Really great episode! It’s super entertaining while staying firmly rooted in who the characters are, and the Scrooge-and-the-kids-adventure premise hearkens back a bit to season 1.
Every decade, Scrooge has to travel to Valhalla to do battle in the ring against Jormungandr, the snake who encircles the world, to keep him from destroying the Earth. This time, he’s brought the kids along to help prepare them for eventually taking over one day, but a mid-fight injury moves the timetable up. While Dewey is psyched about the idea of wrestling a fearsome snake man, he’s thrown for a loop when he realizes that in Valhalla, Team Earth are the heels, not the heroes.
This is a terrific episode in part because each of the characters are so spot on. Everything they do—their jokes, their contributions to the adventure, their more grounded moments—are all so reflective of who each of them are. Earlier in the season, the four-camera sitcom episode spoofed the idea of boiling them down to their most basic trait, but here, they’re all so effortlessly themselves without any gimmicks.
After they fly through the rainbow bridge to Valhalla, Webby exclaims, “Is that a barbarian with a battle axe? They found a way to make rainbows better!” When they arrive at the wrestling ring and see somebody selling Jormungandr vs. Scrooge T-shirts, Louie remarks, “Hmm, merchandising. Guess Louie knows what Louie’s doing today.” Launchpad jumps in to commentate the match, explaining, “I watch a lotta wrestling while I fly.” (Cue Huey’s consternated, “Wait, while?”) Huey tries to help with the commentary, but he gets so frazzled by his confusion about the sport that he winds up using his hat to mop the sweat off his brow.
Dewey gets the largest focus in the episode. While Scrooge dismisses him out of hand early on, naming the other three kids as his potential successors, I like where the story eventually goes with it. It’s not that Scrooge doesn’t believe Dewey can fight. It’s that he knows it’s their job to play the heel, and he realizes Dewey will have a hard time being hated by the crowd. Sure enough, when the kids have to step in after Scrooge gets injured, Dewey spends more time trying to win over the audience instead of actually focusing on winning the match. Again, this is very in character for him, and it gives him a good internal conflict to wrestle with throughout the episode.
We get a strong showing from David Tennant here, who does a good job of hamming it up as the Millionaire Miser, Scrooge’s wrestling persona. He’s also the mouthpiece for the episode’s moral, emphasizing to Dewey that doing the right thing (in their case, literally saving the world) isn’t always popular, but it still needs to be done.
Tennant’s best line delivery comes when Dewey unveils a foolproof character that he thinks is sure to be embraced by the crowd. He cheerily calls after Dewey, “Yes, lad! Great! I believe in you!”, before turning to Webby and adding, “Do all the fighting, and make sure he doesn’t die.” Love it!
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