DUCKTALES Fanfic Review: "The Lost Tomb of Pharaoh Sedqaduck" by "Stretch Snodgrass"

And so, we trudge back into the DuckTales fanfic salt mines... or, should I say, the sand dunes!

 

Needless to say, adventure in desert settings are nothing new to our feathered Disney friends, either in print or on screens both small and large.  Carl Barks' first full-length solo adventure story took Donald and HD&L to a reasonably authentic Egypt, and, when Disney Movietoons decided to mount a DuckTales feature film, writer Alan Burnett spun the plot out of Scrooge's quest to find the lost treasure of Collie Baba.  There are, of course, numerous other examples of the "Ducks in Egypt" trope in both media.

I bring this up because our "writer of interest," one "Stretch Snodgrass," picked a surprisingly well-worn trail on which to follow his muse.  He's not trying to do anything Earth-shattering in "The Lost Tomb of Pharaoh Sedqaduck" -- just tell an entertaining comedy-adventure story in the classic DT tradition, complete with copious references to DT episodes past.  He succeeds rather well, particularly in the clever manner in which he stirs an unexpected guest-star character -- one who (1) had only one featured role in the TV series and (2) has rarely featured in adventures of any stripe -- into the mix.

.

.

*MAJOR SPOILERS (duh)*

.

.

THE STORY:  With "long-lost map" in hand, Scrooge travels to Egypt to seek out the titular cenotaph, the last resting place of Sedqaduck, the "unlucky" 13th Pharaoh of the 13th Dynasty, and his "greatest treasures."  His companions on the journey are HD&L, Launchpad, and... "Uncle" Gladstone??  (Yep, that's what the boys call him.  Personally, I take the idea of Gladstone being the Nephews' uncle as seriously as I do that of Daisy being the boys' aunt.)  Unsurprisingly, Gladstone isn't initially keen on the idea...after all, it sounds too much like work.  Scrooge ultimately convinces Gladstone to come along by challenging his ganderhood, or something close to it, and away they go.  Flintheart Glomgold and Bankjob and Big Time Beagle get wind of Scrooge's destination in "Master of the Djinni" fashion -- via a newspaper photograph that reveals the details of Scrooge's map ("When will Scroogie learn not to leave his map in plain sight?" cackles Flinty) -- but, after a half-hearted attempt at attacking Scrooge's party at an oasis literally blows up in their faces, the baddies (somewhat surprisingly) drop clean out of the story.  Instead, we simply follow Scrooge's party as they reach and explore the long-hidden, seriously eerie Valley of Pharaoh Sedqaduck.  But why has Gladstone's luck suddenly turned sour?  And why is Scrooge so heck-bent on convincing Gladstone that his luck isn't bad, all the while scotching any overt mention of "thirteen," "luck," and similar words freighted with intimations of good or bad fortune?...

PLOT:  Pretty doggone solid, with some effective suspense and scares, though some of the plotting could have been improved. (**** out of *****)

If you choose to read this story, don't be initially put off by "Stretch"'s staccato style, or the manner in which he tells the reader some fairly basic information about the characters (e.g., that Huey, Dewey, and Louie wear red, blue, and green).  Stick with it, and you'll be rewarded, especially once the gang starts the actual pyramid hunt.  This is more of a straightforward "there and back again" storyline than the plots seen in "Master of the Djinni" or even DuckTales: The Movie.  It has some longueurs, but "Stretch" keeps up some good, in-character banter between the Ducks, though his funniest material is unintentionally so (see WRITING AND HUMOR below).

As is the case in so many Barks adventures, Scrooge doesn't actually wind up carting home the complete treasure.  In place of it, he gets what are for all intents and purposes "parting gifts," courtesy of the ghost of the departed Pharaoh.  Considering that these items are designed more to educate the world about the cloudy history of Sedqaduck's unfortunate reign than they are to enrich someone, Scrooge accepts them with considerable grace... which is more than one can say about, for example, his petulant reaction to "love, the greatest treasure of them all" in "A DuckTales Valentine."  True to his nature, though, he does find a way to profit in the end.

For a story rated the fanfiction.net equivalent of "E for Everyone," there is some seriously creepy material here.  The discovery of a group of skeletons from an unsuccessful expedition by medieval Arabs to plunder the valley comes as a considerable jolt.  The shock would have been more severe had the corpses been found by the Pharaoh's tomb, as they by all rights should have been, given that Scrooge interprets the map as saying that "the curse of death falls only upon those who violate the Pharaoh's final resting place."  Since the skeletons were found a good distance away from the pyramid, I sense a disturbance in the plot structure here, though it's not quite bad enough to raise the dead.

In addition to harboring dead would-be looters, the Valley of Sedqaduck is also noiseless.  Various fauna are present, but they don't make a sound.  Scrooge hand-waves away the Ducks' ability to make themselves heard by suggesting that outsiders who enter the Valley aren't affected, while Dewey appeals to "an ancient Egyptian magic spell."  Dewey's dodge works for me, especially in a world that contains Magica De Spell.

The creepiest detail of all, however, is the simple fact that Pharaoh Sedqaduck and his entire royal retinue are still present in spirit form, tending to the evergreen gardens and keeping the buildings in perfect condition.  The "curse" on anyone entering Sedqaduck's tomb is supposed to last for 13,000 years, or until the world ends (nice escape clause, that).  Presumably, therefore, the ghosts will continue to perform their janitorial services until that time.  But what happens then?  Will Sedqaduck and his people consider that to be "game over" and vanish, leaving the Valley to succumb to the elements?  That seems like an unhappy ending (for them) to me.  Or will the fact that Scrooge has peacefully brought the truth about "unlucky" Sedqaduck's reign to the outside world give the spirits a reason to rise to the heavens, in the manner of "The Garbled One" and Khufu in "Sphinx for the Memories"?

Unfortunately, "Stretch" seems to have forgotten to edit an early detail about the lost tomb's location.  Scrooge originally gleans from the map that the tomb is "inside a mountain," whereas the actual pyramid is in a valley surrounded by cliffs and "mountainous" sand dunes.  We could attribute this goof to Scrooge's misreading of the map, but, when your fact-checkers have the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook at hand, I doubt that any such slip would have slipped by.

The final scene has something of a Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea "coffee scene" ((c) Joe Torcivia) vibe, in that we find the Ducks back in Duckburg and discussing their adventure over a meal at Quack Maison. (Remember?  That was the place where Gladstone and Scrooge went to eat breakfast in "Dime Enough for Luck" and that unfortunate "clerical error" concerning the restaurant's "millionth customer" took place).  It's decent, but also something of a letdown, given that the Ducks had already had dinner at the place earlier in the story, at the time when Scrooge finally convinced Gladstone to join the adventure.  I appreciate "Stretch"'s willingness to exploit Gladstone's one DT appearance to the hilt, but bringing the Ducks back to QM might have been going a dish too far.

Perhaps the most puzzling aspect of the plot is the quick dismissal of the villains.  In truth, they don't actually get to do much of interest. However, there is a most intriguing moment when Bankjob, remembering how Scrooge saved him, Babyface, and Bugle/Bebop from the pirates in "Time Teasers," suggests that the baddies ask Scrooge for assistance in getting back to civilization.  Glomgold is having none of that, preferring a long, hot, and problematic desert trek to lowering himself to ask Scrooge for aid.  Had the bad guys actually joined Scrooge's party, the conflict between Flinty's pride and greed might have made for an interesting subplot. (Admittedly, it might also have interfered with the subplot that was already present, which I'll discuss under CHARACTERIZATION).  Instead, "Stretch" dismisses the villains with a couple of paragraphs of narrative.  I suppose that "Stretch" felt that the adventure simply "had" to include an appearance by familiar villains in order to seem "authentic."  There are plenty of examples to the contrary, though, and, all in all, I think that "Stretch" should have let the Ducks handle this one by themselves, with no opponents save the elements... and the internal conflicts.

CHARACTERIZATION:  Pretty solid, as well, with the only possible question being how we are expected to regard Scrooge's behavior towards Gladstone.  (**** out of *****)

"Stretch" does a pretty decent job with most of the basics here. The Nephews may consult the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook a few too many times -- I'm sure that their native intelligence could have helped them to figure out that pyramids were never used as homes, and that water, however brackish or distasteful, is essential for life to flourish in the desert -- but they make up for it late in the game by doping out Scrooge's scheme re Gladstone (about which more in a moment) all by their lonesomes.  Launchpad is Launchpad, 'nuff said, while Gladstone, appropriately enough, is given his slightly softer, more laid-back DuckTales persona, as opposed to the more obnoxious characterization introduced by Barks.  On the unlikability scale, whining a bit about tramping through the desert and making a couple of self-satisfied remarks about his luck seeing him through don't really amount to much.  "Stretch" even provides Gladstone with a new (and atypical) vulnerable spot, in that the gander takes umbrage at Scrooge's questioning of his bravery on more than one occasion.  Scrooge hasn't been concerned (at least openly) about others' cojones since "Christmas on Bear Mountain."  But Gladstone's determination to prove Scrooge wrong reflects another side of his overweening pride... one that is less smug and more proactive.

The big character-related question arising from this epic is how, exactly, we are expected to react to Scrooge's subterranean decision to bring Gladstone along as a kind of "anti-bad-fortune fail-safe" to sense the "curse" that is supposed to lie on Sedqaduck's tomb -- and, more significantly, his determination to keep his reasoning under wraps until after the fact.  Scrooge figures that, if there really is such a "curse," then Gladstone's luck will sense it and try to keep him and the other Ducks safe by any means necessary... including bouts of bad luck.  Gladstone's increasing gaffe-proneness as the Ducks close in on their goal, and the result of the final advance towards the tomb, tend to bear out Scrooge's theory.  But can this honestly be said to be "square dealing" by Scrooge, even though his intention was an honorable one?

Complicating our interpretation of Scrooge's behavior is a scene that occurs as the Ducks prepare to go into the Valley.  A panicky Gladstone is (understandably) worried that another "Dime Enough for Luck" scenario may be playing itself out, but Scrooge bluntly dismisses his concerns and gives Gladstone his personal promise that the gander's luck hasn't really turned bad.  The narrative presents this as an example of Scrooge's commitment to straight dealing with others, which, given the underlying subterfuge that the old miser is practicing, doesn't quite ring true.  Gladstone makes the point that Scrooge, who "[denies luck] even exists" (I guess the Old #1 Dime is just a cherished memento in this version of DT continuity?), couldn't be expected to understand how luck works.  Scrooge is obliged to rely upon sheer force of will to convince Gladstone to believe that Scrooge is telling the truth.  Our... uh, hero, ladies and gentlemen?  The jury may have a hard time reaching a verdict on that one.

Personally, I think that it would have made far more sense for "Stretch" to have had Scrooge tell Gladstone the truth up front, using logic to convince the gander that he will be in no danger precisely because Gladstone's luck will protect him by going bad at the appointed time.  That would have made for an interesting psychological conflict for Gladstone, who is so used to being benefited by his luck that he might find it hard to wrap his mind around the concept of bad luck doing him some good.  Using that subplot in place of the "Scrooge rather clumsily conceals the truth for everyduck's own good" would have been much trickier for "Stretch" to do, but it would have avoided the somewhat awkward characterization of Scrooge that the "subterfuge" angle forced the author to use.

A coda regarding Pharaoh Sedqaduck himself: The dead ruler's appearance in ghost-guise is brief but memorable.  During the adventure, we learn that the "unlucky" ruler was not a bungler so much as a ruler who had the misfortune of facing a large number of enemies without the resources to keep them at bay. Sedqaduck shows that his troubles have not robbed him of a certain sense of humor when he disses Launchpad for having complained earlier that Sedqaduck's museum of artifacts was "dull."  The greatest ruler of ancient times he wasn't, but he certainly doesn't come off as a dope on the order of Barks' spendthrift King Nutmost the Rash ("A Cobbler Should Stick to His Last," UNCLE $CROOGE #25, March 1959).

HOMEWORK:  Done to a turn.  (***** out of *****)

From the opening gong, references fly thick and fast -- and they're far from being the standard references to previous desert adventures that you might expect.  The aforementioned references to Scrooge's map-mistake in "Master of the Djinni" and Bankjob's remembrance of Scrooge's generosity in "Time Teasers" certainly got MY attention, and some other clever ones are worthy of special mention.

(1) Gladstone refers to the Ducks' near-death experience in "Too Much of a Gold Thing" as an example of how dangerous adventuring can be.  Makes you wonder: how widely did news of the Ducks' travails in the Valley of the Golden Suns actually spread?  One can understand Scrooge wanting to keep the Valley's fate a secret from the general public, just in case some crazies decided to imitiate El Capitan and dig endlessly (and futilely) for riches in the ruins.  Any acquaintances whom Scrooge trusted with the info were undoubtedly sworn to some form of secrecy... and it's therefore surprising that Scrooge didn't shush Gladstone (or even whack him with his cane) when Gladstone mentioned the adventure at the Ducks' table at Quack Maison.

(2) Glomgold reacts to Bankjob and Big Time's bomb-bungling by grumbling, "Now I know why you two never work together!" -- which, in fact, they never actually had before, unless you count that mob-scene in "Full Metal Duck" (which was itself a skull session, as opposed to an actual gig) and set aside the comic-book story "The Great Chase" (preferably, at a VERY great distance).  Given that Bankjob and Big Time are actually among the more competent of the DT Beagles, their treatment here seems a bit uncharitable of "Stretch."

(3) To while away the time during a long flight, Launchpad tells Gladstone tall tales of his exploits, among which is his "harrowing hiatus with the Harpies" ("The Golden Fleecing").  Evidently, to Launchpad, any adventure you can walk away from is a tale-worthy one, even if one's role in it is somewhat, well, embarrassing.  Speaking of which, Launchpad invokes the "Any crash you can..." mantra a couple of times here.

You do have to respect a writer who treats canonical series material in such ingenious and imaginative ways.

WRITING AND HUMOR:  Acceptable at best, and most of the humor is of the accidental variety.  (*** out of *****)

From the spellings of certain words such as "tonnes" for "tons," to the use of the phrase "the lot of them," to Scrooge's reminiscence about picnicking in a country "kirkyard," I gather that "Stretch" is probably a native of the British Isles.  "Stretch"'s writing gets the job done, but it does fall victim to the occasional dropped comma and misspelling.

One must give kudos to "Stretch" for having the daring to try to reproduce the Ducks' "synchronized snoring" in prose.  It results in an unintentionally humorous bit:

"Huh," snored Scrooge.

"Shhhh[,]" continued Huey.

"Quack, quack," slept Dewey and Louie respectively.

That last sentence reads as if "Stretch" is using "to sleep" as a verb capable of taking a direct object.  What would such objects be, I wonder?

I also found the following throwaway paragraph amusing.  Read this, and see if you don't get a distinct impression of Launchpad being pwned:

Scrooge divided the adults into three watches: Gladstone first, as he liked to stay up late; Scrooge last, as he usually woke up early, as "the early bird catches the worm"; Launchpad received the difficult midnight and early morning hours, because it was the only one that was left. 

QUESTIONABLE MATERIAL:  None, aside from the aforementioned scares and ghosts (which aren't actually all THAT scary).

OVERALL:  ***** out of *****.   N&V RECOMMENDED.

While not spectacular by any means, "The Lost Tomb of Pharaoh Sedqaduck" is a fun read and displays commendable effort.  If you like classic "lost-ruby jungle plunges" with a couple of intriguing (though somewhat problematic) twists, then you should enjoy this story.

NEXT FANFIC UP:  "The Sincere Fraud" by "Commander."  In the not-to-distant DT future, the Nephews' mother Della returns... after a long stay in jail.  I got a BAD feeling about this, Mr. McDee...

DUCKTALES RETROSPECTIVE: Episode 91, "Attack of the Fifty-Foot Webby"

And so, we enter "the top of the stretch"... only 10 more eps to go.  Original broadcast dates are going to start getting a little wonky before long, since three of the "second-season" episodes were famously held back to provide additional "new material" for the first season of The Disney Afternoon.  Of the "second-season" eps that were actually broadcast during the "official" (read: syndicated) second season, we're now down to a precious two: "Attack of the Fifty-Foot Webby" and "The Masked Mallard."  Quite an unlikely brace, to be sure...

I think that Greg has "Attack" pegged pretty accurately: Godawful premise, unimaginative first and second acts, partial redemption in Act Three.  My major deviation from this template is the reason for the success of the climactic action -- specifically, the "King Kong in reverse" showdown at McDuck Tower.  I'd like to give writers Alan Burnett and Mark Seidenberg due credit for coming up with the ingenious idea of mating (in a figurative sense, of course) the giant-sized Webby and the (relatively) pint-sized monkey previously known as the "Long-Tailed Gorilla," but, in truth, similar ground had been plowed almost four decades ago, albeit in a relatively obscure venue.  In issue #3 (February 1975) of RICHIE RICH PROFITS, Richie's girlfriend Gloria and the miniature gorilla "Kong King" gamboled about a scale-model version of the Empire State Building while being pestered by remote-controlled biplanes.  Amusingly, the two generic crooks in this Warren Kremer-drawn story, like the genially sleazy circus owner Happy Jack of "Attack," are after the monkey, as opposed to the monstrous maiden.

What makes the McDuck tower sequence work so well is not so much the basic visual setup as the canvas on which it is painted.  The earlier part of the ep featured more than its share of slovenly animation, a few examples of which we'll see below, but, when it comes time for the "money sequence," the much-put-upon Wang Films comes up aces full, splashing the screen with dramatic P.O.V. shots and ingenious employment of spotlights and shadows.  Wang doesn't get the sequence completely right -- when the top of the tower breaks off and Webby and "Mr. Fuzzy" plummet to the ground, the tower-piece doesn't follow them onto the pavement, or anywhere else, for that matter -- but the effort that was made here is readily apparent.  Even a predictable and cliched final post-Tower scene can't spoil the overall effect.

Unfortunately, before we get to the payoff, we are obliged to slog through some rather dreary preliminaries, starting with the inexplicable decision to base the entire episode upon the premise of Webby being too physically small to be noticed.  You don't have to be a Webby partisan to call "no way" on this one; you simply have to be able to use your functioning eyeballs and note, like GeoX, that Webby is the same size as the Nephews.  "Back Out in the Outback" avoided this mistake, explaining away Webby's unseen departure from the sheep station as a result of HD&L's carelessness and Webby's fixation on meeting Australian animals, rather than Webby's physical size.  Even the setup of "The Good Muddahs" bested "Attack"'s approach insofar as believability goes (with the arguable exception of Webby overreacting to the busy Mrs. Beakley's blowoff).  Judging by Webby's alternatively explosive and sarcastic reactions to other characters overlooking her presence, we are led to believe that this issue has been bothering Webby for some time.  Pardon me if I don't buy it.  Even Burnett and Seidenberg seem uneasy with their own premise here; Webby's jumping up and down, presumably "to see over HD&L and Bubba," during the scene in Scrooge's office is a textbook example of "jackhammering" to get a point across.

Burnett and Seidenberg then compound their folly by presenting Webby's decision to defy Scrooge and sneak aboard the Ducks' Africa-bound plane as if this were some new, bold idea.  Of course it isn't; Webby was playing the "tagalong" as far back as "Dinosaur Ducks" and "Cold Duck."  How far back do B&S plan to walk Webby's character, anyway?

As it turns out, far worse is soon to come.  Webby's enumeration of her "essential" supplies -- "my Quackypatch doll, extra hair ribbons, and a canteen of cocoa" -- is a distillation of all of the things that Webby-bashers delight in bringing up when they criticize the character: childishness, impracticality, tokenishness, and, of course, stereotyped "little-girl" behavior.  Contra Greg, this scene doesn't completely bury Webby -- her brief tenure in the shrunken Gizmosuit in "New Gizmo-Kids on the Block" will quite literally help to save that episode from complete and utter ruin -- but, BOY, does it give back almost all the ground that Webby has gained and fought to hold over the previous 90 episodes.  It says something, I think, that Bubba, whose amazing tracking skills are referred to and employed throughout the episode -- first to locate the "Long-Tailed Gorilla," later to track down giant Webby -- seems to be more fully developed a cast member here than the unfortunate Ms. Vanderquack. 

Happy Jack -- who represents, almost surely, the only melding of The Who, The Flintstones, and Ed Wynn in the long, strange annals of pop culture -- deserves special note as the series' first one-shot villain to employ the Beagle Boys as the functional equivalents of "hood-for-hire" mercenaries.  (Charles Upstuck III of "The Status Seekers" came close, but he hired the blueblood Beagle Boys, rather than their uncouth cousins, or half-brothers, or whatever.)  This may not sound like much of a departure, but in fact it is: even Carl Barks rarely used the idea.  Big Time's initial reluctance to participate in the "monkey business" is very much in character; recall how he blew off Magica de Spell's offer to team up in "Send in the Clones."  His teeth-grinding deference to Burger when the deal is closed might therefore reflect a subconscious admission that the palmy days of the first season, when the Beagles actually seemed like a legitimate threat, are well and truly over, and the more caricatured members of the Beagle bunch are now driving the "plot train"!

The scene in which Jack is first introduced was obviously inspired by the Flintstones episode "Circus Business" (1965), in which a poverty-stricken carnival owner bestows his flea-bitten show upon the credulous Fred.  We get the "group montage" in which the unpaid performers walk out on Jack and a featured appearance by a "half-man, half-woman" character for good measure.  The Beagle Boys' later role as "monkey trainers" for the captured "Long-Tailed Gorilla" might also be a reflection of the denouement of the Flintstones episode, in which the Flintstones and the Rubbles manage to put on a show to help Fred avoid jail time for "misrepresentation," but I'm not nearly as confident of a connection there.

The jungle sequence that climaxes with Webby falling into the "magic spring" and growing to 50 feet in height couldn't have been more obvious and square-cut if Burnett and Seidenberg had consciously set out to make it so.  All of the tropes -- cheesy Beagle Boy disguises, Webby's capture by the "Long-Tailed Gorilla" and subsequent discovery of the ape's secret, the reveal of the "magic spring" and Webby's dunking -- are all visible from several hundred miles away, even for someone of normal stature.  This fact tends to focus one's attention on side matters, and the ones that pop out at us here are not flattering, particularly in the area of animation.  The supposedly creepy reveal of the "Long-Tailed Gorilla" as a pair of watching eyes, unlike the similar reveal of Prince Greydrake in "Jungle Duck," is likely to elicit laughter rather than fear:

The REAL "Jungle Phantom"?

Likewise, Webby's "waterslide" is every bit as awkwardly staged as Greg suggests, with Webby seemingly sitting on the surface of the water as she floats along.  I guess this means that Webby can be classified as half-divine.

To be fair, Webby's bonding with "Mr. Fuzzy" is reasonably cute without being overly cloying, and Webby should receive some credit for doping out the truth about the sizable simian all by her lonesome.  It would probably have been better, though, had her reference work of choice been the Junior Woodchucks' Guidebook, as opposed to a "mere" ABC picture book.

After the oversized Webby is brought home, we are treated to an unexpected second appearance by Dr. Von Swine, whose ego appears to have been inflated since the events of "Yuppy Ducks" for no apparent reason.  Von Swine is slightly more tolerable here than in that earlier train wreck of an episode, but it must be admitted that he could easily have been written out of the plot by the simple expedient of the Nephews' having checked the JW Guidebook and found the recipe BEFORE they came home, which one would normally expect them to have done.  All Von Swine actually does here is to provide some of the formula's more esoteric ingredients, such as "Bootle bug dust," and the list of necessities could easily have been made sufficiently mundane that HD&L could have tracked them down all by themselves.  I guess that the decision to use Von Swine was simply due to the fact that Howard Morris was already at hand.

Before you swoon over yourself too much, Doc, you ought to consider reapplying the Grecian Formula...

The comparatively perfunctory "effects of a giant Webby" sequence could have benefited from some additional action scenes -- for example, showing, rather than describing, some of HD&L and Bubba's disastrous attempts to play with their newly-enlarged pseudo-sibling -- but we do get a touching moment in which Webby weeps about her fate, along with *sigh* the obligatory wish that she be "little again" (as if she ever actually were).  Immediately following this scene, the ep at long last begins to ascend to something legitimately watchable, with the put-upon Webby finally deciding to get proactive after she learns via TV that Happy Jack has put the "Long-Tailed Gorilla" on exhibit.  It's about time that Webby stopped whining about her fate and tried to use her enhanced stature to do something meaningful.  I do have to wonder how Scrooge was able to construct that oversized bed so quickly.  Does this mean that the giant bed that a younger Scrooge dreamed of owning in Vic Lockman and Barks' "The Invisible Intruder" is both (1) canonical and (2) still in storage somewhere in McDuck Mansion?

There follows a nearly impeccable Act Three, with Webby giving far more than she gets atop McDuck Tower and Bubba, for once, playing the lead "Nephew," as HD&L and Scrooge are content to follow him while he is tracking down "Webba."  One might grouse about the fact that Happy Jack and the Beagles get off relatively lightly, suffering only a plunge into Duckburg Bay, but, given that they never actually commit a crime -- they use strongarm tactics to try and keep the Ducks away from the "Long-Tailed Gorilla," but they wind up capturing the ape, if not entirely fairly, then at the very least squarely -- the standard "frog-march to jail" would have seemed a bit on the "overkillish" side here.  In addition to the obvious King Kong references, Burnett and Seidenberg throw in allusions to Godzilla and the classic horror film The Fly (1958).

"Yeeesss, I SEE!"

The ep shifts back into "we've-seen-it" mode in the final minute, with Webby and the restored "Mr. Fuzzy" having a tearful departure and the Nephews and Bubba promising to "keep Webby in sight" from now on.  (What about the fate of "McDuck's Drive-Thru Safariland"?  Did Scrooge reconsider the investment after the "Long-Tailed Gorilla" ceased to exist?)  So I think it's fair to say that Act Three, all by itself, saves this episode from a failing grade.  No need to despair, though: in the few episodes we've got left, high quality will generally be the norm, rather than the exception.

.

.

.

"DuckBlurbs"

(GeoX) Giant Webby is way huger than Giant Monkey. I suppose the idea is that she's the same size in relation to it as she would be if they were both regular-sized, but in that case, that's one minuscule monkey. 

One could make the argument that Webby, being larger than the monkey, experienced a faster rate of growth than the monkey when she was enlarged, but that doesn't hold water; normal-sized Webby turns out to be only slightly larger than the normal-sized monkey.  Wang Films probably should get most of the blame for this.

(Greg) And then we start flushing the episode down the crapper as Webby gets mad because she was hiding all morning hoping they were looking for her. Now the problem with this is: There was no indication that the nephews wanted to play with her. Yes; it's the contrived and sexist: Boys refuse to play with girls plot line because she's too little to them. This works a lot better with Molly Cunningham because she's legit small and she's smaller than Kit is.

It wasn't so much the fact that the boys "refused to play" with Webby as the fact that they weren't even aware of her presence.  The episode commit a later faux pas along these lines when giant Webby says that the boys "refuse to play with [her]" and the Nephews proceed to explain that their attempts to do so led to disaster.

(Greg) Happy Jack is not happy at all of this happening and needs a brand new attraction to get back in the good graces of the customers. He reads the conveniently placed newspaper and notices that Scrooge is going ape for an ape as he walks out of the trailer and he claims that the long tailed "gorilla" is his meal ticket in.

Strange... Scrooge told the kids that he wanted to beat other "Gorilla" searchers to the punch, yet Happy Jack learns of the expedition from a newspaper article.  So how did the word get out?  Incidentally, the name of Jack's circus, "Circus Barkas," is a parody of a real-world circus... one that I actually saw as a child, no less.

(Greg) Huey thinks he hears something and out come the Beagle Gorillas acting so badly that if these kids and Scrooge fall for it; then Airhead Syndrome is at an all time high. As in "number of drugs needed to enjoy this angle". And yes they fall for it...

Point *sigh* taken.  It's especially annoying here because all the Beagles would have had to do to make better disguises was to take off the number plates and masks.  Is that REALLY so hard to do?

(Greg) Anyhow; the monkey pulls to the left some big ass blades of glass and we barely see a lake of hot molten blue liquid in sight as Webby deduces that this made the monkey big and the monkey nods in approval. 

The not entirely dissimilar Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea episode "Leviathan" (1967) uses an "underwater fissure," rather than a pool, as the source of the enlargement.  Like the fissure, the effects of the pool extend well beyond the immediate vicinity of the source.

 
(Greg) ...man[,] the "big girls don't cry" line from the nephews annoyed me too. Big girls do cry; usually when someone BULLIES them for being big and fat.

I don't think that Burnett and Seidenberg were making a real-world point here so much as simply parodying one of The Four Seasons' biggest hits.

(Greg) Happy Jack wakes up Burger by what was supposed to be a kick to the chest; but Wang Films screwed up it so bad that it looks like Burger got kicked in the balls.

Picture, thousand words:

(Greg) We cut to a police car as the police dog [Chief O'Hara clone] from Ducky Horror Picture Show... is on the transmitter and wants the army, air force and the Goose Gun. The WHAT?! What the hell is he talking about?

He actually said, "Call in the Army, the Air Force, the Goose Guard!"

Next: Episode 92, "Ducky Mountain High."