Well, I don’t know if I mentioned this but there’s a list of shows that I want to finish up and review. Oh wait yes I have it’s the opening to most of my posts in this series. Anyway, I realized while doing them that there’s like several Disney Afternoon shows that I have to still do. Five of them in fact, plus another Disney show that just showed on ABC in the early to mid 90s. I think it’s finally time we get to them so we will be alternating from the list to Disney Shows until we are done them all. It’ll be cool and fun. Anyway I decided on putting the Disney Shows in a randomizer and this is the first one that popped out. We can now finally discuss The Mighty Ducks.
Now you all know that I am a fat balding nerd weirdo outcast. So you also know that I just do not care for sports. At least watching them on the TV. I’ve never gone to an actual game but it seems like a far more engaging time than just sitting and watching them on TV. It’s not like I’m ever going to do that either but I can’t completely say it’s just as boring as that (nothing was more boring to me as a kid than sports.) The closest I ever got was collecting sports cards from Mickey D’s and enjoying movies like The Mighty Ducks, The Sandlot and other sports movies. Couldn’t tell you how to play baseball but I could tell you the entire damn plot of The Sandlot.
The Mighty Ducks starring Mr. Emilio Estevez came to theatres on October 2nd, 1992. 31 years ago! It was directed by Stephen Herek who directed Critters and Bill And Ted’s Excellent Adventure. Only bangers in Mister Herek’s film career. Well I never saw Mister Holland’s Opus, and I probably never will. Anyway the movie was a silly comedy about a kids hockey team and it was POPULAR AS FUCK. So popular in fact that Disney created their own Hockey Team The Mighty Ducks in 1993. (They were later sold off and are now known as a the boring ass name of Anehiem Ducks) I never watched hockey but the Mighty Ducks were so damn popular that I’m sure I owned at least one shirt with them on it. That duck wearing a mask is fucking badass still today to me as a grown ass man (supposedly)
Anyway the movie was a hit (spawned two sequels) and the team was a hit. Disney then decided why not try a cartoon. It couldn’t hurt. I mean this was like the end days of the Disney Afternoon. I think Gargoyles left because they wanted to put it on ABC Saturday Mornings for the third season. You had Bonkers and Aladdin and that was it. Or maybe it was something else. I don’t know because even I had left at this point. I have seen one episode of Quack Pack (more on that in another post) and that was enough for me until I had to make this stupid blog and this stupid blog post series thing. Anyway I was off watching other things at this point. I do know that UPN probably giving Disney more money for a different Afternoon block along with them opening a new TV Channel called Toon Disney all but meant the end for The Disney Afternoon (which was only 90 minutes now!)
The Final Shows were Quack Pack (mentioned above) and The Mighty Ducks. I have never actually seen the Mighty Ducks cartoon to the best of my memory. I saw some clips here and there but never a full episode. Seemed interesting enough. I mean who can hate on a cartoon show that gives us Tim Curry, Clancy Brown, and Tony Jay as voices? Just one of those guys is able to give your ear an orgasm, so who knows what all three can do!?!? (Also dreadfully sorry for putting the idea of an ear orgasm into your head). This show started in 1996, September 6 in fact and ran on every Friday (Just like the Legend of Zelda cartoon!) until Janurary 17th, 1997 for a whopping total of 26 episodes and one season. Oh, here’s where I just drop the whole one season rule. I just wanna talk about shows that didn’t even last as long as 26 episodes on this little thing. It’s fun. So EAT BEANS AND FART PORTNOYD.
I should talk more about the voice cast because this show really had a stellar one. It had Jim Belushi (I like him more than his brother and no I don’t care how much of a hot take that is), Jennifer Hale (she was born here in my province of Newfoundland!!!), April Winchell, Townsend Coleman, Rob Paulsen (legally you have to have him in your cartoon. It’s the only reason why he’s voiced 92,099 characters) Brad Garrett (this guy should have done more voice acting and yes he plays the big strong guy character) and Frank Welker (it is also illegal to make a cartoon without him. also illegal to have anyone else make animal noises for your movies too). Not to mention Jeff Bennett, JOHNNY BRAVO HIMSELF. Quite the cast I must say.
I watched the first episode which is mostly the origin story, I keep wanting to start a thing called the First Episode where I go over the origin story (or the First Episode if no origin exists) for shows like this so I won’t go into too great detail. The Mighty Ducks live on Puckworld (yes) in an alternate dimension. They end up fighting the bad guys, Tim Curry Dragon Man and his henchmen and they escape to earth due to a dimension portal. You know the real stuff. A pretty good amusing opening two parter. It pretty much tells you everything you need to know about the show. I hope one day I finally do the First Episode thing.
Anyway The Final Episode was entitled “To Catch A Duck” and was written by Marty Isenberg, Robert N Skir and David Wise (who all created this series!) Marty wrote for like every cartoon in the 1990s ever. Robert N Skir wrote IT’S FLASHBEAGLE, CHARLIE BROWN which is a masterpiece. And David Wise wrote a LOT of Ninja Turtles. This is actually not the Final Episode but I watched it so I will give a brief summary because why the hell not? Anyway it starts with Duke L’Orange, who used to be a thief being accused of wanting to go back to being a thief. Tim Curry Dragon Man then gets Falcone who used to be in Duke’s gang to earth via the portal. I guess the portal can only be opened for very short amounts of time so they can’t use to to escape. Or maybe I’m just overthinking “fun escapist” cartoon from the 1990s. Anyway Duke makes Falcone think he joined him (but he still gets double crossed) anyway it all ends on a nice note. However when I went to Wikipedia to find out how to spell a characters name I saw that another episode was Chronologically the last and you know what that means. I write a whole lot of words about it after watching it.
The Actual Final Episode is called The Final Face Off, and boy howdy is it ever a good one. This episode starts with Tim Curry Dragon Man finding a source of Plot Device Crystals that he needs to open the portal so big that he can bring in the entire fleet of Star ships to blow the planet to shit. The thing is the Crystals are found on the Lost City of Atlantis. So he sends his henchmen Chameleon down there to find the crystals. Chameleon sees a statue and decides to turn into the guy who the statue is of. Luckily it turns out to be a prince!
Chameleon as the Prince goes and finds out that another guy has taken over for the prince. He says he knows what happened to the real prince, but Chameleon says the Atlanteans love him so he’s not getting rid of him that easy. So they end up forming a bond. Tim Curry Dragon Man calls Chameleon back because he only had one hour to find the crystals and Chameleon tells him to pretty much piss off. This angers Tim Curry Dragon Man but he reckons that the Mask worn by Wildwing (which can see things that are invisible) will be able to see where Atlantis moved. The Ducks end up falling for the trap because they think they trapped Seege one his henchmen. However it turns out that only a duck can wear the mask so Wildwing and Seege have to team up to steal the crystals.
Seege and Wildwing teleport there easily but Seege decides to try to hurt Chameleon while he still looks like the prince which is not a good thing for them. They end up in the prison where they find the prince who is weak without his spectre. The Prince has that weak cartoon character voice that I am sure dates back to the 1940s. I do not know if it was based on an actor from that time but you’ve heard this voice if you watched a single cartoon in your life. It’s been used 9,000 times. Anyway Wildwing gets the guard to use his mask by saying he can see all kinds of things and the guard is a moron and they get the key. Freeing everyone. Seege runs off to get the crystals while Wildwing has to fight some guards. The Weak Prince runs off to find the spectre.
Seege finds the crystals and finds Chameleon without guards. He also finds Wildwing and tells Chameleon to set him up to get LAVA POURED OVER HIM. I don’t think Seege likes Wildwing very much. However the Weak Prince is able to stop the machine that created the cool handcuff effects that held down Wildwing. Wildwing finds the spectre. He also talks to the Prince when hes strong and this character was clearly voiced by Jeff Bennett because he uses the Johnny Bravo voice. He does not get to call any of the girl ducks Sugar Momma. Meanwhile Jim Belushi the Manager of the Mighty Ducks hockey team and a cop (voiced by Dennis Franz, yes that show my butthole on NBC Dennis Franz) find there way to the spaceship (it can disguise itself) and they go in. They find some guns nad help rescue the ducks.
However Seege and Chameleon had gotten the crystals back and they even forced the Ducks off the ship, however they had landed on the Aerowing (quick check on eBay has someone wanting 200 bucks for it!) and get inside quickly. They see the Suarian Army coming towards them through the portal and realize the only way they can win is if they blow up the portal making device, which they do, Sticking them on Planet Earth. The bad guys ship gets hit, explodes and gets knocked into the ocean. The Mighty Ducks win the hockey game that I forgot to mention earlier on was a big deal and they are going to the Stanley Cup!
FINAL VERDICT: I really like this show. It’s very enjoyable and charming stuff. I wish I had watched more of it as a kid. This Final Episode is pretty good, it’s a good enough ending but had there been season two you could still pick up where it left off. Now I’m off to search eBay for the toys which are way too expensive. Yes, I will still complain about that shit JERKS.
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