User Reviews

This special concludes the second season of Ducktales, which features the debut of Fenton Crackshell. The story involves the Beagle Boys changing the plan for a Freeway to cross the path of Scrooge McDuck's Money Bin, which means it has to be moved. This is part of their plan to intercept it and steal it for Ma Beagle as a birthday gift to her. Knowing things are dangerous, Scrooge hires an accountant named Fenton Crackshell to help him transfer his fortune. When all of money is almost lost to the Beagles, Scrooge realizes he needs somebody to guard the bin, especially with it in its new location, so he asks Gyro Gearloose to build a robot security guard that won't let anybody near said bin. Gyro, as usual, takes things too literally and makes sure the security guard doesn't let ANYBODY near it. With Scrooge unable to even get near his fortune now, he has the inventor build another security guard, this time a robotic super suit. He programs the suit with a codeword, "Blatherskite," as he feels nobody in the world would every regularly say that, but Fenton happens to stumble on it, and was luck would have he says the codeword all the time, and when he utters it by accident the suit attaches himself Gizmo-Duck. Gizmo-Duck defeats the robot, becomes Scrooge's new security guard, and winds up defeating the Beagle Boys. Things are looking great until Ma Beagle gets ahold of the control-manual to Gizmo-Duck's gizmo-suit! With it, and the help of the genius Beagle Megabyte, they are able to take over Gizmo-Duck, causing him to loot the city on a crime spree, and also steal Scrooge's Money Bin! Now Gizmo-Duck is helpless as the Beagle Boys' personal servant, as well as an outlaw wanted by the police, Scrooge is now penniless, and the Beagle Boys own everything! Have the crooks finally won? It starts off great, becomes even better once Fenton becomes his robotic alter-ego, and fantastic once the Beagle Boys take over Gizmo-Duck. However, things wind up falling apart during the final act, as the shift on the Beagle Boys disappears, with aliens taking over the villain role, and Scrooge, Launchpad, and Gizmo-Duck wind up pursuing them into outer space. The part was completely unnecessary, which is the reason it loses a star. However, despite this weak final chapter, the animation is topnotch for the entire thing and the voices are as always above-par, including the addition of Hamilton Camp to the cast as Fenton/Gizmo-Duck. This special is near-perfect, with, as mentioned before, I feel the Beagle Boys should have been the baddies start to finish, instead of pulling the alien villains out of nowhere. Despite this shortcoming though, it's still a really fun watch. Sadly, though, Ducktales reruns aren't on the air right now, so the special isn't even available to view in its 5-part episode form, but here's hoping we'll eventually see a Ducktales DVD with this classic saga included.