MovieChat Forums > DuckTales (1987) Discussion > As much as I like this show...

As much as I like this show...

posted 16 years ago by furienna
3 replies | jump to latest

As much as I like this show, there are two things about it, which just keep bothering me.

1: What the heck happened to Webby in the 2nd season? It was almost like she didn't exist anymore. Her grandmother, Mrs Beakly, had a much bigger role than what she did. There are even two late episodes, "The billionare Beagle Boys club" and "Metal attraction", where we get to see her, but she doesn't get any lines. I know that there were many characters on the show, but was it really so hard to give her some screen time too? I would have been satisfied, if they only had shown Webby play with the boys and let her have a line or two in every other episode. But nah...

2: And what were those writers thinking, when they fixed Fenton, who was mercilessly portrayed as a geek and a klutz, up with that ungrateful picky wussy bimbo Gandra Dee? This has to be the worst pairing, that Disney made in anything, that they ever produced. And I'm counting both TV shows and movies here, cartoons as well as live action. Fenton and Gandra were so wrong for each other, that I could write an essay about it. In real life, someone like Gandra would never have dated someone like Fenton in the first place, never in a million years. And why does he like her? Because it certainly isn't that he gets love and support from her, even though he needs it so badly. And it's not that he can confide in her, or that she even appreciates what he does for her. But of course, she's pretty, and... well, what else? Well, nothing else, that's what! She simply has the looks of a Barbie doll, but also the bland personality of one. Or when she does show a bit of personality, I don't like what I see, because even though I guess she's supposed to be nice to Fenton, she often just comes across as picky and ungrateful and chilly towards him. But that's okay, isn't it, because good looks is everything, that a guy wants in his girlfriend, even when he needs love and support, right? Well, that's the message, that "Duck Tales" gave us with that pairing: "Girls have to be pretty wusses, or not even geeks like Fenton will want them. It doesn't even matter, if they are always chilly and ungrateful towards you, even though you need love and support. Because good looks is all, that is important in a girlfriend." Well, I do understand, that they didn't do that on purpose. Or at least, I hope they didn't. But that's how it comes across to me, and it annoys me to no end.

Yes, it's true! IMDB has reached Sweden!

[–] HyperJango 16 years ago

Webby wasn't the only one we saw less of in series 2. What about Launchpad? Fenton seems to have his role instead. just as well he appeared in Darkwing Duck. Dofus only had a cameo. it seemed Bubba replaced him.

[–] furienna 16 years ago

Fenton didn't replace Launchpad. Launchpad was seen in at least half of the episodes from the second season, which is more than what can be said about poor Webby. I haven't seen much of season 1, so I don't know much about Doofus. But as you might know, they phased out Bubba, since he wasn't interesting enough, and they had a hard time coming up with good stories for him. And I'm afraid, that it was the same thing with Doofus.

What bothers me about how they marginalized Webby is that they could easily have shown her more, if they had only had shown her hanging out with the nephews a bit more. Can that really have been that difficult? I know that there were many characters (maybe too many) at that point, who all deserved their fair share of screen time. But it was weird, that Webby's grandmother, Mrs Beakly, was shown much more than what she was. Not to mention that Webby wasn't even shown in episodes like "The bride wore stripes", "Blue collar Scrooge" or "Scrooge's last adventure", where they showed everyone else, who lived in the McDuck mansion, or that she didn't have one single line in the entire "Super Duck Tales" mini series.

Yes, it's true! IMDB has reached Sweden!

[–] furienna 13 years ago

I know it's been more than two years since this thread was last active. But as I've recently started re-watching this show (or well, the last twenty episodes of it), I've decided to bump it. Because I feel that the second point, that I brought up in my original post, never was properly discussed: The terrible mistake from the writers of this show, that was the ungrateful bitch of a bimbo called Gandra Dee. She might only have been shown in six episodes and mentioned in one more. But that was plenty enough to make me hate her guts.

As a little girl, I didn't think much about either Fenton or Gandra. But when I "rediscovered" this show about a decade ago through some old VCR tapes, I began seeing it with more mature eyes. And I really started loving Fenton. But I also started loathing Gandra. She's just awful. Maybe she could have worked as a love interest/girlfriend to Gladstone Gander, if he only had been on the show more, or even Launchpad McQuack. But you only have to watch the episodes "Metal attraction" and "The big flub" to see how wrong she is for Fenton, and (no matter hwow much I love him) how stupid he is to not dump her sorry ungrateful bimbo ass.

It doesn't help either, that my brother has ended up in just such a dysfunctional relationship since I opened this thread. So now, I have even less tolerance for these ungrateful bitches, who constantly treat their men like crap, but still can pull them back to themselves, as if they were puppets on strings, whenever they feel like it. And it doesn't matter, if they're "only" TV character. I hate Judith on "Two and a half men" for the same reason. As a matter of fact, she and Alan remind me too much of Fenton and Gandra, or the other way around. There are even similarities between Fenton's and Alan's mothers!

People talk a lot about women being abused by men. But there are some really awful women out there as well, and there are also poor men, who can't get around to dump them, so they end up in bad relationships. (Like I said earlier, my own brother is one of them.) And it pains me to see such a relationship being portraited as something good in a TV show, that (as enjoyable as it is even for grown-ups) is mostly meant for children. Okay, I have to admit, that I didn't notice it as a little girl, and it went over my head until I was like eighteen years old. So I can only assume, that the same goes for most other people, who first watched this show as children. But what kind of message was Disney trying to get across with the Fenton/Gandra pairing? That just because she's beautiful and the woman, she's always right, even when she isn't?

I guess many of those, who have read this far, have started thinking something like this: "It's just a cartoon, and an old one at that! Get over it!" But this irks me too much to keep me from saying something about it. And I also find it a shame, that an otherwise so good TV show as "Duck Tales" made such a big mistake. Instead of putting so much effort into making Gandra oh so beautiful, they could so have given Gandra a much better personality instead, making her a much better match for poor Fenton. But they didn't, and I don't understand why not.

Intelligence and purity.