pay without complaint.  They must feel that they have a high level of job security (and, given the longstanding ubiquity of Miss Quackfaster/Mrs. Featherby and Mr. Clerkly, perhaps they have reason to do so).  Now, if Scrooge were to suddenly emulate Magica in "Duck to the Future" and institute a "Privilege of Working for Scrooge McDuck" tax, then I imagine you'd see a few more Duke Duggans.

(GeoX) Webby DOES ride (well, sleep, anyway, but close enough) in a kangaroo's pouch, thus following the local, state, and federal laws that require this for any cartoon set in Australia. 

To his credit, Barks avoided this trope in "Queen of the Wild Dog Pack."  However, he did have Scrooge and Donald dress up like sheep in that story.  That ought to satisfy the law in spirit, if nothing else.

(Greg) So we cut to the ranch as Scrooge's plane arrives and it looks like it is recycled from Ducks [of] The West; only cheaper.

The two layouts aren't identical, but they're reasonably close.

(Greg) ...[W]e go to the tree shot as the binoculars beckons as we cut to the bushes as Digger (weasel wearing an orange shirt with a green vest and black pants) is watching on as they realize that it is McDuck. I'm SHOCKED Chris Barat missed the fact that one of the weasel's names is Digger.

The problem that I had here was that Ratbag (I'll call him that, too; it certainly seems apropos) says "Digger" just as Digger is noisily being choked by the binocular strap.  

(Greg) Duke blows off Dingo's finding of the trail as he thinks it's a wabbit..ERR...I mean rabbit. Sundowner blows him off for mocking Dingo's brains and mocks Duke instead. Oh man; if that is all Sundowner can do; then he is absolutely useless. More useless than [Monterey Jack] and that's a rarity. Duke calls him a ratbag and Scrooge steps in reminding them of teamwork. If we are doing the teamwork angle; shouldn't Scrooge be doing SOME work other than shouting like a dick?

This episode puts me in mind of the original versions of "Three Ducks of the Condor" and "Too Much of a Gold Thing," in which Scrooge's abrasiveness and bossiness were played up big time.  Here, it seems as though Merwin refused to go the same route and decided to keep the repetition of the "teamwork" line, which I think was a mistake.  Scrooge hammers on the "teamwork" theme to the extent that it becomes rather annoying.

(Greg) Duke is PISSED off as he decides to finish off Scrooge and Sundowner with the..wait for it...the WIDOWMAKER OF DEATH. Now you know he's serious when he has to employ the skills to kill husbands with a bread maker. Oh come on! Why do you think they call it a _widow-maker_?! I have NOTHING...AND THE ROCK SEZS NOTHING to work with here. 

I'm not sure what "bread maker" has to do with "widow maker," unless you're referring to the fact that there's a sandwich called the "widow maker."  The entry at allrecipes.com describes it as "a BLT on steroids."  I suppose that it could be considered as lethal, in its own way, as Duke's fearsome black boomerang... but only in a long-term sense.

Next: Episode 44, "Raiders of the Lost Harp."