Oh, no. It's the EX. Ex-partner, ex-rival, ex-everything.
Goldie: Ah, the Ice Caverns of White Agony Plains. Sure brings back memories, eh, Scrooge?
Scrooge: No matter how hard I try to forget...
Scrooge re-teams with his conniving ex-partner and old flame, Goldie O’Gilt, to find a long-lost golden lagoon, but Glomgold has other plans.
This episode contains examples of:
- Abhorrent Admirer: Glomgold for Goldie. Understandable, given she's amazingly well-preserved and he's fat, dumpy, and only interested in dating her because it would piss Scrooge off.
- Adaptational Jerkass: The price of making Scrooge's behavior to Goldie less problematic is that Goldie is given Chronic Backstabbing Disorder. Whereas she was willing in the comics to settle down with Scrooge, and he's the one who decided otherwise, she's the one who doesn't want their relationship to last.
- Adaptational Nice Guy: The episode takes out the backstory of how Scrooge kidnapped Goldie for stealing gold from him, and made her work on his mining claim for a month before paying her a paltry wage for her troubles. Instead, they were treasure hunting rivals from the start.
- And I Must Scream: Scrooge and Goldie spent five years stuck in a glacier, unable to move, and fully conscious.
- Artistic License – Paleontology:
- Lampshaded with the "Glomosaurus rex", which as Huey points out is just a mix-up of parts from different dinosaurs put together into one skeleton, coupled with man-made apparel put onto it.Huey: How can you know it wore a crown?
- Mammoths don't have a set of human-like teeth on the lower jaw like the one Scrooge and Goldie encountered. Like other elephants, they have four giant molars (two on the lower jaw and two on the upper) and only two incisors (the tusks).
- Lampshaded with the "Glomosaurus rex", which as Huey points out is just a mix-up of parts from different dinosaurs put together into one skeleton, coupled with man-made apparel put onto it.
- Art Shift: Glomgold's flashback is in the style of old print comics.
- Bears Are Bad News: Scrooge encounters an angry grizzly bear in the caverns of White Agony Plains. He manages to tame it somehow and names it Nanook.
- Bowdlerise: Goldie is only ever referred to here as "Goldie O'Gilt" (coined by Don Rosa) — her stage name "Glittering Goldie" (by her creator Barks) is nowhere to be found, probably because it sounds like a stripper or prostitute name. In the same vein, her dance hall girl background seems to have been erased in this version — apparently too risqué a profession for a Proper Lady.
- Brick Joke: Glomgold notices that Scrooge stole food from his party when spying on him and Goldie later.
- Buffet Buffoonery: The reason Scrooge takes the boys to the gala at Glomgold's museum is so they can steal food from the spread Glomgold paid for to bring home as groceries.Louie: Aren't you rich? Why do you need free food?
Scrooge: I didn't get rich by wasting money. I got rich by besting my enemies! - Call-Back: During the dance-off at the banquet, Dewey solo dances whilst singing his personal theme from "Escape To/From Atlantis!".
- Chekhov's Gun: Early on, Scrooge notes that Goldie is wearing the Eye of Demogorgonia, an amulet that protects the wearer from burns. This is what later protects Goldie from dying after falling into the river of molten gold.
- Chronic Backstabbing Disorder: Scrooge is fully aware that Goldie could betray him at any moment, and is not the least bit surprised when she turns out to be working with Glomgold. And of course, she ends up betraying Glomgold as well.
- Continuity Nod: At one point, Goldie whips out a Waddle smartphone to take a picture of the map.
- Convection, Schmonvection: A lagoon of molten gold should be blazing hot, and when Goldie falls in the other characters assume it burned her to death, yet there is no sign that Scrooge or Goldie are feeling the heat as they fight on a bridge over the lagoon. Goldie at least has a Hand Wave in that her Eye of Demogorgonia keeps her from getting burned, and it's possible that Scrooge has something similar.
- Cruel Elephant: A living woolly mammoth attacked Scrooge and Goldie in the Klondike.
- Dating Catwoman: Played with. There may have been a strong connection between the two, Scrooge still knows Goldie is too wrapped up in her scheming to ever make a relationship work.
- A Day in the Limelight: Scrooge is the only member of the main cast that has an active role in the plot.
- Distracted by the Sexy: Scrooge has a moment of this when he sees Goldie after she's changed into her adventuring gear. (He did not have this reaction to her in a slinky gold dress, so apparently Scrooge has a type.)
- Does This Remind You of Anything?: Just in case it wasn't clear enough that the one-man elevator gag is a G-rated version of There Is Only One Bed, Glomgold's indignation upon learning they rode it together cements it.
- A Dog Named "Dog": Nanook the bear, whose name means "bear" in Inuktitut.
- Dramatic Thunder: Glomgold's evil laugh after declaring that he's going to complete the "Glomgold trifecta" by stealing Scrooge's girl, killing him, and taking the molten gold is accompanied by this.
- Egopolis: Glomgold dedicates an entire museum exhibit to himself.
- Elmuh Fudd Syndwome: The triplets engage in this while teasing Scrooge about his relationship with Goldie.
- Even Evil Has Standards: Unlike Glomgold, Goldie, while readily tricking Scrooge and leaving him in dangerous situations, would never want him dead or seriously harmed. If she thinks he can't survive something, then she will step in and save him, as shown when she saves him from the falling rock fissures, and then from Glomgold's Death Trap. That said, her faith in his abilities is such that she has left him in some quite dangerous circumstances.
- Also, Goldie finds Glomgold just as goddamn annoying as everyone else does!
- Evil Gloating: Glomgold loves doing this. His gloating to Scrooge before executing him gives Goldie enough time to sabotage the Death Trap and steal the gold Glomgold wanted to drown Scrooge in.
- Fountain of Youth: Goldie mentions having found one, explaining why she seems a bit younger than Scrooge.
- Girls Have Cooties: A variant; the triplets tease Scrooge about his affair with Goldie and ask if they're going to get married.
- Harmless Freezing: Scrooge and Goldie were frozen in a block of ice for five years, and apparently suffered no ill effects (other than Scrooge's broken heart after Goldie left him). Scrooge claims that he was kept warm by his hatred of Goldie (which soon evolved into something else).
- Hats Off to the Dead: Scrooge tearfully takes off his hat when he thinks Goldie has just plummeted to her death into boiling molten gold. This immediately allows Glomgold to knock him out with a pickaxe to the head and capture him.
- Heroic BSoD: After Goldie falls into the molten gold, Scrooge is so shocked that he doesn't fight back, so Glomgold can easily knock him out and tie him to his Death Trap.
- Hypocritical Humor: At the start of the episode, Dewey lambastes Glomgold for trying way too hard with the gala, before promptly proceeding to order a "virgin peach julep in your fanciest glass" from a nearby, unimpressed waiter.
- Interesting Situation Duel: Scrooge and Goldie duel with pickaxes around a pit of molten gold... set to tango music.
- Ironic Echo: While Scrooge and Goldie are dancing at Glomgold's exhibition, she tells him to "let the lady lead". She repeats the same thing when she briefly overpowers him in their pickaxe duel in the climax.
- Irony: Scrooge regains the upper hand on Goldie by taming a grizzly bear. In the comics and 80's series, it was Goldie who subdued Scrooge by taming a bear.
- Just Here for the Free Snacks: Scrooge takes his nephews to Glomgold's banquet solely for the purpose of stealing from the buffet as a way of sticking it to his rival.
- KISSING In A Tree: Huey, Dewey and Louie's reaction to learning about Scrooge's relationship with Goldie is very...age-appropriate. "OOooOOooooh!"
- Leaning on the Fourth Wall: Scrooge's participation in the Klondike Gold Rush has remained a solid part of his history, even as the actual event has gone from 50 to over 120 years in the past. When Scrooge is regaling the nephews of his day as a prospector, Huey promptly asks just how old is Scrooge. Scrooge just glares at him.
- Love Triangle: Downplayed. Glomgold does have an attraction to Goldie (which is partly fueled by Glomgold's intention to one-up Scrooge by stealing his ex-girlfriend) but she turns him down and has sexual tension with Scrooge.
- Mammoths Mean Ice Age: Not an ice age, but the Klondike mammoth still thrived in a cold environment. It was dead and frozen for millennias in the source material, The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck.
- The Masochism Tango: Deconstructed. One of the reasons that Scrooge is bitter to see Goldie is because he's tired of this trope; he eventually fell in love with Goldie, but she never changed. She would always choose whatever treasure they were pursuing instead of him. In the end, he takes some comfort in knowing that she does still care, her constant backstabbing being as much due to her faith in Scrooge's abilities as they are due to her love of gold. Bonus points for actual tango music accompanying the romantic scenes between Scrooge and Goldie.
- Mêlée à Trois: Scrooge, Goldie, and Glomgold get caught in a three-way fight at the Lagoon after Scrooge frees himself.
- A Molten Date with Death: Glomgold attempts to murder Goldie by dropping her into the titular lagoon of molten gold. Goldie's magical amulet makes her immune to heat. She just holds her breath until Glomgold isn't paying attention and climbs out.
- Mythology Gag:
- Glomgold's museum includes a burnt kilt from Krakatoa what was in the comic backstory.
- Goldie mentions getting to drink from a fountain of youth in Wrongway, which is a reference to 2 different episodes of the classic show.
- In one to the comics, Scrooge and Goldie being attacked by a woolly mammoth while in the Klondike is a nod to "The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck," where Scrooge came across the frozen corpse of a mammoth while in the Klondike.
- Scrooge taming a bear and using it to subdue Goldie is a nod to and an inversion of Goldie having a tamed bear named Blackjack in the comics.
- Scrooge's flashback begins with a recreation of the Carl Barks painting "Always Another Rainbow".
- Scrooge telling Goldie that "you love your gold more than me" is an Ironic Echo to Mickey's Christmas Carol, where Scrooge is told the same by his fiancée Isabel.
- Near-Villain Victory: Glomgold succeeds in getting Goldie fall into molten gold, knocking out Scrooge and tying him up to execute him in a similar way. If not for Goldie's Demigorgon medallion, he would have succeeded.
- Noodle Incident:
- Scrooge and Goldie bring up various adventures they each had ever since their last encounter, especially about how they both retained their youth.
- Going from her comment to Scrooge, "How did you let that thief back into-", it seems that Mrs. Beakley is well acquainted with Goldie, but it isn't elaborated on.
- Not So Extinct: Scrooge's backstory had him and Goldie getting attacked by a living woolly mammoth.
- Not-So-Harmless Villain: After "Woo-oo!", Glomgold has been more of a nuisance than an actual threat, not having any evil plans to take down Scrooge that are more than just petty vengeance. Here, he makes an actual plan to kill Scrooge and take his place as the richest duck in the world, only failing because of Goldie's Chronic Backstabbing Disorder.
- Obliviously Evil:
- Goldie seems to have a hard time understanding why any of the things she has done to Scrooge (things that she sees as good fun and adding spice to their relationship) would leave him hurt emotionally. In her defense, Scrooge clearly does enjoy a lot of the playful competing and scheming against each other, but the fact remains Goldie had gone too far on a number of occasions. She seems to make some effort in the end to let Scrooge know she does care.
- During their dance, Goldie casually picks the pocket of a nearby man who doesn't even notice. She shows the wallet to an unimpressed Scrooge, and she keeps smiling as he takes it from her and puts it back in the man's pocket before he noticed it was gone.
- Offscreen Moment of Awesome:
- Goldie manages to sneak into the McDuck mansion and subdue Webby and Beakley.
- Scrooge tames a wild bear (he's also able to speak its language).
- While her not being harmed by the boiling gold is explained, Goldie also somehow leaves behind a perfect cast of herself in gold to fool Glomgold into thinking she's dead.
- It's implied Scrooge escapes Glomgold's Death Trap once he sees that Goldie is alive.
- Offscreen Teleportation: Scrooge and the bear appearing in front of Goldie after she left them behind. The only explanation he gives is the fact he's Scrooge McDuck.
- Older Than They Look: Both Scrooge and Goldie are confirmed to be well over a hundred years old, and have had at least a couple magical enhancements to look as good as they do (Scrooge was fighting in a timeless dimension for a while, Goldie found a fountain of youth at some point). Scrooge refuses to say how old he is, but they're at least in their 130s, since they were adults at the time of the Klondike Gold Rush.note
- Portmanteau Couple Name: In-Universe. Glomgold refers to himself paired with Goldie as "Glomgoldie".
- Powder Trail: Goldie leaves one as a distraction for Scrooge. Fortunately, it doesn't blow up the cave, but it does make a grizzly bear angry at them after it singes its tail.
- Recurring Extra: The serious-looking bespectacled dogface man and the Roxanne-lookalike woman, who were waiting in line with Donald at the job interview in "Woo-oo!", are now playing music at Glomgold's party. Maybe Glomgold did hire them after all?
- Running Gag:
- Glomgold insisting that Goldie is his girlfriend, and Goldie having to repeatedly let him know that he's being delusional.
- The series' running gag of Louie's preoccupation with Scrooge's will and the passing of his fortune continues when he worriedly asks Scrooge if he added Goldie to the will.
- Goldie and Scrooge just finding Glomgold a god-damn nuisance, no matter what he's doing...
- Self-Serving Memory: Glomgold's flashback to when he and Goldie joined forces at the gala shows him as tall, handsome and muscular, while Scrooge is wearing only a diaper and a sash that reads "Stinky".
- Sex Dressed: Apparently, 10-year-old Dewey has seen this often enough to form his own theory about why people wear a "playfully loose bowtie," still unaware of the truth.
- Shipper on Deck: The triplets are all interested in Scrooge's relationship with Goldie and tease him about it throughout the episode, even calling their adventure together a date.
- Shout-Out:
- Scrooge flirting with a mischievous adventurer/thief? Shares a bit with The Doctor flirting with a mischievous archaeologist/thief.
- The name of the White Agony Plains is also one to White Plains, NY, a city in the New York City metropolitan area.
- Glomgold's recollection of how he first met Goldie is a visual shout-out to both 50's romance comics and the Roy Liechtenstein paintings derived from them, down to both Flintheart and Goldie having single, stationary tears in their eyes.
- Goldie's Eye of Demogorgona clearly derives its name from "Demogorgon." While the name dates back to antiquity, it's mostly known as one of the most powerful Demon Lords and Archdevils in Dungeons & Dragons (and one who received a
Colbert Bump from Stranger Things). - Glomgold quotes a bowdlerised passage from Moby-Dick while he cuts the pulleys of the elevator, then not long after tries to quote Raiders of the Lost Ark with mixed success.
- Spared by the Adaptation: Zig-zagged. The Klondlike mammoth had been long dead for thousands of years in The Life and Times of Scrooge McDuck, but here, it was a living woolly mammoth when Scrooge and Goldie encountered it. It is still dead in the present, though.
- Speak in Unison: Goldie does this when Scrooge says that she thinks she knows him so well, showing that she really does know him that well.
- Speaks Fluent Animal: Scrooge apparently knows how to speak bear.
- Third Wheel: First Glomgold claims that Goldie is his date, and mockingly asks Scrooge how it feels to be a third wheel. Then Glomgold becomes the third wheel during Scrooge and Goldie's pickaxe fight/dance, much to his irritation."Flintheart Glomgold will NOT be a third wheel!"
- Trademark Clothing: Scrooge's spats. When at a general store in the Yukon, he's informed they don't carry any. So he buys a pair of boots and then uses a knife to make them into spats.
- Earlier in the episode, Goldie teases Scrooge for being the only one who still wears spats and a top hat.
- Truth in Television: Scrooge stealing from the buffet table for groceries may seem like another example of him being The Scrooge, but many self-made millionaires will attribute a good part of their success to cutting down on personal expenses to have more money for investing and encourage others to do the same.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: What happened to Nanook? After he helps them break a stone wall to find the Golden Lagoon, he just disappears altogether, nowhere to be seen in the climax.
- Who Is Driving?: After Scrooge tells the boys about Goldie and their White Agony Plains adventure, he finds Launchpad facing backwards listening in - and not looking at the road or even holding the steering wheel. Scrooge has to yell at him to drive again before they crash into the front door of the mansion.
- A Wizard Did It: Scrooge Speaks Fluent Animal. How?Scrooge: I'm Scrooge McDuck!
- The Worf Effect: Webby and Mrs. Beakley wind up tied up by Goldie, showing how skilled she is.
