Heading Back To Duckburg...

New episodes of Ducktales will premiere on DisneyXD in 2017...and that's all we know, but it's enough. Lots of people, myself included, LOVE THAT SHOW. Without using a calculator, I would say the show will have had a 27-year "hiatus" before the series returns to television...on expanded cable. The only other show that's had this kind of belated renewal was The Jetsons, which had 51 new episodes premiere in 1985 - almost 25 years since the original series debuted in 1962 and abruptly ended in 1963 after just 24 (!) episodes. And 2017 will mark the 30th Anniversary of Ducktales' debut.

The press release announcing the return suggested that Donald Duck might be joining the cast of characters in a regular supprting role; fans of the series are aware that he was only a recurring character in the first two seasons, appearing in a handful of memorable episodes. If he DOES return as a regular, then we might see more episodes inspired by the Carl Barks comic books that inspired the series, plus we'll see some more byplay between Scrooge, Donald & Launchpad McQuack, who is also coming back. I'm also curious about whether the production team behind the new series will incorporate other elements from the Disney Comics Universe, whether they be design elements  (Donald's black shirt, which is my shorthand indicator that we're watching Carl Bark's Donald, who is a more interesting incarnation of the duck than in the old Disney cartoons), storylines (Don Rosa & William Van Horn's duck-tales), or characters  (Brigitta MacBridge, Rumpus McFowl, Fethry Duck), or whole status quos ( Donald's Paperinik incarnation, aka, Duck Avenger or P.K., which is a whole phenomenon in Europe and South American Disney Comics, and has occasionally seen print in the United States - I'll know for sure if I can spot Ducklair Tower incorporated in the new designs for the city of Duckburg). There is some debate across the web about what the new episodes will look like, since most revivals of older cartoons tend to adopt new influences in animation and design - the only exception being Family Guy, which it's creator, Seth MacFarlane, sought to have the series return be seemless, as if there had been no "break" between the 3rd and 4th seasons.

Also notably absent in the list of characters returning to the series are late-series additions Fenton Crackshell/Gizmoduck and Bubba Duck...I suppose with Donald back, you don't really need Fenton or Gizmoduck - especially if they adapt Donald's superhero incarnation...and Bubba didn't have much to do after his initial introduction, so I wouldn't be surprised if they were recurring guest-stars instead. Speaking of guest-stars, what about Darkwing Duck? Do I need to explain why? What about Darkwing Duck?

I'm not sure what the new series will look like, but if Disney is looking for new hands, I wouldn't mind seeing Dave Alvarez contribute - he's been trying his hand at sketching Disney characters and posting the effort on his Facebook page after becoming better known for his work drawing the Looney Tunes gang, and I am impressed with the results, particularly the gag with Donald's shirt and the brawl in Scrooge's money bin. I also recommend James Silvani - his work on the Darkwing Duck comics has been stellar, plus his Facebook page has a phenomenal gallery of sketches.

I'm also curious if Disney will promote the series with a new freemium game. I wasn't impressed with Scrooge's Loot, but I liked briefly having an app icon with Scrooge's face on my mobile phone. I would prefer a city-building game similar to Simpsons Tapped Out, which would have the player build their own version of Duckburg using familiar buildings and characters.

2017 seems too far away to me...maybe in the interim, Disney will finally release the remaining episodes of the series on DVD? At least the comic books are coming back...and viral marketing campaigns - I saw an episode of "Fresh Off The Boat" that featured a brief clip of Scrooge swimming in his money bin, most likely culled from the Ducktales title sequence, just one week after the big announcement was made. My response? "More viral marketing promoting my favorite childhood TV cartoon, please." :)

Joe & Nora's Halloween Playlist - Issue #13

Time to get my Halloween viewing list ready...

While everyone else is picking movies, I'm watching a collection of old tv shows/specials. Here's the list, in no particular order:

1) Garfield's Halloween Adventure

2) Witch's Night Out

3) The Great Bear Scare

4) Simpson's Treehouse of Horror - just a bunch of the earlier installments

5) It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown

6) Bugs Bunny's Howl-O-Ween Special

7) Filmation's Ghostbusters - the dvd box set of this cartoon series was available in a number of DVD discount stores and I picked 'em up before they vanished. Good Deal!

8) The Batman vs. Dracula - spinoff of the underrated "The Batman" cartoon (2004-2008) which is actually a great Batman film and a great Dracula movie!

9) Ducktales episodes - Hotel Strangeduck, TheMasked Mallard and Ducky Horror Picture Show

10) DTV Halloween - part of a series of 80's Disney specials in which pop music was play over cartoon footage. Very YouTube before there was YouTube. The Halloween special is my favorite, but I don't have it complete (I had used the tape to record Ducktales episodes and the content erased the first 25 minutes of this special! The same fate happened with the Sport Goofy: Soccermania cartoon - which I would love to see on DVD or Blu-Ray some day)

11) Disney' Halloween Treat - I think I've got this on a tape somewhere...it's the only way - Disney tends to look forward - nostalgia is not te first thing on their plate. The tape might also have an episode of "Wonderful World of Disney" devoted to Disney villains. Hope I didn't erase that with some nonsense...

12)  MTV Celebrity Deathmatch Halloween Special - this is just great fun

13) Donald Duck "Trick or Treat" - great Halloween cartoon short

Cartoons, cartoons, cartoons, eh? Yeah, yeah, yeah...
I believe I've gone into overtime if I expect to watch all of this through the weekend at reasonable hours - I know there's lots more - maybe next year...

Yellow Journalism: Trouble on Mt.Olympus- Comic Book Rehab, Yellow Cover, Issue #1

Another year, another contract dispute. All the Simpsons cancellation rumors got me thinking about brushing up my Simpsons history, so I checked out a book, The Simpsons: An Uncensored, Unauthorized History.  Like an Apocryphal Bible, I dive in to read what I haven't read before.

Now it turns out the show has been renewed for two more seasons - what to do? Well, there is something amiss - a mystery! I'll solve it! Why do people complain so much about the decline in quality of the show? My only clue will be John Ortved's book.

Fact: The show's creator, Matt Groening, isn't quite as (or, to put it dangerously, never was) involved in the day-to-day output of the show's production. In fact, according to the book, he's much more involved in the cottage industry of Simpsons merchandising and stamping his signature on it. The book makes no mention of Bongo comics, the company he owns which has published Simpsons (and Futurama) comics and is currently approaching its 20th year in business. Next to Image comics, it is one of the few, true success stories of the comic book marketplace in the 1990's.

Fact: The job of showrunner (the top banana among the writers who serves as chief wrangler) has been held by Al Jean for nearly a decade, the longest time served in the show's history. In the past, showrunners served an average of two years. Mike Scully (who ran the show before Jean), served for four. Although it is a cartoon, The Simpsons is a show where the writers are the driver and engine, and the book hints that during Jean's tenure the quality of the scripts have softened the show's edge and the spontaneity has been lost. In the past, the show had a small, but talented circle of writers working in a single room. Today, the show has many writers working out of two conference rooms (between the lines, Ortved is hinting that the episodes now have a watered-down, written-by-committee feel that may be the real cause of what's happening).

Fact:  The upstart competition is outpacing the forerunners. Ortved is no fan of Family Guy, but he admits the show's popularity (and that of creator Seth MacFaarlane) are echos of The Simpsons glory days in the early 90's.

Fact,fact, fact,fact...

Conclusion: My conclusion is something that Ortved neglected to mention and is staring him right in the face. The Simpsons are no longer a gimmick. When the show premiered, people ooh and aah'd the return of the prime-time animated sitcom. When the show became popular in the early years, they had a merchandising feast and wow'd over that. When the show became a launchpad for a number of writers who went on to have successfull careers launching their own shows, the show became established. When the show spawned imitators, upstarts, rip-offs and parodies, the show became a class act. When Celebrities began appearing on the show (and never stopped), it became trendy to people in the mainstream media and no longer required persuasion to watch it. When the movie came out, people wondered what took so damn long.

We're waiting for something new to talk about - a new gimmick concern to lump the show under. I believe that a show's lifespan has its own rite of passage, and when it runs as long as the Simpsons, people begin to look at it as if it achieved Godhood - to cancel it would be unthinkable. Really?  Are we really bored with the show, or is the show bored with its audience?  That is the question...the question that has not been asked...the question that might bring the end of all things... yellow... ;)

By the way, I did enjoy the book, especially the profiles of Groening, Sam Simon, George Meyer and John Swartzwelder, whose books are hard to find (aren't hard-to-find books the kind that should be available in public libraries?). That is the question...the question that has not been asked...the question that might bring the end of all things...

I am curious (yellow)! ;)