Thursday, August 18, 2011

Ducktales, Season Two, Episode Two: "Time Is Money," part two: "The Duck Who Would Be King"

"Luckily, Gyro discovered bombastium, a substance that made time travel possible!" sez the opening voiceover. The show appears to forget that there have already been multiple time travel episodes.

Anyway, no surprise, really, but there's very little semblance of continuity between parts of this multi-part thing. I mean, I know why they DID this multi-part business: it's so they could first market the whole thing as a big TV MOVIE EVENT! and then have a bunch of regular episodes on their hands into the bargain. Still, a little more narrative ambition would not come amiss.

Well so but anyway, here our heroes and also Bubba end up in "Toupai," an Eastern-styled place that looks sorta like Barks' "City of Golden Roofs." There's an evil dude, Mung Ho, oppressing the people, but when Bubba appears, he supposedly fulfills some kind of prophesy-type thing, so Mung Ho's grip on power is jeopardized. Oh, and also, there's a good princess or priestess or something, Sen Sen, who helps our guys out. Meanwhile, it is also necessary to find a way to refreeze the defrosted bombastium--the stuff's much more durable than it ever was in the Barks story, it would appear.

Shrug. This is one of those episodes that just doesn't evoke much of a reaction from me one way or another. Pretty standard. Bubba doesn't get any less risible. Nice to see Launchpad get to briefly make out with Sen Sen at the end, although the idea that he has NO PROBLEM immediately going from that to, whoops, bye, never gonna see YOU again! seems psychologically inastute.

Anyway, back the present next time, I think.

Stray Observations

-"Sorry, boss, but time machines don't have breaks!" Really. Gyro designed a time machine to fly, like a plane, but included no way to stop. Okay. No, really, that's fine. Swell idea. Carry on.

-Funny bit where Dewey licks the newly-refrozen bombastium and immediately disappears and reappears in a suit of armor.

"Wait a minute! If this is the great one's treasure, where did it all come from?" "Mung Ho took it from the people of Toupai!" "You mean he didn't earn it square?!?" My inner Marxist is unsure whether to laugh or scream at this. But either way, he's gonna do it hysterically.

-HIGHLY dubious recurring joke about the natives being unable to pronounce the 'r' in Scrooge (they have no trouble with any OTHER 'r's).

2 comments:

  1. I think that the natives can pronounce their "r's," but Bubba can't. The only reason they call him "Scooge" is because they heard Bubba call him that, so they think that's his name until Scrooge repeatedly informs them otherwise.

    When I first saw this episode years ago, I only knew that Sen Sen was a hard candy commonly used to cover up alcohol on the breath because of Fitzgerald's "Great Brain" series, where the titular character frames an abusive schoolteacher by filling his rooms with liquor and Sen Sen, much to the shock of the heavily Mormon town. Add another adult reference that slipped past the Disney censors.

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  2. Right you are about "Scooge." I'm not gonna lie to you: I was spacing out a bit during this episode.

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