A Challenge: Cases of Mistaken Secret IdentiTIES

In her comment on my DuckTales wrap-up segment, reader "Anne" made the following observation:

This is random, but did anyone else notice that in the DuckTales cast shot, Fenton and Gizmoduck are both there? :P I know it's a clip-art picture, but I still think it's funny.

Yep.  I don't know precisely how many DuckTales cast group-shots are in existence, but this is the only one of which I am aware in which Fenton appears entirely separate from his robo-suited alter ego. Actually, there is another error on clear display here... at least, it's an error in a strict DT context.  Can you spot it?

** I posted the answer in the comments section -- CEB

Those with long(ish) memories will recall that this is not the first time that Fenton and Gizmo have appeared together in the same scene.  On page 11 of the fifth and final chapter of DISNEY ADVENTURES' crossover epic "The Legend of the Chaos God" (1994), check out the panel at lower left:

When I wrote about this in WTFB at the time, I suggested that the members participate in a "Hey, Fenton, Who Was That in the Gizmosuit?" contest, to mimic the notorious "Hey, Daisy, Whatever Happened to Scrooge?" art-challenge conducted by the German fanzine DER DONALDIST in the 80s.  Two decades on, would any of you blog-readers care to take up the question?

DUCKTALES RETROSPECTIVE: Episode 98, "New Gizmo-Kids on the Block"

The last unequivocally BAD episode of DuckTales... and we're going out in a particularly noxious blaze of gory in this case.  "New Gizmo-Kids on the Block" isn't the single worst episode of the series, as I previously argued here, but I think that it can fairly be described as having one of the very worst PLOTS of the series, if not THE worst.  The setup here is so transparently laughable and ill-conceived that the ep starts out in a hole that it wouldn't have a chance in a hundred of escaping under the best of conditions... and the inclusion of a thoroughly out-of-date subplot (HD&L dissing Webby's ability to be a hero for gender-based reasons) and a distressing number of silly animation goofs don't exactly qualify as the "best of conditions."  In his final appearance of the series, poor Fenton -- or, at the very least, his Gizmoduck alter ego -- is well and truly "buried" (as Greg pungently put it), to the extent that one is actually relieved that both he and Gizmoduck were resurrected for somewhat more gainful employment in Darkwing Duck.  Even the BEST things about the episode -- Webby's trumping of the bungling HD&L with the display of her heroic capabilities in the guise of the "Gizmo-Kid," and one of Mrs. Crackshell's liveliest and most interesting roles of the series -- come with barbs in their tails.  Granted, we don't get a completely ludicrous denouement a la "Yuppy Ducks" or a thoroughly butchered moral a la "Bubba's Big Brainstorm," but precious little else of substance can be salvaged from this wreckage.  "Gallopin' Garbage!"?  My "scentiments" exactly.

Putting the treatment of Fenton aside for the moment, is there any way that DT could have crafted a scenario in which the kids bicker over the right to use the Gizmosuit (or a version thereof) that would hold the expected cliches to a minimum?  Sure, there is.  In fact, it appeared barely a month after "Gizmo-Kids" first aired, albeit in a comics (for lack of a better term) magazine.  "The Littlest Gizmoduck" (DISNEY ADVENTURES #2, 12/10/90, script by Karen Willson and Chris Weber, art by Roberto Santillo) beats Jeffrey Scott's version six ways to Sunday and eight ways to every other day of the week.  The very first panel of the eight-page digest tale represents an improvement on "Gizmo-Kids," as HD&L and Webby are cooperating to construct a Gizmo-like suit to present at the school crime fair.  The obvious implication is that HD&L and Webby are equally competent, at least in this particular endeavor.  The dispute comes when the kids debate who will get to ride the contraption.  And, yes, the kerfuffle is gender-based, but Webby gives as good as she gets from the very outset, responding to HD&L's claim that "girls aren't crimefighters!" by commandeering the suit when the boys aren't paying attention and then charging into battle against the Beagle Boys at the Duckburg art museum (!).  In "Gizmo-Kids," before Webby finally gets her shot at the shrunken (more about that later) Gizmosuit, we have to endure repeated whining and pleading from her as the lads pass the suit back and forth amongst themselves, which tends to dilute her final triumph a bit.  The Webby of "Littlest Gizmoduck" is a far stronger and far less compromised character.

Even Gizmoduck (whose first of very, VERY few comics appearances this was) is treated with respect in "Littlest Gizmoduck," coming to save the kidnapped Nephews from the Beagles, with Webby continuing to lend a hand along the way.  Given their helpless state throughout the latter portion of the story, the HD&L of "Littlest Gizmoduck" might be considered fall-guys of sorts, but, unlike in "Gizmo-Kids," they do not end up the butt of the gender-joke.

"Littlest Gizmoduck" is too slight of a story to have made for a 22-minute episode, but its superior character dynamics and greater sense of believability are easily apparent.  Even the inexplicable re-dialoguing of the story for its reprinting in UNCLE $CROOGE #392 doesn't mar the essential strength of the work.  The approach taken in "Gizmo-Kids," by contrast, doesn't begin to make up for the fatal plot-related errors committed in the episode's first act -- surely, among the most painful 10 minutes of the entire series.

The ep actually begins fairly promisingly.  The dueling "Mother of the Year" campaigns by Mrs. Crackshell and Ma Beagle hold out promise for some decent funny business, and Mrs. Crackshell certainly delivers some yuks; her mantra about wanting to win the "50inchcablereadywidescreenTV" rivals some of the repetitive phrases in "Nothing to Fear" for sheer catchiness.  Ma Beagle's participation is a bit more problematic.  Her efforts to show "what a good mother she is" (breaking her boys out of the slammer and leading them on thieving expeditions to art museums and clothing stores) seem like, well, things she would encourage her boys to do under normal circumstances.  For what should be obvious reasons, Mrs. Crackshell's efforts, whatever their "true motivation" might be, represent a bigger stretch out of her thimble-sized "comfort zone."  Even so, pairing Ma up with "M'Ma" does make good psychological sense, in that both maternal ancestors are trying to make up for a legacy of neglect of their children (or, in the case of Ma Beagle, outright betrayal, e.g., in "Robot Robbers" and "Hero for Hire").  We see a similar twist on what has come to be expected when the guard at the prison finally sees a sufficient amount of light to inspect Ma's Hickleberry Hiccup Surprise Cake for hidden escape tools.  Too bad that, on this one occasion, the "escape tool" turns out to be Burger himself.  It makes sense, in a perverse way, that this is the final "Beagle escape scene" of the series.  I mean, how could the Beagles be expected to top THIS? (Whether that should be taken as a positive or a negative, I leave as an exercise to the blog-reader.)

And THAT, dear friends, is quite literally as good as it gets.  Perhaps as a symbol of what's to come, in the scene that introduces the young Ducks' recycling campaign, the dollar sign on Scrooge's Money Bin
appears in reverse.  Hang on, Wang Films has more such baubles in store for us.

Do I even have to explain why the whole notion of "shrinking the Gizmosuit in the wash" makes no sense whatsoever, even in a "Toony" context?  Even if one posits that the "polyester-aluminum blend" suit was created by Gyro as a replacement suit following the events of "Attack of the Metal Mites" -- and, in all honesty, it is easy to imagine Scrooge demanding that a "Gizmosuit 2.0" be made less susceptible to consumption by whatever other metal-eating critters might be lurking out there -- polyester doesn't shrink in the wash anyway.  The idea that the new suit is foldable, and therefore can now be carried in a cardboard box, is killed before it even makes its formal debut, since the suit is clearly made of solid material when Mrs. C. lifts it up to look at the label.  (Fenton's washing of the suit near the end of the ep abruptly revives the "foldable" theme.)  Let's not even talk about the change in the computerized code word.  This is a classic example of what the popular Youtube and Deviantart animation reviewer The Mysterious Mr. Enter calls, "I'm going to have this thing happen, because I WANT this thing to happen."  In the rush to get the Gizmosuit down to kid size, Jeffrey Scott tramples logic and reason into the turf.  Why couldn't his story editor have warned him... oh, that's right, we're in the same "flying solo" mode here that we were during "Metal Mites."  There's a lot more turbulence in evidence this time around, though.

 

Mrs. C. does deserve some props for her impromptu handicraft in putting together the Garbageduck suit.  I fail to see what was accomplished, however, by the tedious "teasing" of the "final reveal" of the woebegone wardrobe until the scene at the art museum.  Thanks to the swan-dive into the box full of cans, Fenton is already well on his way to humiliation before the full splendor of the Garbagesuit is vouchsafed us.  (Wang can't even get the hidden transition right here; Mrs. C. gives the Garbagesuit to Fenton in a box, and the entire suit appears to encase Fenton when he first utters the new code phrase, but Fenton then needs to push the garbage can to the museum by hand in order to perform his transformation there.)

As poor Fenton sinks slowly in the webs, HD&L cover themselves with similar glory, discovering the shrunken Gizmosuit and taking turns botching their tenancies thereof.  Interesting dichotomy here: all three of the Nephews appear to know exactly where certain features of the suit can be accessed, yet they prove to be inept at using them.  (I guess that their founding of the "Gizmoduck Fan Club" in "Full Metal Duck" wasn't for naught, at least in terms of gaining a knowledge of Gizmo-anatomy.)  To be fair, the boys do have one or two little moments of glory...

... but we tend to remember the less successful moments, now, don't we?

That's supposed to be Huey in the suit, BTW.  Thanks, Wang!

Pwned by Baggy, no less! 

And, of course, the sudden amplification of the Nephews' egos makes these goofs seem all the worse, even before they drop that "Super stuff is for boys!" load on Webby's wee head.  Thankfully, when Webby finally takes control in the clothing store, some sense of order is restored.  Even her brief effusion of self-congratulation ("Gizmoooo WEBBY!... to you") is relatively restrained, given what had gone before.  It's unfortunate that this otherwise satisfying ending became so nakedly obvious the moment that HD&L started acting like jerks.  It's also unfortunate that Webby's previous puling about the boys being unfair and not letting her use the suit undercuts the (already thumpingly obvious) moral that Scott was attempting to deliver about girls being the equal of boys.

As for poor Fenton... poor, poor Fenton... he goes from one humiliation to another as he literally attempts to salvage what shreds of respectability still accrue to his secret ID.  His involuntary "dumpster dive" makes Launchpad's two visits to the junkpile in "Hero for Hire" seem dignified by comparison.  Fenton and Mrs. C.'s "ride through the countryside" looks even worse in light of Webby's subsequent competence in battling the Beagles.  "Garbageduck"'s final "wheel-on" may be said to complete the character's abasement, as it makes Fenton's secret identity even clearer than Scott had done in "Metal Mites."  Fenton speaking in his own voice, wearing a Gizmoduck-like suit, accompanied by Mrs. Crackshell... it's like putting ONE and ONE together, fer cryin' out loud.

Even the last couple of scenes don't leave us unscathed.  Having gained back some respect thanks to the wits of that one cake-examining guard, the Duckburg penal system fails even harder than normal when the Beagles and Ma Beagle are put in the same cell.  To say the least, this is far more dubious than Scrooge and Mrs. Beakley sharing occupancy of a cell in "The Billionaire Beagle Boys Club."  Mrs. Crackshell then partially gives back some of the newfound approbation we have for her by evincing more glee over winning the "Mechanic of the Year Award" than over exchanging a loving gesture with her son.  This leaves it a very open question as to whether Mrs. C. will retain any portion of the lesson she ought to have learned here.  Off her po-faced performance in "Dangerous Currency," in which she forgets that her son is Gizmoduck, I'm inclined to say... um, not.

This little journey may have been rough as the proverbial cob, but cheer up -- this wonderful series ain't going down without a fight.  Just the opposite, in fact.

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"DuckBlurbs"

(GeoX) BOY does that title ever instantly date the hell out of this episode.

At least Harvey Comics didn't try to turn this title into another NKOTB comic-book title.  We got more than enough of those back in the day, thank you.

(GeoX) Fenton gets the suit back to normal size by means that weren't totally clear to me...

He makes a comment that he may have to "lose some weight" to fit into the suit, so it's not even clear that the suit has been restored to normal size.

(GeoX) Scrooge has a bronze statue of himself? As is often the case, I Have My Doubts.

Well, he did have a small statue of himself in Barks' "The Lemming with the Locket."  I will admit that Scrooge having a LARGE statue of himself seems a bit far-fetched.

(GeoX) "A good mother would help her son; therefore, I, being a good mother, will help you."

There's something amusingly... mechanical about this sentiment, or at least the way in which it is expressed.  Mrs. Crackshell IS trying to show that she's a good mother, but she's obviously new at this particular game.

(GeoX) I never got the impression that the [G]izmosuit would just switch around to different users like that. Is there anywhere else where its behavior in that regard is established? Seems like a potentially fatal flaw.

Well, simply using the phrase "Blabberin' blatherskite!" was enough to get Mrs. Crackshell into the suit in "Full Metal Duck"...

... and Launchpad into the suit in "A Case of Mistaken Secret Identity"...

... so it's definitely a design flaw, at least in the suit's current incarnation.  (BTW, at some point, the Wang animators evidently got tired of showing all the details of the suit switching from Nephew to Nephew.  When HD&L do the round-robin thing in the clothing store, the suit simply jumps on top of them, and Bingo!  They're encased.)

(Greg) We begin this one at the trailer park as Mrs. Crackshell is watching another soap on television again. And the Duchess of Swansylvania is back with a blond haired duck wearing a green shirt and brown pants. 

The latter appears to be Count Roy of Monte Dumas ("Duck in the Iron Mask") with his mustache shaved off.  In a later scene, the toy salesman from "Allowance Day" makes a comeback as the manager of Crooks Brothers.  With DT drawing to a close, I suppose that it was as good a time as any to start freshening up those resumes.

(Greg) So the guards cannot believe this as the heels drop down and then dig their way through... Then we clearly jump cut to the BB getting up and running out of the prison in front of the sidewalk. Judging by the hearing of a gunshot sound; there was a scene cut for shooting, around 15 seconds or so. Finally! A gun edit in an episode other than TaleSpin that Toon Disney cut out. It also is clear [since] there are bullets spraying around the area as they hop into Ma's jeep. The cut is made even stupider by the fact that on the next shot where Ma declares that she broke them out of prison because she's a good mother; you can clearly see the police guards pointing their rifles for all to see. Too obvious of a cut; and another reason why Toon Disney was so laughable in those days. 

Yep.  We see the bullets whizzing from off-screen as the Beagles exit the escape hole, and again when Ma's jalopy makes the getaway.  We also see the guards shooting at unseen, off-screen targets.  But implying that the bullets from off-screen are coming FROM the guards and are being aimed AT the Beagles?  Nope, can't have that, even though it is cringingly obvious what is happening here.

(Greg) Yeah; they are officially burying Fenton here; although this was the last Gizmo Duck episode in production so it was kind of expected (and then regretted when Stones starting having him do cameos in DARKWING....DUCK!) even though it probably aired before Scrooge's Last Adventure.

It did: "Gizmo-Kids" first aired on November 5, 1990, and "Last Adventure" aired 12 days later.  So I suppose you could say that Fenton, qua Fenton, was rehabilitated to a certain extent by that long-delayed episode.  That's ONLY if you give "Last Adventure" credit as a 1990 episode, however.

(Greg) So [Mrs. Crackshell] hears the phone ring in the garbage and answers it. It is for Fenton; and it's Scrooge as he is in front of the vault and he informs Fenton that the heels are heading for the museum and he wants him there as Gizmo Duck. Fenton is hot under the collar hearing that one.

He should be, considering that Scrooge didn't identify WHAT museum was meant.  Duckburg has an art museum (confirmed by "Rightful Owners," for what that is worth) and a natural history museum ("Bubba Trubba"), among others that have been in various venues seen over the years.

(Greg) Ma and three of the boys (BT, BR and BG) walk in[to the museum] leaving Bouncer to watch the jeep.

Whereupon Bouncer suddenly teleports into the museum to join the other Beagles as they approach the Mona Duck.  Another "Wang moment" for your delectation!

(Greg) Question: How did Gizmo Dewey get in[to the museum] without anyone noticing? The writers didn't seem to bother adding that one little detail. Meaning that Jeffrey Scott doesn't care today which is a BAD sign...

Dewey must have emulated Fenton and rolled there on his Gizmo-wheel, given that Huey, Louie, and Webby show up at just about the same time.  I can certainly understand why, given the mess Dewey made of the Mansion while flying. 

(Greg) The police take the heels away with the coat rack as Gizmo Webby wheels over to Scrooge and Scrooge thinks it's one of the nephews in the suit despite the fact that we NEVER see Scrooge see the Gizmo Kids at all. Stupid, stupid, STUPID! Did I mention dumb?

Scott evidently sensed that Scrooge's initial reaction was a problem, since Scrooge subsequently expresses surprise at the existence of a small Gizmosuit.  That doesn't make up for his original assumption that one of the "lads" was in there, though.

Next: Episode 99, "The Golden Goose, Part 1."

DUCKTALES RETROSPECTIVE: Episode 92, "Ducky Mountain High"

From December 1989 through the Fall of 1990, DuckTales fans inhabited a strange sort of limbo... or perhaps "purgatory" would be a better word.  After a lengthy run of new second-season episodes for the "sweeps month" of November '89, culminating with "The Masked Mallard" on November 17, the series kicked back into rerun mode.  No real surprise there... except that we had been led to believe that 27 "second-season" episodes had been produced, and we had gotten only 24.  What had happened to the three "strays"?

That the missing episodes had not been "lost" so much as "temporarily misplaced" became clear when the ongoing DuckTales episode guide running in Gladstone Comics' DUCKTALES title wrapped up in issue #12 (March 1990):

So now we knew what to expect, sort of, but WHEN WOULD WE GET THE PAYOFF?  During the early "sweeps months" of 1990, perhaps?  No such luck.  NBC favored us (in a manner of speaking) with the previously-unannounced holiday special "A DuckTales Valentine" in February, but "The Tardy Trio" stubbornly refused to show themselves.  A contemporary drawing by Joe Torcivia summed up our increasing irritation:

Even the Summer 1990 release of DuckTales: The Movie -- Treasure of the Lost Lamp failed to quell our querulousness.  Not after we saw a TV special promoting the film in which footage from "Scrooge's Last Adventure" appeared and our suspiciously overenthusiastic hosts, Tracey Gold and Kadeem Hardison, described the ep as though it had already been released.  So what made THEM so special, hm?  Joe and I would have been jealous if we weren't so thoroughly frustrated.

All finally became clear on Monday, September 10, 1990, with the debut of the Disney Afternoon two-hour block.  The block's three older series -- Gummi Bears, DuckTales, and Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers -- marked the occasion by broadcasting either a completely new episode (Gummis' "A Gummi's Work is Never Done") or a "held-back" episode with a 1989 copyright date (Rescue Rangers' "Zipper Come Home," DT's "Ducky Mountain High").  We were now free to unclench and relax... though two months would elapse before the third of the missing eps ("Last Adventure") would appear, and we still had a few surprises in store in the form of four unanticipated, brand-new eps, including the two-part series finale, "The Golden Goose."  Ah, for the "Heroic Age of Fandom," when we somehow managed to survive despite not always knowing what was headed our way around the next corner!

The series' production order lends credence to the theory that WDTVA simply decided to hold back the last few episodes produced for the 1989-90 season.  "Ducky Mountain High," "The Duck Who Knew Too Much," and "Scrooge's Last Adventure" were three of the last four second-season eps to be produced, along with "The Masked Mallard."  I've little doubt that "Mallard" rated a Fall 1989 broadcast because WDTVA was trying to hitch a ride on Batman's cape.  (As things turned out, the timing was good for "Mallard"'s "Lawrence Loudmouth" parody of Morton Downey, Jr., as well; Downey's controversial talk show had sunk like a stone in the ratings during the 1988-89 season and was cancelled a mere two months before "Mallard" aired.  By the Fall of 1990, "Mouthy Mort" was already well on his way down the pop culture "memory hole.")

Although it is highly unlikely that WDTVA chose to hold back the three episodes that it did strictly because they were of unusually high quality, the fact is that all three of them are quite good, certainly above average for second-season eps in general.  "The Duck Who Knew Too Much" is probably the most uniformly satisfying of the three.  "Ducky Mountain" and "Last Adventure," while highly enjoyable and built around rock-solid thematic cores, both suffer a bit from some distressingly sloppy work at the margins.  The offenses are arguably more bothersome in the case of "Ducky Mountain," because it doesn't take all that much brainwork to see how the various logical problems could have been avoided, or, at the very least, minimized.

Glittering Goldie's reappearance here, for the first time since "Till Nephews Do Us Part," was a pleasant surprise indeed -- the more so because her relationship with Scrooge at the end of that first-season finale was, shall we say, at a crossroads.  As in, "Goldie is cross and is chasing the 'two-timing' Scrooge down the road with a shotgun."  The mere fact that Goldie is willing to deal with Scrooge at all in "Ducky Mountain" suggests that the two of them must have arranged some kind of entente cordiale before things got too terribly bloody.  Given that Scrooge never explicitly declared his "eternal devotion" to Goldie and Goldie neglected to extract such a pledge at the end of "Back to the Klondike," I imagine that the agreement included some sort of apology from Goldie for overreacting so dramatically to the notion of Scrooge getting married to another woman.  I can also envisage Goldie still stewing a bit over the incident even after the concordance was agreed upon.  Marry that subterranean motivation to Goldie's well-known love for all things golden, and the impetus for her scheming here becomes quite clear.  Since Flintheart Glomgold gets caught up in the conniving more or less by chance, it's obvious that Goldie was perfectly prepared to hornswoggle Scrooge all by her lonesome if she had to.

Goldie's sending Scrooge the gold stationery to coax him up to the Great Ducky Mountains is believable enough.  The problem is that writers Ken Koonce, David Weimers, and Rich Fogel never do  establish a clear path between Scrooge's receipt and "scenting-out" of the "New Paper's Secret" and his pinpointing of a specific location as the source of the stationery.  How would Scrooge know that the gold paper came from that particular paper mill?  He might have more than one mill up there, no?  This oversight could easily have been papered over (heh) by changing Scrooge's original reference from "the paper mill" to "my Canadian paper mill."  As filmed, Scrooge's immediate dash for the door (without luggage or supplies, yet!) seems overly precipitous.

Scrooge and Glomgold's ability to sniff out gold also poses something of a problem.  One might reasonably argue that the events of "Too Much of a Gold Thing" left the post-"Gold Fevered" Scrooge with a residual ability to sense gold with his nose, but how do you explain Flinty possessing the same ability, and with no explanation whatsoever?  For Glomgold to have this sort of natural talent flies in the face of his previous uses of technology to keep tabs on Scrooge, as seen in "Wrongway in Ronguay" and "My Mother the Psychic," to take two examples.  Glomgold's constant need to rely on cheating, subterfuge, and other indirect means of keeping up with Scrooge also strongly suggests that he does not possess -- or possesses far less of -- Scrooge's inherent ability to find wealth.  Heck, Flinty even admits as much in "Wrongway" when he tells "El Capitan," "You don't know Scrooge -- he's a money magnet, he'll find the gold for sure."  No indication there that Glomgold may have a similarly "magnetic personality."  The sudden amplification of Glomgold's pelf-perception powers is basically a hastily-concocted way of getting Flinty involved in the action; simply having Flinty see gold flecks in the paper would have been sufficient.  Nor is there any explanation as to how Flinty tracked the stationery to the exact same paper mill (though, if Scrooge had been clearer about having just ONE paper mill in Canada, the deduction would have been a little easier to make).

GeoX calls Bubba's role here the caveduck's best of the series.  I'd be inclined to agree, but not in spite of the sudden sports obsession... rather, because of it.  Bubba's preternatural tracking skills may be a more consistent element of his character, but they derive directly from the survival skills he was obliged to develop in 1,000,000 BC.  His sudden enthusiasm for sports, by contrast, is an acquired trait that fits much better with his "charge-in-and-grunt-questions-later" persona than any contrived obsession with rock music ever could.  It also happens to tie in with one of the very few Bubba-focused comics stories, "Slugga Bubba" from DISNEY ADVENTURES DIGEST, in which HD&L teach Bubba how to play baseball and he turns out to be a "natural" at the game.  We do get the expected "flubbas" and subsequent blowups by Scrooge, but Bubba gets a more than ample number of opportunities to make up for the mistakes.  In terms of what he actually contributes to the Ducks' ultimate (albeit consequently blighted) triumph, he certainly outshines HD&L here, just as he outpaced Webby in "Attack of the Fifty-Foot Webby."  For a final series appearance by a generally disappointing and arguably ill-conceived character, this is considerably better than half-bad, or even three-quarters-bad.

The existence of the stand of gold trees is, of course, wildly problematic, and not simply because of the hand-waved "the roots soaked up gold from the gold deposit" explanation.  When Scrooge and HD&L first go exploring and run across the trees, the stand is located near the edge of a cliff (which will never be seen again).  Since the Ducks have been walking on Scrooge's land in the direction of the trees, the logical conclusion is that Scrooge's land ends, and Goldie's begins, immediately past the cliff.  So, if the roots are growing in the direction that we later learn they are, then they would have to be growing... um, into the cliff side?  Wouldn't the roots have grown through and out of the cliff in that case?  It's a heavy price to pay for the nifty visual in which Scrooge and HD&L climb up the cliff and we get the dramatic reveal of the trees.  Note the substantial size of the stand, BTW; it's going to get considerably smaller before we're through...

Scrooge's decision to don a buckskin outfit before going to call on (and attempt to fleece) Goldie is an easily missed, but nonetheless noticeable, indication of "Ducky Mountain"'s lack of subtlety compared to an ep like "Back to the Klondike."  Scrooge has donned "stereotypical, location-appropriate garb" before (for example, in "The Curse of Castle McDuck"), but this reminded me a little more of Launchpad dressing in garish green Irish gear in "Luck O' the Ducks" or (shudder!) Scrooge putting on that over-the-top cowboy outfit in "Ducks of the West."  There seems to be no real reason for it, not even the borderline excuse given in "Castle McDuck" that Scrooge needed to put on the Clan McDuck tartans because his regular raiment had gotten wet.  Scrooge describes the outfit as an "investment," but, later on in the ep, he'll purchase a whole bunch of lumberjacking gear and then plan to return it once the gold trees are harvested.  Surely, the backwoods garb cost far more than any of those items, and yet Scrooge is going to... keep it?  No... sense... making... Must... find... sense...

Thankfully, just prior to Scrooge's strange splurge, we get an indication that we'll soon be heading due north (into Canada, what a coincidence!) in terms of the ep's quality, as Glomgold makes contact with the Canadian Beagle Boys.  Actually, Backwoods, Binky (who was not mentioned in the Gladstone DuckTales index), and Bacon are never explicitly referred to by that title, so that first official animated appearance by Vic Lockman's "Beagles International" will have to await some bright, shiny day in the future.  (If there is a future, as William F. Buckley, Jr. once said in a different context.)

 

 "Beagle Bug-Off" (Gladstone UNCLE $CROOGE ADVENTURES #34, September 1995)

"SPEACH! SPEACH!!"

As Greg says, it's hard to dislike the Canadian Beagles despite the obvious stereotyping, the "Eh"s and all the rest... simply because it's absolutely impossible to take them seriously.  The buzzards that can be seen circling below the CBBs' dilapidated cliffside shack telegraphs the truth about them right away: as a legitimate threat to the Ducks, they are D.O.A.  The Beagles of "Don't Give Up the Ship" were positive menaces compared to these guys.

Goldie's "playing" of Scrooge and Flinty at her cabin is executed in a first-rate manner, though Goldie's use of what GeoX accurately terms a "f***ing grotesque" blond wig makes her look like a superannuated Webby (and, like Scrooge's buckskin outfit, seems too contrived by half).  Goldie did just fine, thank you, wearing her old honkytonk outfit but keeping her becoming gray hair in "Back to the Klondike."  At the start of the sequence, we get a nice reprise of the "reunion" scene of "Klondike" when Scrooge cautiously approaches the door, only to be met by gunfire from the porch, and Goldie gets away with a surprisingly gamy metaphor when she explains her move from the Klondike to the Great Duckies by reporting that the duo's old claim at White Agony Creek had been "picked cleaner than a vulture on a rabbit."

When Glomgold shows up, Scrooge rises -- or lowers -- to the bait, and the misers subsequently act like a couple of bickering children for a spell.  They even channel the spirit of classic Warner Bros. cartoons past with the "Out you go!/No, out YOU go!" routine, culminating in both of them somehow getting tossed out at the same time, in the manner of Bugs Bunny and Sylvester the Dog in Hare Force (1944). Of course, the gussying-up Goldie is oblivious to all of this... we think.  At least she didn't end up being thrown out herself, as Granny was in the Warners short.

The foolishness continues after the trio reach the Moosehead Lodge; Scrooge literally "stuffs" Glomgold when he escorts Goldie out of the truck and into the restaurant, and Flinty later goes Scrooge one better by squashing him while the two are bidding on Goldie's land.  You have to give Goldie credit for taking full advantage of the unexpected presence of Glomgold and recognizing that having a bidding rival will make Scrooge even more of a sucker for her scheme.  It's no surprise that Goldie ultimately chooses Scrooge's offer, even though Glomgold offered the higher dollar amount.  The whole purpose of this enterprise was to get one over on Scrooge, after all.

"Flat"tery will get you nowhere, Flinty!

Act Three continues the pattern of the episode as a whole: solid ideas and decent action, partially undercut by questionable details that were not completely worked out.  It makes sense that Scrooge and the CBBs would try to "undercut" Scrooge's deal by taking away the gold trees for themselves, but why didn't the ever-vigilant Scrooge think to post a guard to make sure that such a fairly obvious dodge wouldn't take place?  (All you'd need would be Bubba and a conveniently placed large boulder.  Judging by this episode, the latter appear to be scattered all over the place.)  And why are the total pickings from the forest sufficiently tiny to allow Glomgold to wrap them all up in a single, smallish raft?  Thankfully, the Ducks' dispatching of the hapless CBBs, and Scrooge and Glomgold's subsequent raft-wrassle, follow in short order and help us to quickly forget the oversights... until we go back and do a detailed rewatch, that is.

Axes?  Guns?  What's the difference, Toon Disney?

We then get... yet another conveyor-belt sequence, on the heels of "Money to Burn"?  Really??  Complete with the same trope that the victim stays on the belt just long enough to be rescued, regardless of how far away he is from the blade at the start and how fast the belt is moving?  We are well and truly on the downhill slide now when it comes to exciting new plot ideas (actually, a better analogy than a slide would be the waterfall that Scrooge and Glomgold take their plummet over just before Scrooge wakes up in the sawmill).  From a character-based perspective, the most annoying thing about this version of the familiar routine is Scrooge's seeming lack of interest in trying to find a way to save himself.  Even Monterey Jack, the would-be victim in Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers' "Love is a Many Splintered Thing," managed to foil the scheme of Desiree D'Allure and Erol by twisting the log so that the blade would miss him and cut off his bindings.  Would Scrooge, so famously "tougher than the toughies," really restrict his efforts to plaintive cries of "Help!", rather than fighting his apparent fate every millimeter of the way?  I can SORT of buy Scrooge's despair in "Money to Burn" causing him to become temporarily inert -- he had every reason to think at the time that his fortune was in the process of being melted down -- but giving up in the face of a terminal triumph by Glomgold?  No way can I accept that.  At least the sequence gives Launchpad, hitherto a relatively secondary player in this particular cast (save for one or two good quips), something interesting and in character to do.  His overelaborate attempt to swing to Scrooge's rescue, complete with egotistical disclaimer, brings back pleasant memories of "The Webbed Wonder" rescuing money from banks "his way" in "Hero for Hire."  Seeing such an overt callback to the greatest Launchpad episode of them all at this late stage can't help but raise this ep's rating a few notches.  I put the absence of a scene showing the unsuccessful LP making contact with the log pile down to a combination of a straitened budget and, just perhaps, the animators' lack of confidence in the ability to show, or their unwillingness to add, what they might have considered to be a superfluous scene.  More's the pity.

Before coming to Scrooge's aid, the other Ducks had, of course, foiled Glomgold's plan to "[get] away with the gold wood" by knocking down the railroad bridge... a rather drastic thing to do, given that other trains passing along the route are going to be in for a nasty surprise, but an appropriately bravura climax to the subtheme of Bubba's sports obsession saving the day.  With the gold planks (I thought the raft was made up of logs?  Did Flinty take the time to cut up the logs into planks before he turned his attention to disposing of Scrooge?) safely stowed away at the bottom of the gorge, it'll be a simple matter to go back and... waitasec... Greg is completely right!  What's to prevent Glomgold and the CBBs from picking themselves up, dusting themselves off, and going to look for another means of carrying at least some of their booty away?  Scrooge doesn't even seem to consider that possibility, leading Launchpad, HD&L, and Bubba from the sawmill right back to the field of tree stumps to look for the gold deposit.  The Scrooge I know, realizing that his claim to the land was secure but that his ownership of the gold lumber wasn't, would almost certainly have made sure that the "wood in the hand" was safe and sound before attacking a potential fortune.

The final sequence is carried off to near-perfection, despite the annoying reduction of the forest of gold trees to a tiny bit of acreage that is just large enough to give the Ducks sufficient elbow room to dig for the gold deposit.  Scrooge, as we all knew he would, suffers an attack of conscience and 'fesses up to the deception, and Goldie's unexpectedly generous response leads to some rough-and-ready animation of a newly-excited Scrooge "digging for dollars."  It's as if the animation here is meant to reflect Scrooge's jangled state of mind.

Contact lens FAIL!

Then the other spat drops, and, well, there's only one thing to question here... When, exactly, did Scrooge demonstrate to Goldie how to be a "dirty deal maker"?  Goldie went of her own accord to White Agony Creek to pay off her debt to Scrooge in "Klondike," and the pair were probably too busy mining and (AHEM!) doing other things to have time for outside chicanery during their period of cohabitation.  It might have been better had Goldie simply repeated what Scrooge had said earlier and referred to Scrooge in more neutral terms as a "master" of driving a hard bargain, specific terms and circumstances not stated.  Scrooge might console himself with the thought that, once he cuts down the remaining tree stumps and recovers the gold lumber, he'll come away from the "fleecing" with something.  The psychological trauma of being outdone is liable to linger a little bit longer, despite that makeup kiss at the end.

Simply letting Goldie be Goldie, and in a slightly different setting to boot, lifts "Ducky Mountain" into the category of near-great DT eps, despite all of the ep's niggling flaws.  It might be argued that, of all of DT's Barksian supporting players, Goldie turned out to be the one who was most successfully realized, though I think that you could also make a case for Gyro Gearloose.  Even Goldie's "non-canonical" appearances featured an entirely believable version of the character.  Are they as successful as Don Rosa's portrayals?  I would argue not, because the uses of Goldie on DuckTales were a little less ambitious overall.  But there can be no question that DT did right by "the greediest gal in the Klondike."

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"DuckBlurbs" 

(GeoX) Okay, I also kind of liked the ostentatiously Canadian Beagles that appear here, if only for their aggressive bizarreness. One of them's a pig. "He had a bad case of swine flu." I like how that non-explanation is just sort of left dangling there.

The gag in which Backwoods admits that the boys ate their calendar was "aggressively bizarre," too.

(GeoX) [I]n spite of the ending's welcome tartness, they just can't resist tossing in a little sugar: Goldie kisses him and he blushes and winks at the camera as we go out with a heart. Hmph.

I'd like to think that they might have considered irising out on Scrooge realizing the truth, but I guess they felt that Scrooge and Goldie's continuance of their relationship had to be made clear.

(Greg) Flint admits that he needs backup and walks stage left as we logically head to a cliff where the shack was earlier on the overhead shot (See; build and everything) as we head inside and see the Backwoods Beagles for the first time. Two of the Beagle Boys in this are wearing gold miners and wood cutter outfits and have oversized beards. The Big Time'ish Beagle (with the raccoon hat) kicks the spit of moose antlers and blows off all this normalcy. Oh; and he speaks with a stereotypical Canadian accent. How do I know? He sezs "eh" in every other sentence...  The reason why I don't take offense to it is because Canadians typically know how to laugh at themselves when they see such an obvious stereotype. Heck; watch the closing of the 2010 Vancouver Olympic Winter Games for a refresher course.

The only gag that I might legitimately have questioned was the sight of an outhouse next to the Moosehead Lodge.  C'mon, even in the depths of rural Canada, indoor plumbing DOES exist.  I did get a chuckle out of the use of the plinky-plinky piano music from "Klondike" and the Klondike sequence of "Once Upon a Dime," as if "nothing has really changed" in that neck of the woods between the late 1800s and 1989!

(Greg) ["Lumberjerk" Launchpad] plays golf with the axe; and that breaks the glass and shoots the conveniently placed blunderbuss and almost kills Huey with it in the process. And Toon Disney kept it all for us to see.

That, plus the scene in which HD&L are wielding axes, presumably with intent to maim.  Censorship: HOW does it work?!

Next: Episode 93, "The Masked Mallard."