Darkwing Duck, Season One, Episode Four: "Getting Antsy"

So does Darkwing actually have a day-job of some sort? Or does he exclusively do hero-stuff? How can he get by like that? Or is that a sort of running joke? So many questions…

Our villain this time is this kid (okay, more likely "short guy") with a lisp and a huge buck-tooth, Lilliput, who can communicate with ants via a special hat and enlists them as his minions as he uses his shrink ray to try to take out the entire city and use its buildings and whatnot in his miniature golf course. And he also steals money from miniaturized banks. His motivations here are actually kind of vague. I like miniature golf, so I kind of approve of what he's doing…but is that the whole end-goal? The awesome-est mini-golf course in the world? Or is it more about the money he's stealing? In which case the course would seem kind of beside the point. Or maybe both! Who can say? What an enigmatic fellow.

Another thing you can't help but notice is the distinct lack of people getting caught up in this scheme. I gather he tries to shrink things at night so as to avoid that problem, but it seems inconceivable that somebody wouldn't find him or herself inadvertently shrinkified. But no--the place seems oddly deserted.

Anyway, Darkwing gets shrunk (on purpose), and has to navigate the course to figure out what's going on and ultimately save the day. Shrunken people having to deal with normal-sized stuff is a theme that really seems to resonate with us down through history, and this is fun. Also, there's a clever yet very creepy ending where Darkwing saves the day after Lilliput shrinks him down to germ-size and he enlists the help of two actual germs, "Blob and Ray," to make the villain sick. Then they all return to normal size. Or giant-size, for the germs. Who just stand there, with their blobby, expressionless faces. And then, in the predictable ending where everyone gets sick, the giant germs appear to be sick as well, which certainly raises some interesting questions.

Stray Observations

-"I'll have two cheese-food-product burgers with fries one hippo shake and an apple-flavored pie substitute!"

-"Have I ever told you the story of the little girl with the golf club and the firing squad?"

-I've always pictured snails as somehow being more laid-back than the creature that attacks shrunken-Darkwing.

-Funny bit where he gets his Darkwing and "Drakespeare" costumes confused.