The Final Episode #93: Darkwing Duck (1991 - 1992)

 

You know I'm thinking of what I want to be the top 100 shows I review for this thing. I want it to be weird and wild but also have stuff people other than me care(d) about. It can't all just be The Raccoons and Caroline in the City. It's gotta be some mainstream stuff because I liked a lot of that too. I knew that there are two shows (both Disney!) that I want to include in the top 100 so well, you can expect another Disney show (or two!) in the top 100. Where will they show up! You'll have to wait, you impatient asshole. Anyway I knew I had to discuss my favorite Disney Afternoon show as a kid, which would just happen to be Darkwing Duck.

One weird thing I learned just now is that Darkwing Duck somehow started it's life out as a sequel to Rocky and Bullwinke and Friends called The Secret Life of Bullwinkle. One Disney guy thought because they were selling VHS of the show meant that they owned it now. However this wasn't the case and it happened one week before they were going to show it to higher ups. However at the same time a fella by the name of Tad Stones (which might be THE coolest name ever.) was told by Jeffery Katzenberg himself to do something with a DuckTales episode called Double O Duck. Tad didn't think the secret agent stuff was doing well at the time and he was kinda right too. License to Kill had failed in the box office and critically and James Bond would go away for half a decade. He also felt that Launchpad would not work as a main hero, and I think I'd probably agree with him. He was fine for that one episode but it didn't work as a full show.

So he turned it into a superhero parody and Launchpad became Darkwing's partner in crime fighting. GizmoDuck shows up but for whatever reason Tad Stones says this isn't a DuckTales spinoff... even though in a later episode Glomgold and Magica De Spell have cameos. Yeah, sorry Tad but that sounds like spinoff material to me. Or they are all just alternative universe versions of the DuckTales characters which would still kinda make it a spinoff. I don't know why I'm writing this here. I guess I just wanted to get my thoughts on this very important matter out there. Hey it's important to ME! 

Anyway Darkwing Duck  was a superhero spoof. or parody or whatever you want to call it. And I thought and still think it was a pretty funny one. He would even work with a secret agent service involving characters that probably were in the Double O Duck show, like that old bird and the angry bear. I liked that angry bear. Darkwing Duck was not like your regular superheroes. He was selfish, at times pretty stupid and egotistical. He didn't want to help people out of the goodness of his heart but for praise! He ends up getting a foster daughter named Gosayln who was a fun character in her own right. Launchpad was also here as mentioned above. The banter between these guys worked out wonderfully.

All of the regular bad guys were a hoot. Megavolt (voiced by Homer Simpson himself!), Quackerjack, Bushroot, Steelbeak, Liquidator, and many one offs were all a lot of fun to watch. The show could also get weird and dark at times which is always fun for a Disney show. One example that most people bring up is how Darkwing Duck thanks to time travel shinaningans loses Gosayln and becomes a crazed lunatic called Darkwarrior Duck who jails people for even jay walking. There's also an episode where Darkwing Duck is mistaken for a potato vampire (hey its still a cartoon) and is almost staked through the heart. I saw that episode recently and I was like "WHAT THE FUCK" when that scene came up. It's no wonder that at one point at least six of the ninety one episodes were banned. One is still banned. Thankfully I watched this show in reruns in Canada and we aren't WIMPY BABIES like America.

The biggest reason I didn't rewatch The Final Episode of this sooner is that I remember the Final Episode clearly. Some shows I never knew what was the Final Episode or if I had ever seen it before. A lot of these are the first time I'm seeing these episodes. I know this one was the Final Episode because it would rerun on the Family Channel (which is the Disney Channel for Canada. I don't think it exists anymore) and I remember thinking it was lame. Like it was one of the few episodes of the show that I went "well I could have easily played some Super Nintendo instead of watching this".  Unlike Little Michael's feelings on TaleSpin being dumb and incorrect. He was and still is right about this episode. It's very lame.

So what is the Final Episode of Darkwing Duck all about huh? Well it involves time travel using Quackerjack's time top that Darkwing has now, but before that let's mention the writers of this episode. It was written by Tad Stones and Dev Ross. Dev wrote for like every Disney cartoon including stuff like Jungle Cubs that no one remembers except me. She also wrote several Land Before Time sequels but I'm not going to hold that against her. She wrote some great episodes of Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers and Darkwing Duck AND the newest Care Bears show. I'm not going to praise this episode but they've totally done fine work before it's just you don't hit it out of the park every time man. Not even Babe Ruth did that. Actually I don't know and I don't care to look up.

Anyway, "Extinct Possibility" the Final Episode of Darkwing Duck was brought into our world on December 12th, 1992. I'm surprised it wasn't a Christmas episode. (I've mentioned it before but can you believe four shows ended on a Christmas episode.) Anyway Darkwing Duck and the gang are brought to a museum to figure out this problem. The problem is that there's a Darkwing Duck stuck in amber from way way way back in the time of the Dinosaurs. So Darkwing Duck is freaked out and decides to use Quackerjack's Time Top (I did not expect to say that so many times in this post but here we are). They go back to the Dinosaurs age and they find out Dinosaurs can talk!

Woah! Not only that but the Dinosaurs in this universe have captured and apparently killed all ape like creatures. So that's why ducks and other animals apparently rule in this universe. Wild. Anyway one of the Dinosaurs think that Darkwing and the gang are mutants so he goes to show the other smart Dinosaurs and this is the big reason why I think this episode stinks so badly. I really really really do not like these Dinosaurs. Something about their voices and the one joke that they run into the ground of their inventions being the opposite of what you normally see. Like concrete wheels and rubber roads. 

So Darkwing has to sit through some dumb jokes that don't work and he finally mentions that he fights crime in the future. These dinosaurs then talk about Johnny T Rex and his gang of miscreants. Johnny T for some reason is a Greaser. You know like the Fonz, except not fun to watch. Anyway he and his gang fight Darkwing until Gosayln gets the great idea of challenging him to a race. The race pretty much goes well for Darkwing because the two goons get knocked out. Johnny T Rex then smashes the rubber road and stops Darkwing dead in his tracks. However this gets him stuck and Darkwing and the gang just run on foot. Somehow they end up flying because I cannot keep this episode in my head because it's so forgettable and lame. Darkwing wins the race and Johnny T Rex flies off into the distance.

The dumb shitty Dinosaurs with awful annoying voices accidently send Gosayln and Launchpad Back To the Future without Darkwing and well Darkwing gets stuck in a the amber and then we go back ot the museum and Darkwing is saved and then they show that the same thing happened to Johnny T Rex. Woohoo. So happy. 

FINAL VERDICT: I really didn't enjoy this episode 20 years ago as a child and I really don't enjoy it now. It just feels very forced like they were given the mandate to update season 3 to 13 episodes instead of like 12. It feels very last minute and oh man what can we do kinda thing. I don't know, I just know that I would have rather talked about any episode from the last season instead of this one. I really don't like when shows I like or liked end on a bad episode but it's happened before and it will happen again.