Something I believe Disney is really good at is creating signature jingles for their television shows and movie soundtracks. You wouldn’t have ever had to watch Mary Poppins to know the song “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious” by the Sherman Brothers. You also wouldn’t have had to watch The Jungle Book to know “The Bare Necessities”. Another jingle that comes to mind when thinking about the animation studios is the theme song to the television series DuckTales. The original DuckTales series premiered in September 1987. However, the characters we see in it were introduced much earlier. Let’s discuss the history of DuckTales.

Scrooge McDuck, Webby, Hewie, Dewey, and Louie. Image from: https://animationfascination.wordpress.com/2014/09/18/a-fascinating-day-in-animation-history-disneys-ducktales-1987-1990/

Disney Television Animation

Walt Disney Pictures Television Animation Group was formed under new CEO Michael Eisner in December 1984. The 1980s were large growth periods for the Disney company, as they were trying out new things at the park with the space age becoming popular, and trying to figure out the animated film industry again with the box office failures that were The Rescuers and The Black Cauldron. The studio had done television before with Walt’s anthology series and The Mickey Mouse Club, but never put television at the forefront of the company.

The very first animated television show that Disney put out was The Wuzzles in 1985. That same year, they released Adventures of the Gummi Bears and it ran for 6 years until 1991. The third show to be released from was DuckTales in 1987.

Walt Disney Television Animation logo. Image from: https://closinglogosgroup.miraheze.org/wiki/Walt_Disney_Television

The Idea For DuckTales

Carl Barks was a cartoonist that was hired with Disney in 1935. He originally worked on the “in between” movements of characters, until he was transferred to the storyboard department. His first major projects included the main duck himself, Donald Duck. He began creating comics in the 1940s for Disney after he gained story writing experience. The first comic he did the art for alongside Jack Hannah was Donald Duck Finds Pirate Gold. Almost every comic he created afterward starred Donald Duck as the main protagonist. Donald Duck and the Mummy’s Ring (1943), Donald Tames his Temper (1946), and Donald’s Love Letters (1949), were just a few of the titles he made.

Huey, Dewey and Louie were introduced in a 1937 comic strip called Donald’s Nephews. Just a few months later, the studio turned it into a short film so they could make their film debut. Uncle Scrooge McDuck was introduced in the comic Christmas on Bear Mountain in December 1947. In March of 1952, he got his own comic series called Uncle $crooge Four Colour #386.

All of the duck characters that Barks created and developed became instant hits, and they gave Donald more of an identity as opposed to being one of Mickey’s sidekicks. The comics were what kickstarted the idea for creating a television show based on those characters. Though Carl had retired in the 1960s, many of his scripts and art were used as direct inspiration for some of the storylines of the show.

The Production of DuckTales

Jymn Magon is credited as the creator of DuckTales in 1987, and he also co-wrote some of the first season’s episodes. Other writers for the series included David Weimers, Ken Koonce, Bruce Talkington, Mark Zaslove, Michael Keyes, and more.

DuckTales was Disney’s first syndicated television show, meaning it could be broadcast on multiple different television networks. The first season would run for 65 episodes, which was the standard for cartoons at the time. The series was renewed for a second season in 1988 and 10 more episodes were added. It was continued again in 1989 for the third season, with 18 episodes. The final season aired in 1990, totaling 100 episodes of DuckTales. The final episodes were a 2-part special titled The Golden Goose.

The premise of the show followed Uncle Scrooge McDuck after he is stuck taking care of his grandnephews Huey, Dewey and Louie when Donald Duck drops them off to him. Scrooge is also a trillionaire, who loves to swim in vats of gold.

Scrooge McDuck. Image from: https://www.reddit.com/r/bahai/comments/3ykwij/the_difference_between_the_ineffable_essence_and/

The DuckTales Voice Actors

Alan Young made his first voice appearance as Scrooge in the 1983 short Mickey’s Christmas Carol. He was then brought on to continue the voice of Scrooge through the series from 1987 to 1990. His voice also appeared in the 1989 video game for DuckTales, in a few episodes of The Magical World of Disney in 1989 and 1990, in DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp in 1990, and many other series up until as recently as 2016.

Russi Taylor, best known for being the voice of Minnie Mouse for decades, also provided the voices for all 3 nephews for the original series. She also played a few minor characters throughout the run of the series.

Voice actor Terence McGovern lent his voice to Launchpad McQuack for the original series too. When the show ended in 1990, Disney started a similar series called Darkwing Duck that featured some of the DuckTales characters too. McGovern continued to voice Launchpad McQuack in that spin-off as well.

Chuck McCann, who was also a voice actor for Disney’s second television series Adventure of the Gummi Bears, played Duckworth. Duckworth was Scrooge’s butler, who often went on the adventures with Scrooge, Huey, Dewey and Louie.

The DuckTales Theme Song

Back when the show was still in development, Disney started to put out feelers to artists for a theme song for the series. Mark Mueller, who had written songs for George Benson, the Pointer Sisters, and Syreeta Wright, decided to give it a shot. He was 30 years old at the time of recording the DuckTales theme song, unsure about if Disney executives would like it. He had a meeting with them and gave them his demo, in which they ended up loving. It was the perfect, upbeat, catchy song that would have people singing the show’s title for decades.

Mark Mueller. Image from: http://everygeek.net/ducktales-theme-song-mark-mueller/

The DuckTales theme song became such a phenomenon that Mueller is recognized for it the most even today. The theme song is a large part of why the series became such a huge hit, and why it’s still memorable today. Such a simple part of the song, but yet has remained so iconic, is the “woo-ooh!” jingle in the song.

“When people find out what I do for a living, they’ll always ask if they’d know one of my songs. Sometimes they won’t know my pop hits. But almost everywhere I’ve gone, people know DuckTales. The reach of it is so mind-blowing.”

— Mark Mueller

2017 revival of DuckTales

Matt Youngberg and Francisco Angones set out on a journey to revive the old DuckTales series, in an all-new reboot with the same title. Terence McGovern was one of the first people to break the news, due to a Facebook post he made in 2015 saying the original cast would not be returning. The show was officially announced in the beginning of 2017, and that it would be airing on Disney XD.

The series premiered on August 12th, 2017 and ran until March 15th, 2021. The reboot ran for 3 seasons with a total of 75 episodes. The series was successful, unlike many reboots tend to be. The reason for cancellation was never officially announced, other than that people believe it just hit the standard episode cap.

Don Rosa, a comic illustrator and writer who continued the Scrooge comics after Carl Barks retired, was doing a book signing one day in 2017. A sign on his table next to him read:

“These are the world’s best selling comics for over 75 years (everywhere but in the USA) first created by Carl Barks in 1942-1967, on which the original “DuckTales” is loosely based, and which the new “DuckTales” TV series has virtually no similarity to whatsoever.”

— Don Rosa