Darkwing Duck

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This article is about the animated series. For the character, see Darkwing Duck (character).

Darkwing Duck
Darkwing Duck as seen in the show's opening sequence.
Genre	Animated series
Creator(s)	Tad Stones
Starring	Jim Cummings Christine Cavanaugh Terry McGovern
Country of origin	United States
No. of episodes	91 (List of episodes)
Production
Running time	22 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	ABC Syndication
Original run	September 8, 1991 – December 5, 1992
Links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Darkwing Duck is an Emmy-nominated American animated television series produced by The Walt Disney Company that ran from 1991 to 1992 on both the syndicated programming block The Disney Afternoon and Saturday mornings on ABC. It featured an eponymous superhero anthropomorphic duck with the alter ego of Drake Mallard (voiced by Jim Cummings).

This show was moved to Toon Disney in the late 1990s, but it was later taken off the air in 2004 due to the addition of JETIX. The show returned on Toon Disney on January 19, 2007 as part of the Toon Disney Wild Card Stack.

Contents 1 Characters 2 Premise 3 Episodes 4 Broadcast history 5 DVD and video 6 Video games 7 "Let's get dangerous" in other languages 8 Trivia 9 See also 10 External links

[edit] Characters

Main article: List of Darkwing Duck characters

[edit] Premise

The success of DuckTales led to a spin-off series, Darkwing Duck, one year after the show had ended. Darkwing Duck was inspired by two episodes of DuckTales, entitled Double-O-Duck and The Masked Mallard. The original concept had Launchpad McQuack as the star.

While the show establishes its own conventions, it is largely regarded as an affectionate satire on superhero mythos and lore, some obvious, some subtle, and others quite witty. Darkwing's costume, gas gun, and flashy introductions are all direct references to pulp heroes such as the Crimson Avenger, The Shadow, and The Green Hornet. The fictional city of St. Canard and Darkwing's rogues gallery reflect Batman influences. In addition, there are Marvel Universe references such as the secret intelligence organization, S.H.U.S.H., is an obvious parody of Marvel's SHIELD.

The episode Aduckyphobia shows Darkwing being bitten by a mutated spider and ending up growing six arms. While on the surface this is a parody on the origin of Spider-Man, below it, it is a nod to the changes and reinventions all superhero characters go through, as Spider-Man in a notable issue ended up growing six arms.

There were, generally, two kinds of episodes. In the first it was just a straightforward quest to stop the villain, in the other some kind of transformation would happen to one of the main characters, such as Darkwing being turned old, Gosalyn being turned to slime and so on, and they would have to find a cure, while stopping the villain. Meanwhile, the transformation will turn out to be of tremendous use in this particular case.

Darkwing Duck exists in the same continuity as many of the other Disney cartoon series. In addition to Launchpad and GizmoDuck's appearances in the series, Magica DeSpell, Flintheart Glomgold, and the Beagle Boys from DuckTales can be seen in crowd shots during "In Like Blunt." Chip 'N Dale's Rescue Rangers are indirectly referenced in "Twitching Channels", an episode that was originally planned to be a full crossover with Rescue Rangers. In the episode "Film Flam", it is revealed that Darkwing's blue turtle-neck shirt sports the Talespin logo on the front. In an episode of Goof Troop, Max is wearing a Quackerjack watch, and in another episode, Pete is reading a newspaper with Darkwing Duck pictured in the cover story.

The character of Darkwing Duck appeared occasionally in the series Bonkers, and earlier Gosalyn appeared in the series Raw Toonage. In a five-part comic in Disney Adventures, The Legend of the Chaos God, it was shown that Rescue Rangers, Goof Troop, DuckTales, and Darkwing Duck all take place in the same world, with Tale Spin taking place several decades before the rest of the aforementioned series. This, however, causes problems within several of the series, a primary problem being that the Rescue Rangers characters exist alongside human characters. Darkwing Duck and Ducktales are directly connected by two characters crossing over into the world of Darkwing Duck. The first is Launchpad, Darkwing's sidekick, who is a longtime staple of DuckTales, and GizmoDuck, an armored hero who became a popular part of the DuckTales cast during the series' run.

[edit] Episodes

Main article: List of Darkwing Duck episodes

[edit] Broadcast history

The two-part episode Darkly Dawns the Duck originally aired as an hour-length TV special on the Disney Channel on April 6, 1991. The film served as the show's pilot.

Seasons 1 and 2 were aired simultaneously in the Autumn of 1991. Season 1 on syndication as part of The Disney Afternoon block of shows. Seasons 2 and 3 on Saturday mornings on ABC.

All episodes remained in syndicated reruns on The Disney Afternoon until 1994 and then returned to the line up from 1996 to 1997.

The series was last seen in the U.S. on Toon Disney, but due to bad scheduling and the addition of JETIX, it has vanished completely from the network. Along with a number of other shows, it was removed from schedules in November 2004 and has not been seen since, although Toon Disney did air the Christmas episode featuring Bushroot on December 25, 2004. It is airing on Toon Disney in Scandinavia and was last seen on Toon Disney in the United States on January 19, 2007 as part of the Toon Disney Wild Card Stack.

[edit] DVD and video

Main article: Darkwing Duck DVD releases

Four VHS tapes, each containing two episodes of Darkwing Duck, were released under the title Darkwing Duck: His Favorite Adventures in the United States on March 23, 1993 – "Darkly Dawns the Duck", "Justice Ducks Unite!", "Comic Book Capers" and "The Birth of Negaduck". However, most countries around the world only received releases of "Darkly Dawns the Duck" and "Justice Ducks Unite!".

Rumors of a DVD release of the series started in early 2006, and in May the rumors were proven true. A 3-disc DVD box set entitled Darkwing Duck: Volume 1 was released on August 29, 2006. It includes 27 episodes, including the 2-part pilot "Darkly Dawns the Duck", which was unfortunately presented in edited form as opposed to the uncut version's release on VHS.

[edit] Video games

There was a Darkwing Duck video game released by Capcom on the Nintendo Entertainment System and the Game Boy. Another game was also made for the TurboGrafx-16.

[edit] "Let's get dangerous" in other languages

The show was dubbed in several different languages for international distribution. As such, the catchphrase Let's get dangerous! had to be translated into a similarly catchy phrase for the target language. It often did not keep its literal sense, as a direct translation of the phrase was unlikely to hold the same impact.

Language	Phrase	Literal translation
Cantonese Chinese	等我搞破壞!	Wait till I do some destruction!
Danish	Lad os så vove fjerene!	Let's risk our feathers!
Dutch	Laten we lekker link gaan doen!	Let's get really risky!
Finnish	Ollaan vaarallisia!	Let's be dangerous!
French	Ça va craindre un max!	It will fear a maximum!
German	Zwo, Eins, Risiko!	Two, one, risk!
Greek	Ας γίνουμε επικίνδυνοι!	Let's get dangerous!
Hindi	Ho Jaye Khatron Se Takkar (हो जाए खतरों से टक्कर।)	Let's tackle danger!
Indonesian	Hadang bahaya!!	Charge the danger!
Italian	Dagli addosso, Duck!	Go for it, Duck!
Korean	덤벼 보라고!	Go ahead and attack me!
Mandarin Chinese	讓我搞破壞!	Let me do some destruction!
Norwegian	La oss bli farlige!	Let's get dangerous!
Polish	Oj, powieje grozą!	Oh, it's gonna be dangerous!
Portuguese(Brazil)	Vamos encarar o perigo!	Let's face danger!
Portuguese(Portugal)	Vamos correr perigo!	Let's get dangerous!
Russian	Ну-ка, от винта!	Let's start the engine!
Spanish	¡Hay que entrar en acción!	We have to enter into action!
Swedish	Nu blir vi farliga!/ (Alternatively: Dags att bli farliga)	Now we're getting dangerous!/Time to get dangerous!
Turkish	Haydi, Tehlikeli olalım!	Let's get dangerous!

His other common introductory catchphrase was, "I am the terror that flaps in the night…!", usually followed by a somewhat strained metaphor, similar to the declarations of The Tick or the Crimson Chin.

[edit] Trivia

• There are five different versions of the Darkwing Duck introduction. The first one was aired on the Disney Channel when Darkwing Duck first premiered and featured alternate animation and a different version of the familiar theme song. A fan is currently looking to restore this version.[1] The second version was used in syndication, and is actually the one they currently use today. The third is the version used on The Disney Afternoon, and is the same as the second version only cut for time. The fourth and fifth introductions were used on the ABC Saturday Morning airings, and contained mostly scenes from those episodes, starting with Darkwing tiptoeing up the Audobon Bay Bridge.
• Darkwing opens the secret passageway connecting his house to his bridgetop headquarters by hitting the head of a statuette of another Disney animated character – Basil of Baker Street, from the film The Great Mouse Detective. This is also a reference to Batman (TV series), in which Batman opens the head of a bust of William Shakespeare and presses a button inside the bust to enter the Batcave.
• Herb's voice is based on the character actor Andy Devine, who played Jingles, sidekick to Wild Bill Hickock in the 1950s Western TV series.
• DarkWarrior Duck was inspired by Frank Miller's version of Batman in Batman: The Dark Knight Returns graphic novel. Similarly, Gosalyn has certain similarities to Carrie Kelly, the female Robin from that book.
• One of the greatest upsets to fans of the series is that one of the last aired episodes, "The Steerminator," featuring the return of Taurus Bulba, finishes at a cliffhanger ending. Originally meant to be resolved in season 4, the series was cancelled before this could happen.
• There is an episode of this series that has been banned from television. The episode Hot Spells is about Gosalyn wanting magical powers like Morgana, while visiting the school where some of Morgana's relatives teach. She is unable to attain them at the speed she desires, since it involves studying and understanding the principles behind the spells. Becoming impatient, she is easily maneuvered by the "Devil" in order to access forbidden knowledge to attain this power in order to, unknown to her, force Darkwing to relinquish his soul to save her. However, the "Devil" makes the hasty mistake of simply lying to her that the contents of the Library of Forbidden Spells were replaced with permitted material, which meant Gosalyn honestly believed that she was allowed to use the room. This mistake meant she was actually innocent by a technicality, thus allowing her to save her father. The very fact that a Disney-related show had any reference to Satan, and was even allowed to air a few times, is unusual. The same "Devil" also appeared in the episode "Dead Duck," but most of that episode was evidently a dream sequence.

[edit] See also

• DuckTales
• Anthropomorphic Superheroes
• Paperinik

[edit] External links

• retrojunk.com Darkwing Duck section.

Darkwing Duck view • talk • edit
Characters
Main Characters	Darkwing Duck/Drake Mallard | Gosalyn Mallard | Launchpad McQuack | Honker Muddlefoot
Villains	NegaDuck | Megavolt | Bushroot | Quackerjack | The Liquidator | F.O.W.L. | Splatter Phoenix | Taurus Bulba | Hammerhead, Hoof and Mouth | Dr. Fossil | Phineas Sharp
Minor Characters	Herb, Binkie and Tank Muddlefoot | J. Gander Hooter | Vladimir Goudenov Grizzlikof | Gizmoduck | Morgana Macawber | Stegmutt | Dr. Sarah Bellum | DarkWarrior Duck
Other
Misc	St. Canard | Calisota | Darkly Dawns the Duck | Characters
Media	Episodes | DVDs | Darkwing Duck video game
See also	Tad Stones | DuckTales | Double-O-Duck | The Disney Afternoon