DuckTales is a show that enjoys genre play from time to time—as evidenced by last week’s dive into four-camera sitcoms—and this episode has lots of fun messing around with James Bond-style spy hijinks. While it’s mostly a feature for Launchpad and Dewey, Scrooge and Webby get in on the action in an entertaining subplot.
Dewey is obsessed with a fancy new VR game at Funso’s Fun Zone, a slick spy romp. He’s determined to beat it, but his partner, Launchpad, keeps tripping them up. However, the duo gets more than they bargained for when they encounter a real heavy within the game, unaware that the stakes have suddenly changed. All the while, Webby tries to introduce Scrooge to Funso’s charms.
There’s plenty of fun to be had in the spy-genre spoofing here, both within the game and with the real-world villains. Like, of course the enemy agent has designed an Intelli-Ray that dramatically increases or decreases its targets intelligence, aiming to thwart Scrooge by making him “dumber than the dummies.” We also get talk of evil lairs, goofy code words, and a climactic boat chase. And we get an extra dollop of amusement from the fact that Dewey and Launchpad think all of this is just part of the game. “Oh man, do you know what this means?” Dewey asks Launchpad when they wake up in a prison cell. In unison, they exclaim, “We made it to the next level!”
Oh yeah, and Jay Mantoukas plays the menacing yet clueless henchman Steelbeak, basically doing his Jay Mantoukas shtick throughout. It’s fun, especially watching him play off Beck Bennett’s Launchpad. There’s a terrific scene where they face off at a high-stakes poker table, and each counters with a different card game at every turn; I love how dramatically they intone, “Go fish,” and “Old maid,” at one another.
Scrooge doesn’t see the point in VR spy games—when Dewey asks, “Haven’t you ever wanted to plug into a thrilling high-stakes adventure?”, he simply gestures to himself with an exhibit A expression. But Webby tries to keep him occupied in the arcade so Dewey and Launchpad can play one last round. Unsurprisingly, Scrooge isn’t impressed by Whack-a-Mole. “I pay for the privilege of doing someone else’s yardwork?” he says. “Pass!”
But naturally, it’s only a matter of time before Webby finds something that does hookhim, and David Tennant hilariously plays Scrooge getting Way Too into It. As he quickly gets addicted to the instant gratification of a prospector-themed skee-ball game, he gives spectacularly serious delivery on lines like, “Step aside, Webigail. These side-winding claim jumpers won’t stop me from striking it ticket-rich!” And when the prospect of earning, and subsequently hoarding, tickets comes into play? I think we all know how Scrooge is gonna react to that one!
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