"Better a fallen rocket than never a burst of light."
~ Tom Stoppard, The Invention of Love

Monday, March 21, 2022

Other Doctor Lives: DuckTales: Season 1, Episode 10 – “McMystery at McDuck McManor!” (2018)

This one is listed as episode 13 on IMDb. Fun story—it takes a couple of time-honored tropes and puts an amusing spin on them, and there’s a lot of amusing interactions between the triplets.

Most people in Scrooge’s life knows that he hates birthday parties and steer clear at all costs, but Huey, Dewey, and Louie haven’t known their uncle very long. Huey, a meticulous party-planner, sets out to throw Scrooge the best birthday party ever, which goes about as well as you’d expect… until a surprise turn of events takes the night in a different direction.

All of the triplets are on point here. You wouldn’t necessarily look at Huey and think “party planner,” but his way of going about it definitely fits into his methodical, checklist-writing wheelhouse. Then you’ve got Louie abdicating all responsibility for dropping the ball on his side of things and Dewey being an obnoxious party DJ who communicates in emoticons and keytar sound effects (yes, because that’s exactly what Scrooge would want.)

The details of the party are good, and some familiar faces pop up. We’re treated to further examples of Glamgold’s ludicrously-convoluted plans, one of which involves a chainsaw axe! And while I predicted certain elements for how the plot shakes out—how could you not with a premise as well-worn as “X hates birthday parties, but Y is determined to throw them a huge bash anyway”?—other bits of it take a fun turn.

For an episode premise that centers around Scrooge, the story is actually much more about Huey and his brothers. Still, what we get from Scrooge is fun, absolute peak curmudgeon mode. Just for the animation, I love the visual of him sulking on a metal folding chair in his lavish hall. And David Tennant gets in a few primo cranky lines. I especially enjoy Scrooge heckling his party “illusionist” (there’s a very GOB Bluth-esque distinction): “The card’s in his pocket, next to a dove!”

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