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Ladies and gentlemen, the Darkwing Duck Dancers!

Darkwing Duck

Aaaw yeah, "Darkwing Duck", the funny animal version of Batman, was definitely awesome. And he had to be, not just because they actually had him show up the Disney Afternoon intro sequence a year before his show even debuted, but also because it was the first TV cartoon that Disney had airing simultaneously on both weekday afternoons and Saturday mornings. Disney shows, particularly after the 1980s, usually don't go past 65 episodes, but thanks to that milestone, "Darkwing Duck" was one of several exceptions; in fact, it managed to get two whole seasons on ABC's Saturday morning block in addition to the 65 episodes running on weekday afternoons. I've read that they intended to continue the show for a third season on ABC, in which they'd even resolve the cliffhanger that came at the end of the 1992 episode "Steerminator" (where they resurrected Taurus Bulba, the villain from the series premiere, and he swore revenge), but we never got that because Disney canned the series. I have to wonder, though, considering that Disney Adventures magazine was still running "Darkwing Duck" comic stories by 1996, why didn't they just adaptate those unmade episodes into comic stories to be published there? (After all, that's what Gregg Weissman has been doing with the recent "Gargoyles" comic.) Notably, it was also Darkwing who ended up saving the entire Disney Afternoon world in "The Legend of the Chaos God", a five-issue story arc that Disney Adventures did run (click here to see the entirety of this epic crossover of the 1991-92 Disney Afternoon shows). On the downside, though, some folks on JumpTheShark.com actually accused Darkwing of being an "Inspector Gadget" rip-off, despite the fact that there are really no actual similarities. Sadly, while Disney is somehow allowed to put Batman on Disney XD, "Darkwing Duck" is completely AWOL from them now.
Gold Stars: 1

kendra 02/09/09

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