Duck Man Part 4 - When there's trouble you call DW!

Okay, today is a post I have been saving for some time. This is the post about my favorite Duckiverse character and my favorite animated TV series of all time: Darkwing Duck. What can I say about Darkwing Duck, one of the wittiest, smartest written cartoon shows of all time. As I rewatch episodes as an adult, I constantly find myself asking the question, “This show was supposed to be for kids?” The comedy is so sharp and the storytelling so great that much of it must have been lost on me as a kid. Although I loved it even then. The broad characters and imaginative storylines kept me engrossed then. The obscure references and fast-pace dialogue keeps me laughing now.

For those that don’t know, Darkwing Duck was a show that came on Saturday mornings and as a part of the famed weekday afternoon programming block known as The Disney Afternoon. The show was created by brilliant animation writer and director Tad Stones, and stared one of my favorite voice actors Jim Cummings as the title character. While the show did feature crossover characters like Gizmo Duck and Launchpad McQuack, Tad Stones is adamant that the show was not a spin off. It was a totally separate show in the same universe.

The show is at the same time parody of and an homage to campy comic book characters from the sixties and seventies as well as the fabulous radio dramas of the forties and fifties. Darkwing’s famous catchphrase, “I am the terror that flaps in the night; I am the winged scourge that pecks at your nightmares; I am Darkwing Duck,” is a play on the catchphrases of characters like The Shadow’s “Who knows what evil lurks I the hearts of men? The Shadow knows.” And so entrenched in comic book conventions was the show, that Tad Stones would often say in story meetings when discussing episodes, “Pitch me the comic book cover.”

The thing that appeals to me is that Darkwing is a “super hero” who isn’t terribly good at it, but has made this his calling in life, so is really passionate about it. He also has kind of a snarky, sarcastic sense of humor about him. He will never go after a bad guy without a quippy one liner. He such an endearing and funny anti-hero.

It doesn’t get much funnier or more original in the Duckiverse for me than Darkwing Duck. And it holds up too. So much so in fact that I now carry around literally every episode on my phone. I can watch DW and his cohorts anywhere anytime.

And just to bring it full circle, Boom Studios began running a Darkwing Duck comic book last year, which began as a four part run, but then was so popular it became an ongoing series. Ian Brill who writes the comic does Darkwing’s fans proud in my opinion. He’s captured the sense of humor and style very well. And just like with the TV series, though it is considered to be “for kids,” it’s definitely got an edge to it that I think adults can appreciate. Really great, great stuff.

I can’t really think an ending that segues nicely into a DW catchphrase, so I’ll just end with:

Let’s get dangerous.

CG