Ducktales, Season Three, Episode Thirteen: "Yuppy [sic] Ducks"

HDL announce that they're ten years old, which would confirm "Bubbeo and Juliet's" assertion as to their age--but again, until I see this in a non-Bubba episode, I'm not buying it. Sorry!

Scrooge suddenly itches all over; he stops at the "free clinic," which is full of derelicts and seems as good an argument as any for universal healthcare; he gets examined by a crazy German doctor who I'm pretty sure is an ex-Nazi, and is diagnosed with "loot lice," meaning he has to be in quarantine for a week. Egads!

So when members of his board call asking for his input on business decisions, HDL luck out by giving them useful money-making advice. This causes the board members--who are clearly none too bright--to start relying on them for advice on EVERYTHING. They get quite insufferable and dictatorial, but finally their bad decisions come home to roost, and they apparently lose all of Scrooge's money, which doesn't seem terribly plausible.

But never fear: in one of the dumber denouements in recent memory, they discover that since they're only ten, they're not legally qualified to give business advice (???), and therefore none of the stuff they've done "counts," so Scrooge gets all of his money back (which wouldn't be enough to fool him, really, since we know he recognizes specific bits of currency, but that semi-rule's been broken enough times before now, in both comic and cartoon). Also, the Beagles are involved, but not in any very essential way.

This episode really isn't awful; it has its vaguely amusing moments, and the way HDL design their own eccentric car for Scrooge's line reminds me of this. But it's not very good, either; as with all too many Ducktales episodes, "mediocre" is about the most you can say. And I don't like the fact that, as they're trying to decide what to do, they keep going "oh no--not that Junior Woodchucks truth-telling thing!" Dude--why would you want to emphasize the fact that they're behaving out-of-character like that?

Stray Observations

-"We didn't wanna tell you, but--Louie's a vampire!"

-The baseball team is the "Calisota Stealers?" What about the Duckburg Mallards? Are we to assume that they're just a farm team for the Stealers? You'd think Duckburg would be big enough for a major-league team.

-"Yes-Man Bubba"--well, I guess that's about all he's good for.

-The name I was looking for is Fenton Hardy, father of Frank and Joe, the Hardy Boys. I know they don't have the same cultural presence they once did, but none of all y'all read those books as kids? Really? When I was small, I was quite baffled by this: what the hell kind of name is "Fenton?" But I guess Ducktales vindicates it.

-Speaking of the Hardy Boys and names, they also had a friend named "Biff," which is an awesome, hilarious, and sadly-neglected name. It got some added publicity (though not necessarily the good kind) from Back to the Future, but the Hardy Boys were keeping it alive well before. This is wildly off-topic, isn't it?