There's a Hole in My Head, But The Rain ISN'T Coming In... Yet.

A number of regular readers of my blog are aware that I was hospitalized from Tuesday afternoon the 10th through Sunday afternoon the 15th for an operation to repair a subdural hematoma.  Let me get the rest of you up to date.

This trouble stemmed from an accident I had on campus on Tuesday the 3rd.  I recently moved into a new office in a quirky old building that used to be a carriage house.  The corridors are narrow, there are several flights of stairs to be negotiated in order to get to the faculty offices and computer labs in the building, and, most significantly of all, there are low, vaulted ceilings in certain places.  I walked smack dab into one of these ceilings while returning to my office from the copier room.  I didn't lose consciousness but, as it turned out, the impact resulted in my brain literally being shifted several centimeters inside my cranium and blood and cerebrospinal fluid leaking into the space between the skull and the membranes protecting the brain.

I was still able to teach and drive the rest of the week, but Nicky and I began to notice some strange symptoms over the weekend.  I began to have persistent headaches and seemed to be having trouble keeping my balance.  When Nicky and I went out walking around our neighborhood, I tired more quickly and started dragging my left foot a bit behind my right.  It almost felt as if the top and bottom halves of my body were moving at different speeds.  I still wasn't overly alarmed.  I attributed the headaches and general air of lassitude to the stress of starting a new academic year and having to get up early every morning. Once I got into the swing of the new schedule, I thought, all would be well.

On Tuesday afternoon the 10th, I had just started my Basic Statistics class and was going over a quiz with the students, perched on the edge of the desk in a half-sitting, half-standing position.  I suddenly lost my balance and fell to the floor.  Several students had to help me up, while another student went to get help from security.  I had already been examined by a security guard on the 3rd, so the security personnel were aware of what had recently happened.  They insisted that EMTs come and take me to the ER of nearby Sinai Hospital for evaluation.  There, a CT scan confirmed the existence of the hematoma and a large quantity of fluid in my head.  I was operated on the next morning and a suction drain was inserted into a small hole in my head to pull out the fluid and help my brain ooze (is that the right term?) back to its normal position.  In the process, my hairline was shot to hell.

I felt OK after surgery, but I was still under the influence of pain medication.  Once that wore off, the ordeal began in earnest.  I was unable to keep food or drink down and began to experience a constant migraine-level headache.  My blood pressure also spiked, leading us to believe that my kidney function had somehow been affected.  In truth, my kidneys behaved well throughout.  All of the pain and difficulty was caused by the negative pressure exerted by the head drain, leading to what's called a low CSF pressure headache.  Even doses of morphine helped only a little.  I endured for 36 hours before the neurosurgeon's assistant came on Friday afternoon and removed the drain, fixing the cranial battlefield up with staples and stitches after the fact.

Once the sucker (sorry) was gone from my dome, everything headed north with a vengeance.  I could eat and drink again and my headache quickly subsided to the more typical "I haven't slept well or had caffeine in X days" version.  Nicky was with me virtually the whole time, and my mother and three siblings were also on hand at various times to lend support and advocacy to my cause.  Nicky did a wonderful job of keeping as many people as possible informed of my condition, both at Stevenson and elsewhere.

I'm now at home with instructions to stay out of work and avoid driving for two weeks while my head recovers from the surgery.  I'm hoping to get back to teaching by October 1 if all goes well in my follow-up appointment with the neurosurgeon on the 24th.  I should be able to resume "normal blogging activities" in another day or so.  Thanks to all who were able to send good wishes during my hospital stay.

DUCKTALES RETROSPECTIVE: Episode 45, "Luck O' The Ducks"

I can actually recall the specific circumstances under which I first watched "Luck O' The Ducks."  It was Thanksgiving Day of 1987, and I was sitting in the basement of the old (well, it certainly is now...) Barat family manse in Wilmington, having just ingested a huge (though modest compared to the feasts served up at Bud's Silver Run) holiday meal.  I must have overdid it, for I wrote the parenthetical comment "Burpin' turkey all through it!" while taking my handwritten episode notes.  I was less than impressed with the episode, and the state of my digestive tract didn't exactly ameliorate my state of mind.  Both GeoX and Greg were able to reach their decidedly negative conclusions about the quality of this "Emerald Isle" romp without any such physical stimuli, though GeoX did mention something about vomiting.  I don't think "Luck" is quite that bad, but there's more than enough lameness here to cause even the stoutest of stomachs to quiver a bit.

I regard this episode as one of DuckTales' great lost opportunities.  Carl Barks never sent the Ducks to Ireland for an adventure, and not many European creators seem to have tried to do so, either (here is one exception, which might have turned up in a Gemstone pocket book at some point had the titles lasted longer).  There is obvious potential in an Irish Duck story that incorporates Irish legends, myths, and, of course, treasure, in fun and believable ways.  Think of what Don Rosa was able to mine out of the Finnish Kalevala.  Given a completely open playing field to work with, writer Michael O'Mahony lets the ball (either rugby or "football," take your pick) bounce out of bounds, packing the episode with "Oirish" stereotypes galore.  In truth, the shifty leprechaun Fardoragh (Frank Welker) and pint-sized King Brian (Billy Barty) are the least problematic of these elements.  You might argue that "real" leprechauns are more like the sadistic, violent pixie seen in this movie and its sequels than they are the cuddly-cute Fardoragh, but at least O'Mahony was paying some attention here, in the sense that "Fardoragh" is a real Gaelic word meaning "black."  Likewise, King Brian might be considered a tribute to the legendary Irish king Brian Boru.  Welker and Barty both give very energetic performances and make these characters enjoyable in spite of their childish aspects.  The "headless horseman" and Banshee aren't all that bad, either, though, as Greg pointed out, one could hardly expect a chest of drawers to keep a ghost out of a room, even in the DuckTales world.

Alas, O'Mahony can't control himself when it comes to jackhammering home the "Hey, gang, WE'RE IN IRELAND!!!" message, subjecting Launchpad to one of his most humiliating roles in the series in the process.  The green plane and lepra-costume are silly enough...

... but the clumsily staged Irish jig sequence is acutely embarrassing...

... and I think I'll let this last image pass without comment, for LP's sake.

I suppose that this business would have been more palatable had LP previously displayed a habit of dressing up to fit the setting he was in (much as the original plans for Dale in Rescue Rangers cast him as a "master of disguise" who liked to wear crazy "themed" hats).  Instead, it simply comes OUT OF NOWHERE and adds to the distinct feeling that this is an episode that is purposely "written down" to juvenile mentalities.  The contrast to what a "Quest for Kalevala"-like approach to the subject matter might have given us is heartbreaking.

Launchpad is fortunate in one respect in this ep: he gets some things to do, even though they are pretty idiotic.  The Nephews don't even get that much.  Honestly, for all HD&L contribute to the episode, they might as well have been left behind while Scrooge, LP, Webby, and Fardoragh flew to the "Emerald Isle."  They whiz away their one moment of "responsibility" by falling asleep while on guard duty; otherwise, they're just hanging around... or lying around with a somewhat unexpected bedfellow:

I believe that this is the only time in the series when Scrooge and the boys are in the same bed.  Please alert me to any other cases.

The portrayal of Scrooge here, of course, is straight out of the "Occupy Duckburg" playbook.  Of course, greed is part of Scrooge's character and always has been.  Rarely, however, has it been presented with such a comprehensive lack of subtlety.  We get the infamous dollar-sign eye-flash not once, not twice, but THREE times, just to make sure we completely understand that Scrooge is, ya know, greedy.  I wonder whether there is some sort of correlation between the number of D.S.E.F.'s in a $CROOGE story and the story's rating on inDucks.  If there were one, then I imagine that the correlation would be negative. 

The portrayal of Scrooge has the additional negative effect of displacing what should have been the climax of the story, the moment at which Scrooge realizes the error of his grasping ways.  As Scrooge exults over reaching "his" Golden Caverns, Fardoragh laments the impending loss of the leprechauns' "heritage" -- a point of view that the "real" Scrooge certainly should be able to appreciate, given the importance that he attaches to the story of how he amassed his fortune.  Had Scrooge's greed grown "naturally" over the course of the story, as opposed to being telegraphed right at the start, then this scene could have made for a really powerful turning point.  Instead, O'Mahony is obliged to wind up the "Webby's friendship with Fardoragh" subplot, depicting Webby as unreasonably gullible in the process, and therefore makes Scrooge's reformation a lot more contrived than it needed to be.  The viewer winds up feeling rather like Scrooge after he has been "saved from having a terrible day."

I'd peg Webby's performance here at a notch or two below the one seen in "Back Out in the Outback" insofar as the "cuteness factor" goes.  It's a shame that she didn't carry some of her reticence about befriending Australian animals in the latter ep into her initial encounter with Fardoragh.  Instead, she's literally defending him before she even knows anything about him (apart from the fact that he's threatened to "do an Irish jig" on the Ducks' faces if they come any closer).  Once he starts calling her "Princess," the (non-Irish) jig is up, and she snaps into the "Fardoragh is my friend!" mindset that she'll maintain for the remainder of the episode.  At times, you almost have to agree with the kvetching Scrooge that Webby is a bit foolish to be accepting Fardoragh at face value in such an unquestioning way.

The relationship between Webby and Fardoragh does provide us with one moment that I can honestly describe as heartwarming, during the scene in the bedroom that I will forever remember as "the curlers sequence."  Webby's solicitous behavior towards Fardoragh, and Fardoragh's grateful responses, are very well played by Welker and Russi Taylor.  In an episode noteworthy for its ham-handedness, I appreciated the lighter touch on display here.  For sure, I got more emotional sustenance out of these moments than I did from the over-the-top scene in which Webby gives her "wonderful" friend a four-leaf clover and Fardoragh promptly breaks down and bawls. 

So what else did O'Mahony get right here?  Well, his dialogue, in all honesty, isn't half bad.  Sure, you have to dock him some points for Launchpad's "Crasharoonie!", but a good deal of the byplay is enjoyable, considering that it is being used in the service of a simplistic plot.  The pace of the ep, especially in the early stages, is sprightly; we jump from the Money Bin to the streets of Duckburg to the construction site, and the dialogue complements the slapstick-flavored doings reasonably well.  The scenes in the Golden Caverns are nicely atmospheric... and I, for one, thought that the use of the giant potato as a booby trap was a hoot.  The rest of the ep is so cut-and-dried that an absurd gag such as this was all the more welcome.

Despite its handful of good points, "Luck O' The Ducks" is among the less inspired of DuckTales episodes, exuding a palpable "assembly line" scent.  Rescue Rangers' "The Last Leprechaun" and Gummi Bears' "Gummis Just Want to Have Fun" weren't much better, so there's at least a possibility that a "leprechaun curse" may be involved.

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"DuckBlurbs"

(Greg) Scrooge and the nephews dive in and in a scene that contradicts the logic they were shooting for; the nephews dive in as if the gold was water like Scrooge's. I thought we proved in GoldenSuns episode #5 that the nephews cannot do that spot? 

Perhaps Scrooge finally gave in and initiated the youngsters into the arcane mystery that is money-diving.  Against this, of course, you have to weigh his refusal to teach Launchpad the same trick in "Duck in the Iron Mask."  Perhaps Scrooge reasoned, "I dinna know whether you can crash a bin full of money, but I'm not aboot to take the chance!"

(Greg) Ducktales was [Billy Barty]'s only DTVA credit and in fact the only other Disney credit was The Rescuers Down Under movie. 

Barty also appeared in the Gummi Bears episode "A Recipe for Trouble."  That one wasn't any great shakes, either.

(Greg)  We then get another sky shot of the snake [pit] and then we go to floor shot as we see the babyfaces sitting on the edge. Okay; WHAT THE HELL IS THIS SUPPOSED TO ACCOMPLISH HERE?! Now if the idea was to have the snakes use their tongue to tickle their feet; then this spot would work except that the snake are about 12-15 feet below the babyfaces. And LP shoes are still on. How in the world is this supposed to be torture for their crimes? Just sitting there and watching the snakes hiss? I'm supposed to take this seriously? 

Yeah, teasing torture without delivering, even in a humorous sense, is pretty questionable -- but not as bad as...

(Greg) Brian goes to the window as [Fardoragh] tries to escape; but Brian grabs his ankle and throws him down onto the floor and demands answers from the infamous liar. That makes Brian the most over character in the episode; bad plot thread be damned. [Fardoragh] bounces off Brian's belly and admits that he had to because they were going to tar and feather him with their own feathers...  Brian decides then not to feed them to the snakes (WHAT?! That is lame to the extreme!) and instead they will have a party thrown in their honor. Oh god; this episode just made less sense now. 

This switch really was clumsy, with no justification being given for Brian's change of heart at all.  I don't see how the story editors could have allowed O'Mahony to get away with this.

(Greg)  Okay; so we cut to the well as Scrooge is wearing various jewelry on himself as he and [Fardoragh] are climbing up the well...  And of course he's tired as hell and somehow he throws everything down into the hole below. D'OH! This guy needs Wii Fit STAT!

The funny thing here is that Scrooge claims that he's "not as strong before [he] became a multi-zulti-zillionaire" while he's climbing up a dark shaft with no equipment or other assistance whatsoever.  Heck, he's even able to save Fardoragh with relatively little trouble when the latter loses his grip and falls.  Methinks Scrooge is selling himself short here.  Perhaps his burgeoning greed has given him enhanced powers not normally granted to multi-zulti-zillionaires.

Next: Episode 46, "The Golden Fleecing."

DUCKTALES RETROSPECTIVE: Episode 41, "Sphinx for the Memories"

I don't recall being overwhelmed by "Sphinx for the Memories" when I first saw it during the initial week of DuckTales syndication.  It was nice to see that Donald would not be forsaken after the events of "Three Ducks of the Condor," but Michael Keyes' story struck me as more than a little childish in spots.  While I still don't think that "Sphinx" is as strong an animated mummy-and-pyramid caper as, say, TaleSpin's "In Search of Ancient Blunders," I've come to respect it as a very solid effort with a few legitimately spooky moments and a fairly serious underlying theme.  The fact that Donald manages to subvert his essentially passive role as the corporeal receptacle for the spirit of the evil "Garbled One of Garbabel" and inject a little bit of his own inimitable personality into the mix doesn't hurt the ep's cause, to be sure.

There's little doubt in my mind that "Sphinx," despite being produced relatively late in the game, was chosen for airing during the first week of syndication for the reason given by Pete Fernbaugh:  "It's almost as if Disney was trying to reassure the Barks and Disney purists (two separate groups, in most cases) among the audience (at least those who hadn't already tuned out) that after Monday's game-changing, canon-bending menagerie ["Send in the Clones"], the series would still be evoking classic Barks and classic Disney [by guest-starring Donald and sticking to the main Duck cast]."  If the idea was to throw doubting fans a bone, then it would seem that a portion of the audience tossed the offering back, heedless of how off target the return throw was.  In the course of his notorious diatribe against the show, the L.A. TIMES' Charles Solomon complained that "Sphinx" resembled a Scooby-Doo knockoff, full of "familiar "scary" monsters moaning in familiar voices [and] the same chases with the villains falling into barrels."  As we've seen, Solomon had a legitimate complaint but was invoking it in the wrong place.  (He seems not to have had his barrels in a row, either.)

The "villainous" Donald being captured by two law-abiding representatives of Garbabel

There's no real evidence that Carl Barks' "The Mummy's Ring" (FOUR COLOR #29, September 1943) directly influenced "Sphinx," but the two stories do contain more noteworthy points of similarity than one might expect.  Perhaps surprisingly, despite its slightly more "cartoony" surface trappings, "Sphinx" compares quite favorably with Barks' first "solo" Duck adventure:

(1)  In both (mummy?) cases, the antagonists are "sore at modern life" (though, unlike Barks' Bey of El Dagga, it is unclear whether the Garbabel cultists are even fully aware as to what "modern life" entails) and plan to stage an elaborate ceremony to restore "harmony" to their "universes."  The Ducks' ultimate goal is to stop and/or reverse the effects of the ceremony.  One would think that it would be hard to top Donald, Dewey, and Louie's "last-second barge-in" in "Ring" insofar as drama is concerned, but the "transformation scene" in "Sphinx" fully matches it.  The dissolve from the moment Donald is possessed to the scene in which the moonbeams produce the "force field" and Don literally becomes "The Garbled One" (complete with what Pete called a "beak extension" and I call a tiger-stripe beard) gives me the creeps to this day.

(2)  The Ducks get involved in both stories when one of their own is caught up in the drama (Huey by accident in "Ring," Donald on purpose in "Sphinx"), and they are subsequently placed in some degree of peril as well.  The fact that a child is in danger of being buried alive gives the scenario in "Ring" an extra dollop of seriousness, but against this must be weighed the greater variety of perils -- some of which are quite serious indeed -- that Scrooge and HD&L must face before they can save Donald.  You might argue the latter point, but, given a choice between shipboard kitchen duties, a few bullets in an Egyptian street, and a handful of arrows on the Nile on one hand and two death traps, a maze, and a rampaging mummy on the other, I think I know which gauntlet I would be more willing to brave.

(3)  Both stories end with the unraveling of the main mummy menace.  Here, I don't think that there's any question that "Sphinx" handles the matter in a much more memorable way.  Of course, this is largely because the mummy in question is a REAL "restless spirit," as opposed to a petty crook in disguise, but "Sphinx" deserves credit for playing this scene entirely straight.  For all of "The Garbled One"'s supposed evil, you find yourself feeling happy for him as he frees his friend Khufu and finally achieves his eternal rest.  (I do have to wonder, though, why "Garb" didn't try to locate Khufu when he was originally freed from the jar in the "Donald's transformation" scene.  Perhaps he was compelled to inhabit Donald's body due to the alignment of the moon and stars, or something similar, and only got free of the influence after Scrooge and HD&L reversed the spell.)

Most of the other classic Disney Afternoon series, of course, took their own individual whacks at the mummy plotline.  While "Sphinx" is unquestionably superior to Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers' "Throw Mummy from the Train" -- which seems to have been written entirely around the sight gag that comprises its title -- "In Search of Ancient Blunders" trumps it for several reasons: the presence of a great supporting character in the "furson" of the peppy archaeologist Myra, the participation of Don Karnage and his Air Pirates, the clever use of the original idea of an upside-down pyramid.  Interestingly, "Blunders" was famously censored during Toon Disney rebroadcasts to remove scenes in the "Chamber of Eternal Night" involving the characters striking matches, while the blue-pencilers appeared to have little problem with Scrooge repeatedly "flaming" the audience after he and HD&L have been dumped into the first death trap.  Sure, Scrooge is older than either Baloo or Myra, but should that make so much of a difference?  By the same logic, older drivers should always be portrayed as being safer than middle-aged drivers, and we all know that such is not the case.

"Sphinx"'s stature among DAft's ensemble of Egyptian epics is boosted by Keyes' deft use of Donald and the menace of the mummy.  As Pete points out, giving Donald the chance to play all-powerful King allows Keyes to exploit various character traits that have long been a part of Don's animated and comic-book personalities:

The very construct of the script plays to Donald's Everyman desires. Donald went off to the Navy, yearning to be more than a small-town dud. Yet, in the Navy, he's just as stifled by the authoritarian figures around him as he was in Duckburg.  Arriving in Garbabel, he's enticed and seduced with the opportunity to be "more." Being possessed with the spirit of the Garbled One doesn't supplant the true Donald, since he yearns for all that the Garbled One can give him--power, adulation, respect. Being possessed plays to the true Donald's dreams of being special, superior, and marked with success like those around him. He is the Garbled One in (ahem) spirit.  Having the Garbled One's essence also plays into Donald's weakness for the seven deadly vices. He can't be trusted with success or superiority because his natural reaction to newfound power and responsibility is usually abuse.

I think it is telling that the possessed Donald's "abuse" of his subjects doesn't involve standard-issue oppressions such as indiscriminate torture, excessive taxation and/or regulation, or the establishment of corvees.  Instead, Don insists upon symbolic respect by demanding that his subjects salute him, as opposed to bowing and scraping.  Like the cockeyed plan to demonstrate his rule over North America as possessor of "The Golden Helmet" by charging people money for each breath they take, this sign of symbolic submission is both believably silly and entirely in character for someone who yearns to be "Numero Uno" but would rather enjoy the mere fact that he's in that position than do or represent anything truly meaningful as a consequence.  The only approach that might have worked even better would have been for the plot to have followed the outline of a Barks "mastery story," with Donald proving to be super-effective as a ruthless monarch before falling victim to hubris and convincing the Garbabelians to ditch their social system and embrace the "modern world" as a corrective.  With Scrooge already established as the star of the show, of course, this latter approach would not have been viable, but think how good of a Quack Pack episode it might have made.  (Or not, given the state of WDTVA by 1996.)

While Donald's real DuckTales personality -- that of the subservient, bumbling seaman who's itching to rise in the ranks -- struggles to come to the fore, Khufu, in the grand tradition of Barks' Bombie the Zombie, remains mindlessly focused on his monarch-mashing mission.  Khufu's ferocity is somewhat obscured by the character's slightly exaggerated appearance, but make no mistake, he/it means business; far from simply "moaning in a familiar voice," the mummy crushes a statue and punches out a pillar while trying to kill Donald and Scrooge.

Keyes handles his fairly straightforward plot in an equally straightforward manner, but he does leave several bandage-ends dangling in places.  The reaction of the two Garbabelians in the Bugazzi market (were DT being shown regularly today, I can see that latter name being dubbed over) to their sighting of Donald suggests that he is the first candidate for the position of "The Garbled One" that they have ever seen ("For generations, our people have waited!"), yet the power-hungry high priest Sarkus mentions "other" contenders that have appeared in the past (and, presumably, were "gotten rid of" by Khufu at some point, which would also account for the Garbabelians' fear of mummies).  It would have been nice to have learned something more about how far these "chumps-who-would-have-been-King" progressed along the path to power before the Garbabelian equivalent of the trap door in Scrooge's office swallowed them up. 

The devious guide's trapping of Scrooge and HD&L in the ancient ruins has always struck me as somewhat contrived -- not the act itself so much as the mere fact that the ruins HAVE a death trap and maze associated with them.  Who the heck installed that stuff, and, if the purpose was to "get rid of" people snooping around or interested in exploring Garbabel, then how could the Garbabelians be sure that the interlopers would stumble upon the traps in the first place?  The convenient presence of a "Garbled One" headdress in the Bugazzi shop suggests that Bugazzi may have some sort of cottage industry related to the legend of Garbabel (think Colonel DuBarque's gift shop in "Launchpad's Civil War"), so I'm sure that local civilians have searched for Garbabel in the past, but would they always have done so in concert with an untrustworthy Garbabelian guide?  That seems highly unlikely.  The death trap and maze do provide an extra measure of suspense to the episode, but they could also be regarded as a sort of animated "busywork," giving Scrooge and HD&L something to do before they arrive in Garbabel and join the main current of the narrative.  (We never even see how Scrooge and the boys manage to escape the maze, so the peril can't have been that meaningful, right?)

For the most part, I agree with Pete's contention that the final dialogue between Scrooge and the chagrined, "de-mystified" Garbabelians was intended to be a comment on the potential dangers of following "magic and superstition"-dominated faiths.  I would, however, point out that, even within DuckTales, this sort of skepticism tended to wax and wane.  In "The Duck Who Would Be King," for example, the prophetess Sen-Sen is presented in a positive light vis-a-vis Toupay's conniving leader Mung Ho, who ridicules the entire idea of a coming "Great One" even as he keeps the populace in thrall thanks to his "gentleman's agreement" with the horde of bandits.  To be sure, Sen-Sen makes a joke along the way of not relying entirely on "destiny" to make her prophecies come true, but she certainly has more in common with the Garbabelians than she does with the hard-headed Scrooge.  Kimba the White Lion (to take just one example) was much more consistent in terms of portraying its main character as a skeptic in spiritual matters... and, even then, Kimba ultimately came to regard the mysterious Mammoth of Mt. Moon as an ally.

It is also interesting to note that our first glimpse of the priestess and the other Garbabelians (who, judging by the size of the crowd, can't number more than 50-100 or so) shows the priestess reminding her fellow believers of the prophecy that "The Garbled One" would return.  Assuming that those in attendance must represent the absolute hardiest of the Garbabelian die-hards, it sounds to me as if she might be trying to head off some amount of growing dissension in the ranks.  Evidently, the Garbabelians' faith was getting shaky even before Donald came on the scene.  Sen-Sen, by contrast, is trying to get her people to heed a counter-cultural prophecy, only to have the "power that is" attempt to squash her.  I'm not arguing against Pete's points here, just pointing out that the reality of the situation as portrayed on screen was somewhat more complex.

"Sphinx" doesn't represent the series' best use of Donald, but I come down firmly on the side of those who call this a very Barksian story, in the positive sense of the adjective.  The mere fact that it is executed so well gives the lie to the Charles Solomons of the world who claimed in 1987 -- and continue to avow to this day -- that DuckTales somehow "betrayed" the spirit of Barks.

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"DuckBlurbs"

(GeoX) "Sphinx for the Memories?" Mmm...sorry, but I'm afraid the committee's going to have to disallow that one. 

Actually, it's not so far-fetched a choice as you might think, given that the Garbabelians' goal is to resurrect memories of their king and implant them in Donald's body.  Of course, TaleSpin featured a couple of eps in which the Hope-Crosby axis was explicitly revived in furry form... 

(GeoX) There's a lot of fun stuff with Donald as leader, first enjoying the life and then trying to escape. I was quite taken with this, so much so that when the perspective switched back to Scrooge and the kids I felt mildly disgruntled.

See my previous comment about the "filler-type" nature of the whole death-trap/maze business.  I think that you were picking up on the same vibe that I was.

(Greg)  So we go to the scene changer and head in town [Bugazzi] as Dewey is asking about Donald's timing along with Scrooge and the other nephews. Man; Dewey's voice sounds weird today...

All of the Nephews sounded more shrill than usual here.  (Maybe Russi Taylor was subconsciously trying to compete in "Duck-speak" with Tony Anselmo.  Good luck with that.)

(Greg)  So we head into the desert with heel #1 and heel #2 riding three camels with the middle camel holding the basket of the kidnapped Donald. They manage to make it to the palace (complete with Crescent Moon which would be painted out of anime dubs I might add).

Though I think that the crescent was meant to be a "generic Middle Eastern design," as opposed to a symbol of any particular religion, I doubt that it would have been used had the episode been made today.

(Greg)  The moon is right for midnight as heel #1 and heel #2 take Donald away stage left. They go into the Garbled One's private quarters as Donald struggles; but then notices about seven virgins inside. Oh boy! That is not going to go over well today. 

The initial "Hiya, toots!" scene would probably make the cut, given Donald's established personality (read: libido level) in many of the cartoon shorts.  The later "using a babe as a footstool" scene, however, almost certainly would not.  Besides, Toadie already has dibs on that whole routine.

(Greg)... the high priest name is Sarkus (Sacos according to Chris; I think Disney Captions got this one right) who is voiced by Larry Moss (Chris has it as Peter Cullen; but USIMDB has him as Larry Moss) 

I had all sorts of issues identifying voice actors and character names here.  I still prefer Khufu to the "official" Ka-hoo-fu because of the connection to a real-life Egyptian pharaoh.  Sarkus, however, is probably better than Sacos because of its link with "sarcophagus" (but in that case, shouldn't it be spelled "Sarcos"?).  I was pretty much flying blind on Larry Moss and Joe Ruskin, and, in the case of the former, I even had the wrong Larry Moss in mind; there is another Larry Moss who is well known as a dialogue coach.

(Greg)  We then cut to the area where the pyramid is going to be (with a helpful bill board just to make it worse for Scrooge and the nephews) as Scrooge proclaims that they have made some progress which is just about ten blocks tops. Dewey proclaims that it will only take them 28,611 years to finish.

The "Pyramid Coming Soon" billboard is a clever gag, though a little anachronistic given that the Garbebelians aren't supposed to know much about the outside world.  One has to wonder where the Garbabelians got the raw materials and tools to build that thing.

Next: Episode 42, "Time Teasers."

Meeting the Million Question Challenge

On Tuesday, I returned home from yet another AP Statistics Reading.  Hard to believe that I've been doing this for nine years and at four different venues.  After previous stops in Lincoln, NE, Louisville, and Daytona Beach, the AP Stats caravan moved to Kansas City last year, but I was unable to attend.  This year was a different story.

I've never written much about my AP experiences on this blog, or anywhere else for that matter, so I've decided to write a little bit regarding what this operation is all about.  The AP Stats exam was first offered in 1997, and 57 good folk and true (true Stats junkies, that is) from high schools, prep schools, and colleges across the land graded about 8000 test booklets that first year.  To give you an idea of how the enterprise has grown, there were many more first-time AP Readers ("Acorns," as we call them, based on the College Board logo) in K.C. this June than there were readers at that first go-round.  For the first time, we were faced with the Million Question Challenge: with 640 Readers and about 170,000 students taking the exam this past May, our task was quite literally to grade over 1,000,000 questions.  No, I didn't have to grade each and every one of the six free-response questions.  A Reader typically is assigned two questions, cycling back to finish grading the first once the second is done.  The Reading day runs from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. with two breaks for... well, a break, and one hour for lunch.

Gone are the days when Readings could be held on college campuses such as the University of Nebraska (actually, we stayed in NU dorms and graded on the neighboring former site of the Nebraska State Fair).   Not even Daytona is big enough to hold us now.  Instead, it's large cities, chain hotels, and large convention centers all the way.  We worked at the Kansas City Convention Center (at right in above picture) along with the Readers for AP Calculus, AP Biology, and AP Government and Politics.  Did I mention that the KCCC was large?  Actually, we Stats folks stayed pretty much to ourselves, even when we joined the huddled masses in the dining hall (aka the Grand Ballroom) at lunchtime.  The food service at past Readings has ranged from delectable (Lincoln) to dubious (Louisville and Daytona), and I'd rate the KC experience somewhere between those two poles.  We definitely got mass-catered food, but it was good mass-catered food, and I made it a point to tell one of the caterers as much on the last day.  The logistics were definitely better than they were in either Louisville or Daytona, with 10 serving lines and plenty of seating space.

At lunchtime, I typically found it the better part of valor to head outside and eat on a patio adjacent to the Grand Ballroom.  Not because I'm claustrophobic, but because I needed the chance to thaw out.  The Reading rooms (actually, open spaces separated by curtain partitions) are COLD, especially late in the day when they crank down the thermostat to help keep us awake (at least, such is my entirely reasonable theory).  I was obliged to wear long pants and my "Kit Cloudkicker Collection" green sweatshirt most of the time.

Cold temps aside, the KCCC was fairly comfortable apart from one somewhat scary moment on Saturday the 15th.  An afternoon thunderstorm blew through town and knocked out the lights.  Luckily, the auxiliary lights quickly came on, so we could continue grading.  The rain got heavy enough that a literal cataract of water could be seen leaking down one of the walls of the hall.  Kansas City is known as a "City of Fountains," but it didn't have to arrange an extra display for my benefit.  No real damage done, thank goodness.

We didn't have many opportunities to see the local sights (and, yes, KC does have sights) so I contented myself with the next best thing: visiting local restaurants.  I was already planning to get breakfast outside the convention center and was lucky enough to hit upon a branch of a local supermarket chain, Cosentino's, that appears to be the KC-area version of the East Coast's Wegmans and the Richmond area's late, lamented Ukrop's.  This self-billed "Unique Food Experience" (not strictly true, but I'm not complaining) offered a wide variety of prepared foods in addition to the standard supermarket items.  The chain was founded by an Italian immigrant, and the wall behind the customer service desk featured a picture of him next to a (gasp!) crucifix.  What would Al Khan of 4Kids make of that, Greg? 

Of course, I simply had to try some of that legendary KC barbecue while in town.  Unfortunately, most of the really legendary places were too far away to be easily accessible without taking a long and expensive cab ride.  I "settled" for the somewhat less famous Jack Stack BBQ, which was within walking distance.  I had been given a tip that this was a good place to go, and the food was good, but eating there wasn't... well, momentous.  To be perfectly honest, Extra Billy's, my favorite BBQ place in the Richmond area, was just as good.  Perhaps I failed to appreciate the piquancy and finish of the sauce, or something.

I had a better dining experience at Grunauer, a German-Austrian place next to Jack Stack in what is called the Freight House District.  I suppose that I was swayed by memories of all that great eating in Vienna and Budapest during our trip to Europe several years ago.  If so, then I should let such memories be my guide more often, for the food was excellent.  I had Hungarian beef goulash mit spaetzle und kraut, and, though the portions didn't seem all that large, they filled me up right quick.  I had a good table at the bar to watch Phil Mickelson let it get away in the final round of the US Open.  And, yes, beer was present, as well.  In fact, I had more beer during this KC sojourn than I've probably had in any such concentrated time period in my life.  Only after Reading hours, naturally...

As long as they'll have me, I intend to continue active participation in the AP Readings.  It's a tiring but fun experience.

DUCKTALES RETROSPECTIVE: Episode 39, "Catch as Cash Can, Part Four: Working for Scales"

At the very least, "Working for Scales" treats us to a more exciting -- though somewhat more logically problematic -- climax to a Scrooge McDuck-Flintheart Glomgold money-piling contest than the one Carl Barks delivered in "The Money Champ."  In Barks' telling of the tale, the fun (read: Glomgoldian chicanery) began after all the money had been piled; in the DuckTales version, getting Scrooge's fortune to Macaroon despite external attack and internal conflict commands the lion's share of the attention.  Bruce Reid Schaefer's cleverly structured teleplay gooses the suspense by alternating between scenes on and around the "flying island of Atlantis" and scenes of funny byplay between Glomgold and the Grand Kishki.  All of the ingredients for a four-star (or five-star, by Greg's scheme) episode are certainly present, but the whole recipe is severely compromised by the insertion of what GeoX correctly termed a "super-ultra-contrived" conflict between Scrooge and his Nephews.  In truth, the episode would have played out in almost exactly the same manner had the boys spent the entire episode looking for the treasure of Atlantis with Scrooge's explicit blessing until being forced to take over following their uncle's "big fall."  I suppose that Magon, Zaslove, Talkington, and Schaefer were attempting to maintain some vague continuity with the depiction of a crotchety, occasionally loony Scrooge seen in previous chapters of the serial, but there's a HUGE difference between sudden emotional/mental breakdowns and the completely bizarre, borderline-paranoid rant in which Scrooge indulges here.  The episode's climactic action contains a fair number of logic breaks, but the ep still works as a good wrap-up of the "Firefly Fruit" caper and includes a number of indelibly memorable sequences.  It does fall short of what it could have been, however, thanks to the misreading of Scrooge and HD&L's characters.

The burning question that flares up during the opening scenes -- where is Doofus, and why did the Nephews take his place? -- can be easily doused by establishing, beyond the shadow of a doubt, that Scrooge, Launchpad, Gyro, and Doofus had to have returned to Duckburg after the events of "Aqua Ducks."  It is possible to imagine Gyro inflating the recovery balloons to a large enough size to carry the island away from its surfacing point -- how convenient that the Fish Folk threw the balloons into the "junkyard" to begin with -- but the other gear used to pilot and steer the island certainly wasn't among the supplies carried in the Gold Digger (unless you disagree with Gloria Steinem and believe that a fish does need a bicycle).  The Ducks would also have needed time to pull Scrooge's money into a tidy pile, ditch the upside-down ship (which probably would have made the island less aerodynamically stable), and pick up any other comestibles they might need.  As for the "infant exchange," I suggested in the "Aqua Ducks" review that Doofus' mom did "mind" (her son going on another mission with Scrooge, that is) and that Scrooge took advantage of the opportunity to ask his Nephews to join him.  Webby, presumably, was still busily engaged in eating (or at least trying to do so).

Enjoying the interchanges between Glomgold and the Grand Kishki would, I suppose, count as a "guilty pleasure," considering the ethnic implications.  Given Hamilton Camp's interest in Eastern spirituality through the so-called Subud movement, I wonder whether he had certain twinges of doubt about depicting this particular caricature.  Even so, it's difficult not to laugh at most of these bite-sized comedy bits.  I have always had the impression that the Kishki of "Scales" started out as pretty much the same naive-but-otherwise-on-the-ball character we saw at the beginning of "A Drain on the Economy" and then proceeded to get more and more childlike as the ep ground on, but now I'm not so sure.  Consider that Glomgold almost immediately tells "Kishy" outright that Scrooge's fortune is probably still "at the bottom of the ocean."  Assuming that specific details of the tycoons' money movements have been kept from the public -- a reasonable precaution on the part of both Scrooge and Glomgold, I'd say -- how would Flinty know this unless he were somehow involved in the sinking of the money?  But "goodness-gosh-no," the Kishki doesn't buy the freely offered clue, and the ep proceeds in a similar vein from there.  "Kishy"'s fascination with Glomgold's "Amazing Tartan-Kilted Schemecoat" remains extremely funny; his ignorance of the concept of "spin dry" and mistaking of the appearance of the flying island for the abrupt onset of "bedtime" a bit less so.  The package as a whole still manages to amuse, mostly because of the fine performances by Camp and Hal Smith.

The role played by "the terrible" (and, once again, mercenary) Beagle Boys here wanders all over the map.  We get a quick torrent of dopey food references from Burger that rival anything experienced during the show's more comedic second and third seasons... and then, the Beagles perform some frankly eye-popping feats in Glomgold's jets.  Seriously, given that the Beagles needed their cousin Bomber's aerial assistance in "Top Duck," what are we to make of their triple snaffling of a grappling hook while flying inside a large tent?  It's hard to imagine any of the pilots who appeared in TaleSpin -- yes, even Ol' Baloo -- pulling off a stunt like that.  Burger's in-flight "fake machine gun" antics add to the cognitive dissonance.  The phrase idiot savant comes to mind.

The strangest character business here is, of course, the trumped-up tempest touched off by HD&L's neglect of the cloud machine.  Now, in all honesty, this was a major gaffe on the boys' part.  Their interest in finding the treasure of Atlantis could be attributed to the "wealth-finding gene" that they've no doubt inherited thanks to their location on the Duck family tree, but Dewey's mention of the Junior Woodchucks archaeology merit badge suggests that a wee bit of self-centeredness may have been involved as well.  For Scrooge to give the boys a scolding for their carelessness would not have been out of character.  I might even have been able to tolerate a line of dialogue in which Scrooge wished that the "lads" who will presumably inherit his fortune one day would show more responsibility. Claiming that HD&L were "trying to ruin [him]," however, takes things way over the line.  In fact, it'd be hard to find a nastier comment issuing from Scrooge's beak in the entire series (though some of his comments about Bubba Duck during the "Time is Money" serial come pretty close).

Following Scrooge's rather underhanded treatment of them, HD&L promptly go over the top and down into the pit of despair.  Even the setting reflects their atypically self-tormenting state of mind (check out the poses of the statues in the first screenshot below).  As out of character as Schaefer lets matters get here, I will give him credit for one thing: he is very consistent in keeping Huey as the Nephew who seems to be the most interested in finding the Atlantean treasure.  When confronted by Scrooge, Huey tries to justify the boys' behavior by using the treasure-hunt excuse.  Then, in the boys' subsequent "squat and sulk" scene, the red-clad Nephew continues to insist that HD&L can get back in Scrooge's good graces by finding the treasure, ceasing and desisting only when Dewey tells him to "let it go."  Clearly, Huey can't do so, for, after the boys' later attempt to fill the scales has left Glomgold in the lead, he immediately jumps in and declares that the Nephews must now find the treasure to win the contest as the supposedly dead Scrooge "would have wanted us to."  Fittingly, when HD&L tumble into the temple and discover the clues to releasing the treasure, the key clue winds up in Huey's hand.  

The "ultimate comedic free fall" that takes up the first few minutes of Act Three may have been set up in the most contrived way imaginable, but it continues to satisfy and delight to this day; it's definitely one of my favorite set pieces of the entire series.  Think of it as a sort of "comedy/tragedy faces" bookend to Kit Cloudkicker's far more dramatic plummet from the Iron Vulture in "Plunder and Lightning, Part 4."  Both work perfectly in context.

The Nephews understandably assume that Scrooge and Gyro have perished as a result of their fall, but Unca Donald had better hope that Huey's lament "We're all alone now!" refers specifically to the boys' present situation.  (Mrs. Beakley, Webby, and Duckworth might not be amused, either.)  Russi Taylor does, as Greg noted, act this fairly thankless scene (including the whole "We gotta win this contest for Unca Scrooge!") rather well.  Unfortunately, the first of a number of annoying late-term logic breaks occurs soon after this, as HD&L spot the "glowing X" scale-target below them but fail to pick up on the fact that this might represent evidence that Scrooge did in fact survive.  Scrooge's claim that "the laddies came through" isn't quite so bad, because HD&L are, after all, the only characters who could possibly have steered the island to the scales, so it's reasonable for Scrooge to assume that they did so.

The big pelf-pour could have been handled better.  The animators flub badly in one instance: when HD&L lose control of the operation, the falling money, which should be tumbling onto the ground next to the scales, just seems to disappear.  More troublingly, the gang on the ground, presumably including the Grand Kishki, can clearly see that some of Scrooge's fortune has accidentally been poured onto Glomgold's side of the scales... so, when the contest ends in a tie, shouldn't that mean that Scrooge wins anyway, whether the Nephews find the treasure of Atlantis or not?  This really makes "Kishy" look clueless, don't you think?

The "Atlantean treasure reveal" makes for a great climactic visual, but, even here, there's a bit of an aesthetic misstep: when HD&L see Scrooge and Gyro alive and well, they react with... well, I can only characterize it as mild surprise.  Surely they should have evinced a bit more glee, given how devastated they were by Scrooge's apparent demise?  At least we close with some good gaggery involving the Kishki's continuing fascination with Glomgold's coat.  As for the mixing of Scrooge and Glomgold's fortunes during the pouring process, I'm willing to defer to Scrooge's encyclopedic knowledge of the contents of his Money Bin and accept that the two old misers managed to work things out without an untoward number of lawsuits.

So, where does "Catch as Cash Can" rank on the list of the five DuckTales multi-part stories?  Well, it certainly lacks the sheer magnificence of "Treasure of the Golden Suns" and the narrative consistency and "global import" of "The Golden Goose."  "Super DuckTales" is just about as messy as "Catch," but its component parts are arguably superior, particularly those involving the introduction of Fenton Crackshell, the birth of Gizmoduck, and the wild final chapter set in outer space.  I would, however, agree that "Catch" rates higher than "Time is Money."  The characterizations and situations in the former may test one's patience, but they don't represent the kind of out-and-out mistakes that foul up various portions of the Bubba Duck serial.  Nor is any chapter obvious "filler" in the manner of such "Time"-wasting episodes as "Bubba Trubba" and "Ducks on the Lam."  "Catch" could certainly have been much better, but it's still an enjoyable, albeit bumpy, ride.

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"DuckBlurbs"

(GeoX) "Straw that Broke the Camel's Back" notwithstanding, ONE DIME WILL NOT MAKE THAT MUCH DIFFERENCE.

It looks as if you softened this initial reaction in response to Christopher's comment about Barks' "The Second-Richest Duck."  I agree with Christopher that the use of Old #1 to break the tie seems quite fitting.  Glomgold's subsequent revelation of an extra shovel-load of money, by contrast, seems rather contrived.  Since he got his money to Macaroon first and doesn't know the exact amount of money that Scrooge will be bringing after him, it doesn't make much sense for Flinty to hold that much cash in reserve.

(Greg)  So we logically go to the skies as a cloud is moving and Scrooge is laughing because Glomgold will never find him and his train up in the clouds as we see a cartoon eye inside the telescope lens. And then we see Scrooge looking on from the Floating City of Atlantis as it's being carried by giant ass pink/green and yellow balloons.

We also get a rather surprising sky-shot of the scales here.  Can you see something amiss with the arrangement below?

 

Whoever built the scales next to a deep ravine must not have been thinking straight, or else must truly be a "Macaroonie."  Clearly, any mishap in pouring the money onto the empty scale would cause the cash to fall into the ravine.  The ground-level image of the scales that I displayed above does show a cliff of some sort to the left of the scales, but the dropoff doesn't appear to be nearly as sheer as is suggested in the sky-shot.

  

(Greg)  Scrooge and company run back towards the bicycle as we cut back inside the ancient building as the nephews are looking around the area and then [spotted] Glomgold's planes. Ummm; check your internal logic guys; there is a stone CEILING which prevents them from spotting anything. 

Yes, based on the visuals we got, they SHOULDN'T be able to see the planes.  What, you think that they learned how to distinguish one company's jet engine noises from another's as part of their Junior Woodchuck training?

(Greg) Scrooge is amazed that the balloons didn't pop [when the Beagles shot them] and Gyro on the bicycle casually tells them that they are steel belted. Oooookkkkkaaaayyyy; that [sort of makes] sense as Scrooge praises him and [is] almost tempted him to give him a raise.

Um, since when is Gyro a salaried employee of Scrooge's, as opposed to a freelance inventor?

(Greg)  ... the needle points to the dollar sign in red for the first time in the episode and then it sways towards Flint's side and he declares himself the winner. The needle then ultimately lands right smack in the middle as Kishke swears in DUBBED ANIME STYLE (holy nimrud) and declares it a tie. 

I think that he actually said "holy nimnul," which would certainly make sense in a WDTVA context.

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For professional reasons, I won't be able to do another RETROSPECTIVE for a short while -- probably not until the weekend of the 21st-23rd. 

Next: Episode 40, "Ducks of the West."