DUCKTALES RETROSPECTIVE: Episode 68, "Time is Money, Part Three: Bubba Trubba"

The "Trubba" meets the road...and, boy, does it leave an unsightly mark!

That "supernova effect" emanating from the returning Millennium Shortcut is strictly a coincidence. "Bubba Trubba" is anything but earth-shattering and marks the point at which "Time is Money" loses its narrative momentum.  Sure, it does have a legitimate "cliffhanger" ending that Bob Langhans would certainly appreciate (though the events leading up to this stinger are problematic in and of themselves, as we shall see)...

... but, while we're waiting for Scrooge to collapse (a crash that some may actually welcome given the rancid way in which Scrooge has acted throughout the ep!), we are obliged to slog through a loosely connected series of "Bubba makes trubba" shenanigans that resemble nothing so much as a vest-pocket animated version of Floyd Gottfredson's 1940 MICKEY MOUSE continuity, "An Education for Thursday."

"Education" isn't generally considered to be one of Gottfredson's better narratives, but at least he was sufficiently cognizant of the little aborigine's limited appeal to make sure that three months' worth of gaggery ended with Thursday returning home.  DuckTales fans, of course, would not be rid of Bubba quite so easily.

For an episode that basically amounts to a series of riffs on the basic theme that Bubba, in Scrooge's exasperated words, "does'nae understand!" how to conduct himself in modern-day Duckburg, "Trubba" wastes little time in getting down to... well, "business" would hardly be the appropriate word.  Literally seconds after the Shortcut has crashed through Gyro's roof and Gyro has done his fall-back take upon seeing Bubba and Tootsie, Bubba has begun to explore (and completely misinterpret) the world around him.  This climaxes with Bubba's mousetrapping of Scrooge, who has apparently forgotten any concern for Bubba's well-being that may have manifested itself during "The Duck Who Would Be King" and has settled into the semi-frantic, increasingly paranoid mindset that will hold him in a gorilla grip until the ep's final moments.

Hey! You put Gyro's Helper down this instant, Bubba... oh.

 

Gyro doesn't tick off the audience as thoroughly as does Scrooge in this episode, but he doesn't exactly cover himself in glory, either.  Gyro goofs right out of the gates with his comment "I told you... toy with time and you're asking for trouble!", which stinks on ice for several reasons.  In "Marking Time," Gyro didn't seem to have any problem sending those little alarm-clock probes back in time, altering ancient civilization in the process.  More to the point, during that ep, HE NEVER ACTUALLY TOLD Scrooge and company that time travel was dangerous.  Having claimed to have given a warning that he didn't actually give, Gyro then turns the gaffe on its head at the end of Act One and hits Scrooge with the "history is like a jigsaw puzzle" metaphor at exactly the wrong time. Greg makes the salient points about this setup:

Gyro explains that by keeping Bubba here; there is a huge hole in the puzzle and then the hole got bigger. And apparently; if history were as big as Duckb[u]rg; the hole could be [Scrooge's] Money Bin. Scrooge is paranoid now as I am so not buying this since if there was such a thing; we would have really seen the effects in the negative for Scrooge. Everything has been positive for Scrooge; minus Bubba and Tootsie annoying him, but that is minor. Scrooge grunts and blows off Gyro's nonsense. I agree; you would think that we would have clearly seen a negative effect by now.  Scrooge shows Gyro some dollar bills and the wind howls and blows them away as Gyro claims that it is starting already. That is lame; it was JUST a gust of wind and Scrooge was foolish enough to show dollar bills in an open roof. I am not buying this...

Having Gyro provide a motive push of sorts for Scrooge's descent into near-madness was, IMHO, a major mistake.  I think that it would have been much better had Scrooge come to his own conclusion that Bubba's presence endangers his fortune.  Such incidents as "the stock market dropping 50 points" and Bubba causing thousands of dollars' worth of damage in various venues could have been kept, but Scrooge's reactions to them could have been depicted as arising from fears in his own mind.  This would have been a more daring characterization, in that Scrooge would have come across as being even less likable than he does in the actual ep, but would have made for a really interesting psychological dynamic and would have made the scene with Scrooge's conscience seem much less gimmicky and much more meaningful.  The use of Gyro, ironically enough, takes Scrooge at least partially off the hook for some questionable behavior.  

 

Scrooge, of course, provides one of the scourges for his own back by deciding to spread news of his "victory" over Glomgold, and Bubba's arrival in Duckburg, to the world.  If I were in Scrooge's spats, I don't know but what I might want to keep Bubba's presence as secret as I possibly could. Flinty, after all, gets the idea of kidnapping Bubba, brainwashing him, and sending him back in time to destroy the markers only after having seen Bubba on TV.  Plus, Glomgold and the Beagle Boys probably aren't the only individuals who might want to capture Bubba and Tootsie for their own nefarious purposes.

The Duckburg legal system has already revealed itself to be full of flaws -- and we haven't even gotten to "The Bride Wore Stripes" yet -- so it's not surprising that it whizzes the matter of Scrooge vs. Glomgold down its proverbial pants leg.  The fact that Webra Walters describes Scrooge's markers as being a million years old should have made it clear that Scrooge messed with the terms of the initial contract, so why is his claim to the diamonds ruled to be valid?  Is Glomgold's reputation THAT bad?  (Actually, the equivalent of "the Feds" in the Ducks' world may share some of the responsibility, since "the Supreme Court" is credited, or debited, with the handing down of the final decision.  That could be the Supreme Court of Duckburg, of course -- a city with its own space agency and intelligence agency could probably swing a high court with ease -- but, for the sake of argument, I'll assume that "the Supreme Court" means pretty much the same thing in Duck-land that it does in our own world.)

Glomgold adds to the mucking-up of the ep's midsection by hatching what is, quite frankly, a completely cockamamie scheme to use Bubba as his "rogue agent" in the past.  Consider that the decision on the markers is already known to everyone in Duckburg.  If the cave were found to lack markers at some point in the future, then wouldn't it be logical for everyone to think that Glomgold did something on his own to alter the past?  Visions of GeoX's nightmare scenario of Glomgold and Scrooge screwing with one another's plans ad infinitum come quickly to mind.  What GeoX didn't mention is that, in order for Flinty's scheme to work, Flinty would literally have to alter the minds of EVERYONE who had heard about the decision.  Good luck with that.

From the above, it should be clear that "Trubba" is pretty seriously compromised even before we reach all the repetitive "Bubba causes massive city-wide trubba" junk that dominates the last half of the episode.  We enter the "spin cycle" with this justifiably notorious sequence:

Comments are unnecessary here, but I'm going to indulge in some anyway:

1.  I believe that this is the first time that the series actually depicted HD&L going to school.  During season one, they'd referred to homework assignments ("Armstrong," "Nothing to Fear," "The Golden Fleecing") and been questioned about their academic performances ("Raiders of the Lost Harp"), but I can't recall a previous schoolroom sighting.  More such scenes were to follow during season two, which would be fine, except that the main excuses for such visits typically centered around Bubba.  I don't know about you, but for the Nephews to be sent to school simply to serve as foils for a caveduck kind of sticks in my craw.

2.  So who were those kids doing the singing?  They didn't receive any credit whatsoever.  I know that Greg has frequently complained about DuckTales not making use of child actors to voice child characters.  You would hope that the one time DT did employ kids, the show would give them due recognition, but no such luck.

3.  HD&L's "one-room schoolhouse," on its infrequent appearances, occasionally takes on the trappings of an architectural TARDIS.  By this, I mean that, though it seems rather small from the outside, it is always large enough on the inside to accommodate whatever school paraphernalia are needed for a story -- lockers, lunchrooms, and, in this case, high ceilings that allow for the formation of human pyramids.

The entire "Rose Society" sequence was excised from the two-hour version of "Time is Money," and the fact that its absence isn't noticeable indicates just how superfluous a good deal of "Trubba" is.  In fact, Mrs. Beakley's attempt to educate Bubba in the social graces is probably the best of the three lengthy gag sequences.  Mrs. B.'s willingness to defend Bubba from the accusations of the raving Scrooge is legitimately admirable, giving some real bite to her ultimate humiliation, and Bubba, natural chaos-causer though he might be, does make a good effort to fit in at the party.  His panicked trampling of the banquet table might be excused on the grounds that he was preoccupied with the thought that Tootsie was in trouble.  By contrast, when Thursday invades a glitzy soiree, he acts like a savage from the get-go.

Launchpad gets the last crack at minding Bubba and Tootsie, but, being Launchpad, makes a fatal mistake by bringing the duo to the dinosaur exhibit.  One can hardly blame their extreme reaction in this case.

Throughout all of this, of course, the Beagle Boys are trying -- and failing, as in the modern definition of "FAIL!!" -- to kidnap Bubba and/or Tootsie.  Here is a place where GeoX's excoriation of the DT Beagles seems at least somewhat appropriate.  Very rarely have they appeared as utterly, uncompromisingly inept as they do in these scenes.  In the past, even at their bunglingest, they typically posed at least some sort of threat.  Here, between the physical pratfalls and the embarrassing disguises, they seem about as threatening as a hangnail.  Even their climactic, Bubba-aided climb into the Money Bin has a distinctly bogus feel: Bubba had pulled the hose out of the wall while trying to "tame" it, so how on Earth did the Beagles manage to climb up the hose when it was not anchored on top?  Sure, Bubba may have held onto it for them, but we never actually saw him do that.  Then, too, Bubba blindly tossed the hose down the side of the Bin without any knowledge that the Beagles were there to begin with.  The staging in this entire sequence left one whole honkin' pantload to be desired.

The business with Scrooge's elvish conscience (who has a somewhat lower voice here than it would in "Ducks on the Lam") has its childish aspects, to be sure. It makes Scrooge's examination of his conduct a bit less serious than it probably needed to be.  It must be said, however, that the scene got one big thing right: It obliged Scrooge to remonstrate "with himself" without any other character getting in the way.  It's just too bad that scenarist Len Uhley couldn't have duplicated this approach "on the other end" and dispensed with Gyro as the trigger for Scrooge's paranoia.

Of all the individual parts of the DuckTales multi-episode epics, "Bubba Trubba" is unquestionably the least substantial.  The number of logical lapses in such a content-free ep is troubling, as well.  Unfortunately, the balance of "Time is Money" will not make up the deficit -- in fact, it will increase it before all is said and done.

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 Bumper #3: "Turtle"

"I made me fortune by being tougher than the toughies and faster than the... slowies!"

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"DuckBlurbs"

(GeoX) "I absolutely positively cannot be bribed!" "Even with a new scarf?" "You've got yourself a deal!" This would be funnier--or at least make some sort of sense--if it had ever been established that Launchpad was some sorta scarf fanatic. Otherwise, it just looks like a writer going, "crap--I need for there to be something Launchpad is really fixated on in order for my tired joke to work! Um…he has a SCARF! I can say he's obsessed with SCARFS! I am SUCH a genius!" 

To be fair, Tootsie did chew up Launchpad's scarf earlier in the episode, so LP would probably jump at the chance to get a new one.  (Which reminds me -- Tootsie's voracious appetite was referenced at several points during "Trubba," but I don't recall it being referred to in such a major way again.  I guess it got sent down the same "memory hole" that claimed Scrooge's obsession with "teamwork" in "Back Out in the Outback" and Louie's desire to be a door-to-door salesman in "Much Ado About Scrooge," among other things.)

(GeoX) Newscaster screaming and ducking when Glomgold hurls a vase at the TV--pretty funny. 

Funny, and decidedly weird -- far more so than Scrooge's relatively modest "fourth-wall-busting" in "The Uncrashable Hindentanic."

(GeoX) I know this isn't something anyone wants to be reminded of, but seriously: naked Scrooge moving to cover his nonexistent genitalia. Jeez, writers, what did we ever do to YOU that you hate us so? 

He should just be thankful that that vacuum wasn't a Dyson.

(GeoX) Is that vulture teacher the same one who appeared in "evil" form in "Nothing to Fear?" She's certainly much jollier this time around. 

Indeed.  Like Princess Luna in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Mrs. Quackenbush seems to change her personality every time we see her.

(Greg) We begin this one in the skies as the Shortcut magically reappears again as it spirals around and then loses it's propeller barely ten seconds in and goes into a tailspin (BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!). Scrooge has got to realize that safe and sound means nothing in the DTVA world. Everyone screams as I shudder in fear because they have decided to start in earnest. We cut down to Gyro's house...

... which is where, exactly?  When the Shortcut fails, it appears to be hovering over downtown Duckburg...

... yet, when the craft actually plummets to Earth, it seems to be falling into a semi-rural area:

I'm more inclined to think of Gyro's place as being somewhere in the outskirts of Duckburg (the better to protect the downtown area in case of an "inventing emergency," you understand), but these scenes definitely muddle the issue.
 
(Greg) Bubba grabs a pink phone and goes moo.

This would have been problematic had Bubba, as "The Great One," not been involved with giving a cow back to a Toupayian farmer in "The Duck Who Would Be King."

(Greg) Bubba hugs Mrs. Beakly and he lifts her about two feet off the floor.

And he would do the same to the Nephews at the end of "Ducks on the Lam."  Thursday, too, was known to hug folks unexpectedly:

(Greg) The nephews tell Bubba to come in and Bubba comes in reluc[tan]tly with his new suit and he looks like he is going to a rock concert. Funny how Bubba is fully dressed with shoes on ; but the nephews have only a shirt and baseball caps on. That is just peachy folks. Bubba comes in with his red boom box (a gift from episode 1) as Tootsie enters wearing the SUNGLASSES AT NIGHT and a blue sash on. 

I don't recall Bubba bringing any carry-on luggage with him when he stowed away, so how did he get the boom box back?  Perhaps each Nephew owns his own boom box, and one of the other two boys stepped up when the first box was left behind.  Somehow, I have a hard time imagining Scrooge splurging on three boom boxes when one would probably do...

(Greg) So we logically head to a large mansion as a dozen rich folks (including one duck in a weird red hat and gown with the purple FEATHER OF SLIGHT SUFFERING) talking to another rich snob. There are balloons; a hose statue for a fountain and if you look closely; you can see a version of Mrs. Quackenbush in the background.

Other familiar figures in the background include the Mayor of Duckburg, Gloria Snootley ("The Status Seekers"), Lord Battmounten and several of his confreres from The Explorers' Club, Robin Lurch ("Down and Out in Duckburg"), Lady De Lardo, Webra Walters, and Sir Guy Standforth (I guess he escaped "Snowy"'s clutches at some point).

(Greg) And then Bubba follows and ALL HELL IS BREAKING LOOSE as the [Rose Society] pump tent is destroyed (Huh? Logic break #3 for the episode right there)...

There's nothing logically wrong with this at all.  You can clearly see that several of the panicking guests knocked down several of the support poles, causing the tent to fall.

(Greg) Let's face it; Scrooge HATES Bubba and some fans believe that the feeling is understandable and even justified.

That's reasoning in retrospect, I think.  When I first watched "Time is Money," I thought that Scrooge was being ridiculously unfair to Bubba.

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A final comment: Recall my contention that "The Duck Who Would Be King" might just as well have been a stand-alone episode and contributed absolutely nothing to the balance of "Time is Money."  The recap that leads off "Bubba Trubba" lends support to my argument, as it ONLY includes footage from "Marking Time," climaxing with Bubba hitching a ride with the Ducks.  Sic transit gloria mundi, eh, "Great One"?

Next: Episode 69, "Time is Money, Part Four: Ducks on the Lam."

History at the Junction of Two Rivers

With Nicky having taken some time off this week, we availed ourselves of the opportunity to take a long-planned day trip to Harpers Ferry, WV.  It seemed a good time to do so, as the sesquicentennial of the Battle of Gettysburg was taking place right up the road, and that would surely draw away a good many of the tourists that would normally be visiting Harpers Ferry at this time of year.  Sure enough, a number of the other people we saw on Monday morning and afternoon were wearing Gettysburg gear, suggesting that they were indulging in a kind of "swing around the Civil War circle."  As an historical site, however, Harpers Ferry is rather more diverse than you might expect.  There's plenty of "Blue-and-Gray" stuff on hand, of course, but also some interesting exhibits relating to industrial and social life in a town that has been repeatedly buffeted by war, insurrection, and the vagaries of nature but has bounced back to life again and again.

Harpers Ferry's Lower Town, situated at the point where the Shenandoah River meets the Potomac, is quite small but packs both historical and aesthetic punches.  "The Point" affords a beautiful view that has remained relatively unchanged for centuries.  It's considered to be the "psychological midpoint" of the Appalachian Trail, which wends its white-blazed way right through the center of town.  Back in the 19th century, some enterprising but environmentally obtuse manufacturer emblazoned an advertisement for "powder" (of the blasting variety, I suppose) on the cliff side, and you can still see it.  By now, however, it's sufficiently weathered that it almost looks like a natural part of the cliff, so you could say that nature won the ultimate battle with commercialism. 

The famed fire-engine house in which John Brown, America's first-ever beneficiary of "Radical Chic," and his band of insurrectionists holed up before being overrun by Robert E. Lee's Marine detachment still stands, in a manner of speaking.  Actually, the building has enjoyed a surprisingly mobile career, including stays at the 1893 Chicago Exposition (Kim, Ron, and Doctor Who, take note!) and on the campus of the defunct Storer College, a normal school founded after the Civil War to educate freed blacks.  It's now located about 150 feet from its original site, which is marked by an obelisk. Pieces of the original door that was smashed in by the Marines are on display in a nearby museum devoted to Brown and his career.  There's also a John Brown wax museum in the Upper Town, located (no surprise) up a hill from the Lower Town, but let's just say that it is a "non-sanctioned" memorial and let it go at that.

Well before Brown burst upon the scene, other noteworthy historical figures braved Harpers Ferry's hilly streets and marveled at the natural surroundings.  Thomas Jefferson visited in 1783, and the rock on which he stood to get the proverbial "better view" is located northwest of the Lower Town off the Appalachian Trail.  (You can't climb on the rock these days, because it's rather unstable, but that didn't prevent one guy from trying to do so before Nicky and I pointed out the warning sign to him.)  Twenty years after Jefferson, Meriwether Lewis got supplies in Harpers Ferry prior to meeting up with William Clark and organizing the Corps of Discovery.  Nicky's and my trudge up the winding, rocky path to Jefferson Rock marked our most daunting physical challenge of the day.

Harpers Ferry is a very small town now, but, in the antebellum and post-Civil War years, it enjoyed long and prosperous stretches as an industrial center.  The National Armory that was the object of John Brown's raid was the most significant industry, but the Lower Town also has displays of machine shops and the like, and the railroad still runs through town, with Amtrak and MARC trains passing through every once in a while.  The trains come from Washington, so the car trip from Baltimore (which takes about an hour) remains the most efficient option for getting to Harpers Ferry, but, if relatives or friends come to visit and we want to take them there, we might be willing to splurge a little and enjoy the scenery on the train.

The only negative thing about the Lower Town is the fact that historical guides and "reenactors," of the kind you'd see at Mount Vernon or Colonial Williamsburg, are rather thin on the ground.  We saw a couple, but they were busily engaged in giving directions and information to several large swarms of kids, who were presumably on day trips from nearby camps.  The kids traveled in groups behind streamer-bedecked bedsheet banners that would probably not cause the Junior Woodchucks to lose any sleep over the potential competition.  We were left to guide ourselves through exhibits in reconstructed watch repair shops, bakeries, confectioneries, and dry-goods stores.  We felt the lack of expert assistance at the dry-goods shop, where the shelves held large bins of, among other things, cinnamon, nutmeg, pepper, fennel, cloves, cornstarch, gunpowder (!), and... "twankey"??  What the heck?  With the lack of local cell reception preventing us from engaging in immediate Googlage, we had quite a time speculating on the ID of that mysterious substance.  Was it the past tense of Twinkie (which would have been appropriate until the survival of the venerable snack cake was assured not long ago)?  A leftover word from a Dr. Seuss song chorus ("twink, twank, twunk")?  A cheesy 50s sci-fi movie starring Hans Conreid?  Actually, "twankey" turned out to be a cheap green tea from China with an interesting connection to the 19th century stage version of Aladdin.  Is it really surprising that a beverage with a name like that would be positioned on the lower end of the quality scale?

Somewhat surprisingly, when it came time for us to have some lunch, we found it rather difficult to locate a first-rate sit-down place.  The Upper Town has many eateries, but they're mostly of the "sandwich, soup 'n salad" variety -- that is, when they're not appendages to bars.  We finally settled upon the Town's Inn, a lodging house with a small restaurant attached.  Nicky had bratwurst and kraut, while I enjoyed some fairly decent macaroni and cheese and some "chunky" cole slaw (I was unaware that cabbage cut in flat squares qualified as "chunky").  We washed it down with water and an obscure brand of zero-calorie drink that I can most accurately describe as "cola-themed" and fortified ourselves against the increasing temperature with some frozen custard.

Relying as we did on the shuttle bus from the National Park visitor's center to the town -- there is very limited parking in the town itself, as you might imagine -- we were only able to take one semi-side trip, to Bolivar Heights, the site of a number of Civil War engagements.  The most famous of these occurred in 1862, when almost 13,000 Union troops surrendered in the largest such capitulation endured by the U.S. Army until Bataan in World War II.  Some of the views we obtained from the Heights were almost as good as those we got at The Point.  Unfortunately, with the views came rather large swarms of gnats, so we didn't stay very long.

Along with the historical sites, Harpers Ferry is a popular jumping-off point for "wilderness adventures" of varying degrees of rigor: rafting, tubing, hiking, zip-lining, and so forth.  These enterprises have helped keep the local economy afloat despite the town's relative isolation and the effects of periodic flooding.  If you're visiting in the D.C. area, you might want to consider "helping out" by making a visit.  It's doable in a day and literally has something for everyone.

Fanfic Review: KIM POSSIBLE in "BALLOONS, BOLTS, AND A BATTLE" by Richard Smyers

Richard Smyers' follow-up to "A Fair to Remember" finds Kim Possible, Ron Stoppable, Rufus, and Doctor Who pursuing the stolen TARDIS to 1862 Virginia.  1862 Virginia?!  Why can't it ever be Wa Keeney, Kansas, on a pleasant Spring morning in 1953?  Well, the "Empath" who swiped the time-traveling device apparently feeds off the "emotional tension" that accompanies stress-filled moments, and you can't get much more stressful than the period immediately before a major battle of the early Civil War.  After Doctor Who is temporarily incapacitated, it's up to the teens and the naked mole rat to pinpoint the missing TARDIS, even as the rain pours down, the rivers overflood their banks, and the preparations for battle have begun...

As always, Richard has done his historical homework here, and he thankfully resists the temptation to run Team Possible up against a parade of famous figures of history, even granted that the one major player who crosses paths with them here, George Armstrong Custer, hadn't "made his bones" quite yet.  Instead, we get a glimpse of a minor, yet fascinating, aspect of the war -- namely, the use of observation balloons for reconnaissance -- with Kim and Ron assisting "Professor" Thaddeus Lowe of the U.S. Army Aeronautic Corps in his efforts to gain intelligence on Confederate movements.  Since Kim is as good at brainwork as she is at spin-kicks and cheerleader flips, this is a nice tribute to the character's full range of abilities, and something that we would probably not get to see in lesser KP fanfics that dote rather too much on either physical brawls or angsty teenage romance.

Armed with a list of the "Empath"'s historical targets, Team Possible and Doctor Who appear to be headed to The Alamo at story's end, albeit with an "unexpected tagalong" in tow (no, it's not Webby).  This is fine as far as it goes... however, I hope that Richard hasn't laid aside the idea of bringing Doctor Who back to Middleton at some point for an extended stay.  I'd be interested to see how the good Doctor might interact with Kim's parents, the "Tweebs," Mr. Barkin, and even some of the standard KP villains.  The teens will only be able to stay in the 18th and 19th centuries for so long before Kim's out-of-their-time martial-arts moves and Ron's careless use of terms like "Dude" and "nacos" will start to seem repetitive.

Small but noteworthy milestone:  This is the first fanfic that I transferred to my Kindle and read on the device in .PDF format.  The transfer seemed to work quite well, and more such digitizations are certain to follow.  Thus do we progress...