YMMV / DuckTales (2017)

YMMV Tropes For DuckTales (2017)

YMMVs with their own pages:

• Alternative Character Interpretation
• And The Fandom Rejoiced
• Awesome Music
• Broken Base
• Ensemble Darkhorse
• Ho Yay
• Rescued From The Scrappy Heap
• Salvaged Story
• They Wasted A Perfectly Good Character
• Unexpected Character

Main Section

A-H

• Abandon Shipping: Many who shipped Webby with the triplets and choose to avoid Fanon Discontinuity jumped ship due to the series finale revealing she is Scrooge's genetically-engineered "daughter," and as a result, technically their first cousin once removed.
• Adorkable:
  • Della. She makes her own action hero theme music out of a lullaby she wrote for her kids. Upon arriving back on Earth, the greeting she (accidentally) says to her long-lost family is "Sup, party people? I'm back in the hizz-ouse!" Della then immediately asks for a do-over and she and Huey both geek out over playing their favorite online RPG game.
  • Webby is hopelessly socially awkward, but endearingly so. She's never had any real friends before the triplets came along, due to her granny never letting her leave McDuck Manor.
  • Huey is passionate about "nerd stuff" like geology and history and becomes utterly giddy during the submarine ride when he brings snacks, a collection of sea shanties and T-shirts. He gets it from his mother.
  • Dr. Fenton is eager to do good in the world and is a complete and utter dork when he tries.
  • Fethry Duck. How can he not be with his enthusiasm for marine life?
  • Sheriff Marshall Cabrera is mild-mannered and a bit naïve, just like his descendant Fenton.
  • Violet is a bit of a nerd when it comes to her knowledge and interesting hobbies, yet is all the more endearing for it.
• Aluminum Christmas Trees: A Scrooge McDuck themed Monopoly clone had existed for decades in Colombia. Yes, Scoogeopoly is real.
• Americans Hate Tingle: While many American fans arguably see the show as one of the best versions of Disney's Ducks and are clamoring them to become the new "default versions", it has had trouble catching on in the European countries where the original comics, and their direct modern successors keeping the same continuity are still very popular and widely read, with the show's versions of the characters being seen too alien and different from those versions. To put this in perspective, in Finland as well as a few other countries, Donald Duck and related characters are popular enough for a weekly comic magazine, yet even by the time the series had finished its three season run in its home country, only the first 18 episodes of season one had been dubbed and broadcasted there and the tie-in comic was quickly cancelled due to low sales.
• And You Thought It Would Fail:
  • When it was announced that Disney would be rebooting DuckTales (1987), many fans were not thrilled to say the least; this reboot was developed during the same time as several other animated reboots were airing. However, said reboots have received incredibly polarizing reception from fans of their original source materials, causing many to think that this would end up with the same consequences. But when the trailer debuted on YouTube, their view changed very quickly and when the first episode aired, fans, old and new, fell in love with the show. Many regard the show as better than the original and it's viewed as an example of how to properly reboot a series. What's more, this series ended up being the first within the decade to break the streak of polarizing reboots, as subsequent reboots such as She-Ra and the Princesses of Power and Carmen Sandiego ended up becoming very successful as well. That being said, it did fail in many European countries, especially the Nordic countries, see above.
  • Darkwing Duck's revival in the series: When it first appeared as a Show Within a Show in season 1, many fans were angry about it. Come season 2 and "The Duck Knight Returns!" and people were praising the ingenious Darkwing reboot and homage.
• Angst? What Angst?: A criticism of the show that has popped up. It's been noticed that the show tends to put overt focus on comedy at critical moments, that characters often react blithely to danger, and that emotional traumas are either glossed over or truncated.
  • Becoming averted in season 2, as many characters are shown to be emotionally affected by past events, namely Louie angsts about his role in the family in "The Most Dangerous Game Night!", Webby trying to cope with the loss of Lena by trying to find a way to bring her back from the Shadow Realm, Lena still emotionally traumatized by Magica's abuse in "A Nightmare on Killmotor Hill!", and Della's Trauma Button shown in multiple episode with regards to her time trapped on the Moon alone.
  • Still notable however, how Lena does not angst with regards to being trapped in the Shadow Realm for months, she rather angsts about trying not to be like Magica.
• Anvilicious:
  • The show is NOT afraid to have the characters state the episode's moral outright. Usually each episode will stop so a character can have an emotional beat in which they spell out what’s supposed to be the lesson set to synth music like a cheesy sitcom.
  • “The Life and Crimes of Scrooge McDuck!” feels particularly hamfisted since it starts In Medias Res with Scrooge lecturing Louie on taking responsibility for his actions. This ignores how Louie has already done so several episodes in the past so it comes across as a Compressed Vice, but the episode chugs ahead with a major revelation in Magica’s backstory that dramatically recontextualizes her and Scrooge’s antagonism in a subplot many feel should’ve had its own episode, all so the episode can deliver monologues on Scrooge and Louie’s legacy.
• Arc Fatigue: Early on in the show's run, there were changes to the order the episodes were aired in, which put several plot-important episodes before a number of standalone episodes, which resulted in large gaps of the overall story arcs pertaining to Della and Magica being spaced far apart due to several standalones having not been aired yet. This combined with the long breaks that could take up to two months to end resulted in fans getting frustrated with how little the arcs were proceeding as a result, especially since "The Spear of Selene!" ends with Ithaquack turning out to be another dead end.
• Awesome Art:
  • The lively character animation (calling back to, among others, Milt Kahl's work on Ludwig Von Drake in the 60's) has been praised highly even by those who don't like the new angular style as such. Speaking of which...
  • While some would have preferred a closer translation of the comics' style to the screen, an equally large amount of people have praised the art-style of the reboot, particularly the Thick-Line Animation and angular designs (both of which have become relatively scarce in contemporary times). Amusingly, some would find the gorgeous, comic book style backgrounds are another highlight, while another half of the fanbase, while appreciative of the characters' style, finds the background dull compared to the original show's.
  • The backgrounds make liberal use of halftones, something that is barely even used in comics anymore except as a Shout-Out to classic comic books. To see it used so effectively in animation is truly something wonderful. Not to mention the paper textures in the background to make it look even more like the pages of a comic.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: During "The Infernal Internship of Mark Beaks", Mark abruptly stops the tour he's giving Huey and Dewey for a "MANDATORY DANCE BREAK!", where everyone stops what they're doing and starts dancing - presumably a riff on modern tech companies' emphasis on fun, unstructured work environments. After it ends, it's not even mentioned.
• Bizarro Episode:
  • "The 87 Cent Solution!" is certainly one of the weirdest — and as an effect, hilarious — episodes of the show thus far...
  • ...only to be topped inarguably by "Quack Pack!" of season 3.
• Can't Un-Hear It:
  • Some fans of the comics have grudgingly admitted that Catherine Tate as Magica De Spell and Jim Rash as Gyro are actually perfect voices for the comic characters, even though the versions they play here are actually quite different. The same sentiment has also been raised for David Tennant as Scrooge, although the classic Alan Young voice would be tough to eclipse entirely.
  • Ever since Kate Micucci voiced Webby Vanderquack, it's hard to imagine her as anyone else but Webby.
  • Same with Ben Schwartz as Dewey, as anyone who has seen this show will immediately think of Dewey when they hear Ben Schwartz voicing Sonic the Hedgehog.
  • Just try to listen to the Moon Theme without mouthing Della Duck's lyrics for it. Just try.
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Doofus Drake losing half of his fortune with his parents finally growing a spine and grounding him indefinitely after spending his previous appearances being a creepy little monster who treats them like slaves.
  • Gladstone Gander temporarily losing his luck to the Phantom Blot, making it quite amusing to see a character bragging about his luck every second to the point it goes to Butt-Monkey levels. He gets it back at the end of the episode though.
  • With Magica and Lena's subplot in Season 1, the show explored parental abuse - how isolating and emotionally damaging it can be for a child - and that arc ultimately had a bittersweet ending in "The Shadow War". With that in mind, later episodes like "A Nightmare On Killmotor Hill" and "The Phantom & The Sorceress", where Lena stands up to her abusive aunt, asserts her independence from her, and does away with their old power dynamic forever in favor of her new, healthy relationships with her friends are immensely satisfying to watch.
• Character Rerailment:
  • This is the case of Gladstone Gander, who is closer to his comics portrayal of Jerkass and Smug Super instead of the Adaptational Nice Guy that he was when back in DuckTales (1987).
  • Donald is hit with a positive version of this trope, going from the perpetually angry personality that was rife for many years to making him just Born Unlucky, with his comic book counterpart’s adventurous streak intact and an ability to actually avoid losing his temper on a dime.
  • Within the series: after her first two appearances presented her as a Knight of Cerebus, in "Jaw$!", Magica shows that she can be as hammy and Laughably Evil as her earlier counterparts.
  • Also within the series, after Glomgold went through much Villain Decay after the pilot by becoming a Harmless Villain that's mainly just seen by the others as a nuisance, "The Golden Lagoon of White Agony Plains!" shows that in spite of being much more comical he can still be a serious threat when he wants to be, by coming extremely close to killing Scrooge by the episode's climax.
  • For those who like the original 1987 Webby, the behavior of 2017 Webby in "Day of the Only Child!" is more in line with the Annoying Younger Sibling characterization of the original. Namely, she antagonizes Dewey about having the idea of an Only Child Day and teases him about his solo host show, to the point where the episode ends with him shooting her a Death Glare.
  • Huey's It's All About Me behavior in "McMystery at McDuck McManor!" is a temporary return to the troublemaking big brother who leads his little brothers into trouble and back out again.
• Complete Monster:
  • Season 2: General Lunaris is the seemingly-benevolent leader of the city on the moon, Tranquility, but is in fact a vicious warmonger out to prove the superiority of the "planet Moon" by any means necessary. Acting friendly to Della Duck when she arrives in Tranquility, Lunaris eventually falsely accuses her of having used the Moonlanders for her own enemies as rhetoric to attack Earth. When his true colors are revealed, Lunaris cruelly reveals his intention to kill the children of the heroes first to break their will, following this up with an all-out invasion and an attempt to freeze the Earth over by taking it out of its orbit to make it revolve around the moon instead. In the end, throwing away any façade of caring for his own people, Lunaris attempts to ram the Earth with his spaceship and wipe out everyone on it—including his own people on the planet—solely to deny them their victory.
  • "Let's Get Dangerous!": Taurus Bulba, inventor of the reality-warping RamRod and one of the chief agents of F.O.W.L., is introduced as a brilliant, charismatic scientist and colleague of the mysteriously-vanished Professor Waddlemeyer. Bulba heavily implies that he himself tossed Waddlemeyer into another dimension in protest over the destructive effects of the RamRod, does the same to Scrooge when he clues into Bulba's plans, and betrays the head of F.O.W.L. to spearhead a more extravagant means of world domination. Bulba attempts to use the RamRod to utterly remake the world, even if it means totally ripping apart the old reality and putting a new one in its place.
• Crack Ship:
  • "Magicstone", a perfectly reasonable ship in the classic universe of the comics (and which, in fact, has been placed with in some stories) becomes this when carried over to this universe's versions of Gladstone and Magica. It's gone as far as someone asking at Comic-Con 2018 if Lena was actually their daughter. The ship got more fuel after "The Shadow War!" (thanks to a scene where Gladstone's shadow gives him a $20 dollar bill before going off to join the rest of the shadows, with fans arguing that that incident couldn't have happened just because of Gladstone's luck and that Magica was somehow partly responsible) and "The Phantom and the Sorceress!" (where Gladstone and Magica interacted for the first time in the show and Gladstone briefly held her bridal-style).
  • During the show's early days Della x Magica (DelSpell) had some following.
  • There are a few fans who ship Louie x Doofus, which – considering how Doofus treated Louie in his debut episode – carries a number of disturbing thoughts with it.
  • In a (mostly) platonic example, after the latter's debut episode, fans have been clamoring for a team-up between Magica and Negaduck (based on their partnership in the comics), despite the fact that they have yet to meet in the show.
  • After Gene the Genie's reveal in Comic-Con, fans began to ship him with Faris D'jinn on account of the potential of their Red Oni, Blue Oni dynamic, their Middle Eastern backgrounds, and Faris being part genie himself.
  • Fethry and Steelbeak (FethSteel) started taking off as a ship after "Double O Duck in You Only Crash Twice!"
• Crazy Is Cool:
  • The show's version of Emily Quackfaster as a lunatic librarian took many as a surprise since she was always a bit-character in the original comics, and the greater personality and humor more or less made being a librarian and archivist look like an amazing job.
  • While Glomgold is normally portrayed as the incompetent idiot he is, he manages to be this in "Moonvasion!" as his plan is so overwhelmingly stupid that Lunaris has absolutely no idea how to counter it.
• Crosses the Line Twice: Glomgold's Last Disrespects at Scrooge's fake funeral in "The 87 Cent Solution!" are a spectacle in sheer pettiness. Wearing a glittery white tux and top-hat with dollar sign shades, Flinty bursts uninvited through the cathedral doors and starts dancing and making it rain while "All I Do Is Win" blares in the background before he ninja runs up to the casket, gloats about his victory with an Evil Laugh, and starts twerking at the corpse.
• Crossover Ship:
  • There's a small following for, of all things, Lord Dominator x Launchpad McQuack. Which, considering the Running Gag about Launchpad's Amicable Exes all around the world, at least one of which is an Interspecies Romance, is not as out-of-place as it first seems. See also Fanon Welding below.
  • Della and Rocket Raccoon, after the reveal that she has a mechanical leg. "I'm gonna get that leg!"
• Cry for the Devil: Magica for most of the three seasons has been a Manipulative Bitch, abusive aunt to her "niece" Lena, would-be child murderer, and Revenge Before Reason sorceress. Then we get to her testimony in "The Life and Crimes of Scrooge McDuck!". As she explains, however, she ran into Scrooge when one of hers and her brother's spells tried taking his dime, and he refused to let go of it. Poe was the Only Sane Man if as evil as she was, pegging that Scrooge wasn't a threat as long as they didn't irk him. Magica didn't listen, stole his amulet and attempted to turn Scrooge into a fly and then a raven for saying she never earned anything fair in her life. Scrooge managed to use his #1 Dime to deflect the spell, and Poe jumped in the way before it could hit his twin sister. He became a nonsapient raven, and Magica stops dead cold. She begs him Please Wake Up and change back because she doesn't know how to change him back. Scrooge callously took a share of gold and let Poe fly out the window despite Magica saying she would give him anything to save her brother. This solidified Magica's hate of Scrooge and determination to take away everyone he loves. Louie, who is serving as Scrooge's lawyer, admits he can't defend that one because he understands Magica's pain all too well.
• Draco in Leather Pants: While Gladstone isn't a villain per se, a lot of fanfics will downplay his selfishness and self-serving nature to go along with a common fanon theory that the reason the boys love their "uncle" Gladstone so much is because he helped Donald take care of them. However this is never used to make anyone into Ron the Death Eater, thankfully. Plus he does have a few unselfish moments in the comics here and there, so it's not entirely unjustified.
• Epileptic Trees:
  • The reveal that this show would be exploring the triplets' parents, namely their mother Della Duck, has got the theories flying in just the first episode. Given that the kids live with Donald, him being so safety obsessed, and him and Scrooge apparently having a falling out has many suspect one of Scrooge's adventures didn't end so well, with dialogue implying it was something to do with an artifact called the Spear Of Selene. And even that's not the real secret as it's later revealed that the Spear is something else entirely!
  • Not to the same degree, but there are a lot of questions about what happened to Webby's parents as well as Mr. Beakley. The fact that Mrs. Beakley was a spy only adds fuel to the fire.
  • Just what started the DeSpell/McDuck feud anyway?
  • A newer fan theory has stated that Gyro could be a former member of F.O.W.L.
• Escapist Character:
  • Scrooge McDuck as always. He's rich, he's smart, he's talented, and he always comes out on top and manages to attract and employ a slew of colourful and interesting people.
  • Della Duck is somewhat, being as smart and talented as Scrooge, and with a never-give-up attitude that makes her much more endearing than Scrooge.
  • Gladstone Gander is a Jerkass and Hate Sink but fans can't help but fantasizing how their lives would be if they had luck of his kind.
• Evil Is Cool:
  • Their take on Magica de Spell won many fans for making a character who in the comics and original cartoon was at times a joke villain or close to Sitcom Archnemesis into a genuinely compelling threat.
  • From "The House of the Lucky Gander", Liu Hai "the Luck Vampire" surprised many, both for the way The Reveal was prepared, which took many by surprise, for his ability to manipulate and distract the nephews, and for being a unique villain in terms of power, motivation, and threat level.
  • Falcon Graves for his stoic demeanor, his debonair style, and his no-nonsense attitude, with just enough flair for the occasional joke.
  • Don Karnage is as popular as ever, still just as Laughably Evil while also being just enough of a genuine threat to fit in the show's Darker and Edgier tone.
  • Flintheart Glomgold became this in "The Ballad of Duke Baloney". The self-proclaimed Scotsman established himself as Scrooge's greatest Foil, antithesis, and Arch-Enemy.
  • General Lunaris for being an original villain in the reboot and proving to be a master planner managing to outsmart everyone several times and comes nearly close to victory every time.
  • Bradford Buzzard, for being an evil mastermind yet still thinking like an accountant ... in a way that makes him terrifyingly savvy in a way few previous villains have been. Magica had ancient powers and Lunaris had a space fleet, but Bradford Buzzard has read the Evil Overlord List and doesn't take stupid risks.
  • The Phantom Blot, for his cool design, being a Badass Normal and tragic backstory.
• Fan Nickname:
  • DuckTales 2017 for the show as a whole, so as to tell it apart from the original 1987-1989 TV series. New DuckTales (contrasted with DuckTales Classic for the original) has also been thrown around, and some refer to the alternate continuity the show is set in as the "2017 Continuum".
  • David Tennant voicing Scrooge caused some to start calling him the "Duck-tor".
  • The instant Disney introduced Mark Beaks, a tech billionaire, fans took to calling him Mark Duckerberg. The creators actually considered this name for the character, but opted against it to avoid lawsuit from the Real Life Zuckerberg.
  • A small group of fans have taken to calling Mrs. Beakley Mrs. Beefly, considering how... in shape she is.
  • Due to the oddness of the phrase, which was used in promotional material like it weren't anything special, fans like to call Lena by the full "title" of Well-Travelled Teen Lena.
  • "Voldemagica" for the new Magica De Spell, due to her situation with Lena being similar to Lord Voldemort and Quirrell's.
  • With characters from Darkwing Duck, TaleSpin, and Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers appearing in season 3, some people have started calling the show "the Disney Afternooniverse", since all the shows aired on the Disney Afternoon.
  • Webby, Lena, and Violet are collectively referred to as "Team Magic".
  • Dr. Atmoz Fear, this show’s homage to Dr. Doofenshmirtz, is often referred to as "Dr. Doofenbird".
• Fandom Rivalry: Both this series and Legend of the Three Caballeros are based on the Disney Ducks comics, and while there are fans of both, there's still the debate of which truer to the text of the source material. Fans of DuckTales praise it for taking on bolder plots and darker themes, its characters and settings are more iconic, and its animation manages to evoke that of classic comic books, and say that the latter series is too safe. Fans for LOTTC bring up how the animation manages to be almost identical to that of classic Disney cartoons, Donald is more directly involved in the plot, there are very few drastic changes to the source material, its shorter format (13 episodes there as opposed to roughly 23 here) means the show can be more directly serialized, and prefer how it focuses on the adult characters over the kids, unlike the former where the kids have the greater focus.
• Fandom-Specific Plot:
  • Fanfics where the other characters learn Donald Duck's hidden depths. Usually this comes in the form of the Duck-McDuck clan discovering he was the Duck Avenger, but isn't rare for them to learn about the true exploits of the Caballeros as well. Either way, everyone comes away with a greater respect for Donald after recognizing how badass he truly is.
  • Since "The Duck Knight Returns", many fans have been coming up with ideas for some potential storylines.
    • How Gosalyn will be introduced into the show and interact with Drake, Launchpad and the kids.^note Notably, this one, the showrunners actually made it as Let's Get Dangerous.
    • How Drake Mallard will get involved in SHUSH, especially since Mrs. Beakley / Agent 22, had recently become a fan of the old show.
    • How the rest of DWD's Rogues Gallery from the original show get introduced in real-life.
• Fanfic Fuel:
  • Scrooge's beef with Santa and him stating that "he knows what he did" has already intrigued many fans.
  • Just how did Duckworth die? When asked about it, Frank Angones told the fandom to go nuts with it. "The Last Adventure!" implies that Bradford may have had something to do with it, giving fans even more to work with.
  • The show references numerous adventures that Scrooge had over the one-and-a-half century of his life that are not elaborated upon. Some of them are references to actual Carl Barks and Don Rosa comics, but the rest is a great fanfic premise.
  • Launchpad's off-screen adventures with his ex-girlfriends likely won't be covered in the series, but provides an interesting premise for fan-writers to do their thing.
  • What if Donald got lost in space for 10 years instead of Della? Would Huey, Dewey, Louie and Webby have heard of him and have high expectations when he returns? Would they have opened up to Della more easily? Would Scrooge and Della still stay as a family or would they argue, become estranged and Della either move out or be kicked out of the mansion for her irresponsible behavior getting Donald lost? Would the kids be amazed or disappointed in Donald when they compare the real him to the legend? There are so many different possibilities.
• Fanon Discontinuity: Even after the final episode, some fics retcon the element of Webby being biologically related to a majority of her peers via being cloned from Scrooge. Some do it due to them having shipped Webby with one of the triplets before the reveal and not wanting to spend the effort going back and changing past chapters before continuing with updates, and others because they feel it defies the show's own lessons, such as her having a found family that is no less valid than a biological one.
• Fanon Welding: Many shared fans of Wander over Yonder and this show like to think the two happen in the same universe; Wander Over Yonder is just set IN SPACE! so there's no direct communication between the characters. Besides shared creators, the biggest smoking gun is Webby's mention of something called an Oblivion Mirror (also the name an artefact from one episode of Wander Over Yonder) in the pilot. However, fans have also noticed strong similarities in design between Lord Dominator in Wander Over Yonder and the Moonlanders introduced in Season 2 of DuckTales — which, combined with Word of God on Wander Over Yonder that Dominator came from another galaxy, and the refusal to give out her actual planet of origin and birth name, raises the possibility that she was a Moonlander who had better luck than General Lunaris at leaving the Moon and becoming an interplanetary conqueror.
• Fan-Preferred Couple: Fenton is canonically paired with Gandra Dee, but, while that has its fans, it is far more popular to pair him with his boss Gyro, due to how much Fenton tries to win Gyro's approval and these fans feeling that they have better chemistry.
• Foe Yay Shipping:
  • Other than gaining an immediate fandom after the pilot premiere, some fans have shipped Dark Action Girl Gabby McStabberson with Nice Guy Donald due to him having more interaction with her out of any of Glomgold's hired baddies. Not only did he try to make conversation with her (and show her images of him and his nephews), he went as far as to ask about her family life (even though she makes it very clear that her "relations" contrast greatly to his). This artist's drawing supports that ship.
  • Scrooge and Magica, as par for the course — from her obsession with owning Scrooge's most prized possession, calling him "Scroogey," borrowing his canonical love interest's Character Catchphrase ("You're Scrooge McDuck!"), to, most conspicuously, her sincere, profound disappointment at finding him in such a "pathetic" state in the Season 1 finale. Instead of being glad taking the dime from her enemy will be easier than she thought, she's upset she won't get a grand showdown with her Worthy Opponent and actually gives Scrooge a Get a Hold of Yourself, Man! speech to get some fight back in him. The reboot makes it even easier to imagine Magica has an unspoken motive behind her obsession with Scrooge than any previous incarnations. (It doesn't hurt that their actors have good chemistry together and have played couples before.)
  • Scrooge and Glomgold have been shipped as well. Plus Goldie, his cannon love interest, almost falls into this at times with how often she betrays him. So Scrooge kinda gets this a lot.
  • Mark Beaks and Falcon Graves is also a popular pairing, thanks to their interactions with each other throughout their debut episode.
• Friendly Fandoms:
  • The Wander over Yonder fandom is already all over this show, mainly since Frank Angones, one of the writers of Wander Over Yonder, is a writer and a co-producer of the show. It definitely shows in terms of a fun ensemble cast of characters along with both shows being able to mix a generally light-hearted feel with more character development, mystery, and drama. The suspected cancelled crossover involving Lord Dominator only further solidifies the friendship.
  • The same can be said for the Gravity Falls fandom. Quite a few of the Gravity Falls staff have moved onto this show as well.
  • Those who don't feel as antagonistic towards the treatment of Legend of the Three Caballeros enjoy both it and the new Duck Tales.
  • While not as prevalent, many fans of Sofia the First get along well with fans of this series due to their canon welding to iconic Disney franchises (the Disney Animated Canon for the former, and the Disney Afternoon for the this series).
  • To some extent, the show has this with Big City Greens, Amphibia, and The Owl House due to all four series currently being the four cartoons Disney has been heavily promoting the most recently.
  • With She-Ra and the Princesses of Power, as both shows are reboots of popular shows from The '80s. Heck, even Noelle Stevenson was a storyboard writer for DT17's Pilot Movie, and wrote one of the episodes of the first season before moving on to She-Ra. In both reboots, Adaptational Diversity is at the forefront.
  • There's an overlap between fans of this show and fans of the Carmen Sandiego reboot, due to the similarities between them, especially with F.O.W.L. being compared to V.I.L.E., due to the two being organizations using meaningful acronyms, and which are led by a council and who partake in larceny across the world.
  • While not as vocal, some Hazbin Hotel fans have recently got into the series as well due to some Hazbin fans finding Louie a bit similar to Angel Dust (personality-wise).
  • With Community and Doctor Who, considering the number of cast members from each show that have main or supporting roles here.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff: The show is very popular in the former Soviet Union. It helps that the original series was popular there as does Donald Duck's popularity.
  • Europeans in general really love Donald Duck, possibly even more than Mickey Mouse and Goofy.
  • Also, the Disney Ducks Comic Universe and to a lesser degree the Mickey Mouse Comic Universe have a really huge fanbase mainly in Italy, the Netherlands, Northern Europe and South America while in the USA it's popularity stopped and only the works of Carl Barks and Don Rosa are wildly known. So it is a welcome surprise for this comic book fan that this series would include characters beloved and well-known by comic fans outside of the US such as José Carioca, Panchito Pistoles and the Phantom Blot as well as being the animated debut of characters like Fethry Duck, Neighbor Jones and John D. Rockerduck. So the show is very popular in this areas too.
• Growing the Beard: "Terror of the Terra-Firmians!" takes a hint from "Woo-oo!" and gives a fair amount of adult and child characters a time to shine. It also goes an extra step further by significantly darkening the overall tone of the series.
  • "The Ballad of Duke Baloney!" gives Glomgold an amazing amount of depth as a legitimately tragic villain, gives proper stakes to his and Scrooge's rivalry (along with pushing it into Black and Gray territory), details plenty of important lore (which is done with some originality and not with some hackneyed fanservice), and significantly contributes to the progress of Season 2's arc.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • Donald and Scrooge seeing each other after so long and trading insults with each other? Comical. Finding out that it was because Della disappeared with the Spear of Selene, causing Donald to not trust him again? Gutwrenching.
  • Meta-wise, the trailer for the rest of Season 1 showing Magica gleefully ranting about a final showdown with Scrooge, only for him to roll into view in disheveled state, much to her confusion? Funny. Finding out that the reason he's in such a state is because a massive falling out with his family about what happened to his niece, leading everyone to abandon him, and all of this has led to Scrooge teetering on the edge of a Despair Event Horizon? Not so funny anymore.
  • The "Donald's Birthday" short. It may be touching to see Donald's family wish him a happy birthday. But the fact that Della is his twin, they share the same birthday and she's spending hers alone on the Moon.
  • Just a week after the episode featuring Duckworth's ghost appearing, Chuck McCann, the voice actor who played him in the original series, passed away.
  • This happened again: Bushroot is absent from the beginning of "Beware the B.U.D.D.Y System," despite Quackerjack, Megavolt, and Liquidator appearing. His voice actor (Tino Insana) had passed away in 2017.^note This is actually a coincidence (the writers weren't sure they'd be allowed to use the Darkwing Duck mythos again, and so Frank Angones pushed for the only three villain spots available to be filled by his personal favorites), but that doesn't make it any less sad. The character eventually makes a brief cameo in a flashback in "The Duck Knight Returns".
  • A Tumblr user created an AU in which Scrooge ends up in possession of Lena's amulet and Magica (trapped in said amulet) continually possesses him in order to wreck his relationships with his family. Then, in "The Other Bin of Scrooge McDuck!", Magica discovers that she can fully take over Lena's body and takes advantage of it to advance her plans.
    • Even harsher - in that AU, Scrooge insulted and drove away his family while under the influence of Magica. Come "The Last Crash of the Sunchaser!", Scrooge insults and drives away his family all on his own, no Magica needed. Worse still, this happens just before Magica plans to attack him.
  • "No one tell your Uncle Donald!" says Scrooge to the kids in the pilot episode when he sneaks them off to Atlantis. As "The Last Crash of the Sunchaser!" reveals, telling Donald a lot of things would have resolved many many family rifts.
  • This music video, starring Webby and the McDuck Clan including Donald, on a space adventure and having a great time. Turns out a prospective space adventure is where Della went missing, which put Donald and Scrooge off speaking terms. The later revelation of some of the circumstances alienates him from Webby and the boys as well when they blame him for it going wrong.
  • "Still a trillionaire?" can be read as "So you gave up on Della?" after "The Last Crash of the Sunchaser!".
  • Magica's treatment of Lena was already bad enough, but the revelation that Lena was Magica's Living Shadow the whole time and that Magica didn't really even consider her a real person somehow makes it all even worse.
  • Della's shock at seeing her grown boys, while stranded on the moon with a makeshift television, becomes this when Dewey appears in the past to a preteen her and Donald. She never forgot the "fifteenth cousin" that tried to warn her about the future.
  • In "The Beagle Birthday Massacre", Huey reassures Webby that they won't leave her out of their boat trips again in place of Louie. In Glomtales, Louie does get left behind as punishment when one of his schemes puts everyone and time itself in danger albeit unknowingly and mostly unintentionally.
  • In "The Infernal Internship of Mark Beaks!", Huey gets upset and has a breakdown over how Dewey "faked it till he made it" to get a promotion when Huey did a lot of hard work, and then says he's "Chillin' Like a Villain", which was the name of a song in Descendants 2. This ends up being prescient of what happens in Descendants 3, where Princess Audrey accuses Mal of taking shortcuts to become future queen which she worked hard and waited patiently for, and then turns evil and goes on a quest for vengeance over it.
  • In the end of "Moonvasion", F.O.W.L. promises to give Clan McDuck "their last adventure". Come December 2, 2020 and the revelation that Season 3 will be the final season of Ducktales, therefore being their last major adventure. To bring the point even further, the series finale is even called "The Last Adventure!".
• Heartwarming in Hindsight:
  • Scrooge defending Gyro from his Board of Directors becomes this when we learn that one of Gyro's inventions — Oxy Chew Gum — saved Della's life when she got stranded on the moon. So Gyro has made at least two devices that haven't gone evil and helped the Ducks.
  • Dewey and Launchpad's Intergenerational Friendship becomes this when you learn that Della was the Sunchaser's pilot before her disappearance.
  • While Scrooge bonding with Webby was heartwarming already, it takes on a whole new level once it's revealed that Webby was actually a clone created by F.O.W.L. using Scrooge's DNA, making her his biological daughter.
  • In the pilot, Scrooge giving a head to the Headless Man Horse leads to the latter becoming a McDuck employee who becomes loyal to Scrooge and Gyro. We find out that Manny was actually Goliath, aka a horse-gargoyle threatening to cause the end of the world, and Goliath reveals that he pulled a Heel–Face Turn in part thanks to the Ducks being nice to him. The Phantom Blot and Steelbeak realized they messed up in awakening his true form, since Goliath not only turns on them but protects the kids.
  • With the reveal that Webby is Scrooge's biological daughter by way of cloning in "The Last Adventure!", Webby as a character can qualify as one ongoing example of this trope. Her fangirl hero-worship over Scrooge? Her own father is her biggest hero! Her first friends Huey, Dewey and Louie? Her cousins! Her encyclopedic knowledge of McDuck Family history? An enthusiastic fervor over her own family heritage! Joining Scrooge on a mission to save Beakley in "From the Confidential Casefiles of Agent 22!"? Just a father-daughter bonding day in the most McDuck way possible! Visiting Castle McDuck? She's meeting her grandparents for the first time! And it just goes on and on and on and on...
  • In the French dub, Jean-Claude Donda is the voice of Scrooge while his daughter, Camille Donda, is the voice of Webby, making them a rather fitting and coincidental casting choice.
• He Really Can Act:
  • For Donald and for Tony Anselmo's mastery of the voice. Donald has never shown a greater emotional range than he has here, when Donald's previous characterization was largely just the angry guy.
  • Keith Ferguson is clearly having fun voicing Flintheart Glomgold, and gives him just the right amount of jerkishness that makes him a villain we Love to Hate. He also manages to do a flawless impersonation of the Darkwing Duck villain Megavolt sounding exactly like how Dan Castellaneta voiced him in the original series.
  • Catherine Tate, best known for her comic roles and her heart-breaking role as Donna from Doctor Who, is surprisingly chilling as Magica De Spell.
  • The Beagle Boys in the original series were voiced by individual voice actors. More specifically Terrance McGovern, Chuck McCann, Brian Cummings, Peter Cullen and Frank Welker, among others. Here, they're all voiced by one voice actor, Eric Bauza, and he manages to give each Beagle their own identity and voice.
  • Kimiko Glenn and Kate Micucci really make Lena and Webby stand out in the horror-oriented "The Other Bin of Scrooge McDuck!", conveying the fear and grief of their characters during the Nightmare Sequence in a chillingly convincing way.
  • Bobby Moynihan as Louie is typically laid back and has some skewed priorities, but in "The Secrets Of Castle McDuck", we see more of his vulnerable side when he's just as shocked and hurt as Huey that Dewey kept a secret about their mother from them. Damn! That's fine acting there.
  • While Jim Cummings is usually great, he's especially so here as Jim Starling, the original Darkwing Duck. What clinches it, though, is his terrifying portrayal of Jim after he completely loses his mind and becomes Negaduck, really selling the Face–Heel Turn.
  • Chris Diamantopoulos, best known for Mickey Mouse, has earned praise for his performance as Storkules thanks to being a Large Ham and a Nice Guy. He also sounds almost exactly like Jim Cummings when voicing Drake Mallard, the new Darkwing Duck.
  • James Monroe Iglehart's previous work for Disney included the Genie in the original Broadway cast for Aladdin, Lance Strongbow in Tangled: The Series, and Bronzino in Elena of Avalor, all heavily comedic characters. So not only was casting him as Taurus Bulba a major case of Playing Against Type for him, but he gave a crazed, sinister, truly threatening performance to completely justify it.
  • Marc Evan Jackson is typically known for more comedic roles, most notably Trevor Nelsson in Parks and Recreation, but as Bradford Buzzard, he manages to capture the pure spite and venom of the character, especially at the moment in the finale where Bradford reveals to Scrooge that he informed Della about the Spear of Selene, successfully bringing to life a truly hateful and despicable villain.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Don Rosa once drew a crossover fanart with Doctor Who for a friend. On a subtler note, David Tennant's real last name is MacDonald. Rather fitting for an uncle of Donald Duck. Doubles as an Ironic Name, since MacDonald literally means "Son of Donald."
  • Before getting voice roles in the reboot, Kate Micucci (Webby) and Riki Lindhome (May) once sang a song about sex with ducks (NSFW) that specifically references DuckTales around the 1 minute mark.
  • Louie asks Scrooge how much his net worth is. The show came out just a few days after Disney commissioned an episode of Game Theory that asked exactly that question.
  • In the original series, Gizmoduck was voiced by Hamilton Camp. In this series, he's voiced by an actor best known for playing Alexander Hamilton.
  • Making Lin-Manuel Miranda's casting even more hilarious, he credited the Theme Song from Darkwing Duck as being "important to [his] development as a man, as an artist, as a songwriter" and said that his awareness of a three-word rhyme (which he used in In the Heights) came from the theme. Yet, in both the original Darkwing Duck and in this series, Darkwing despises Gizmoduck.
  • In the fanfic, Legend of the Three Caballeros: Dark Signs of the Sun, the sixth chapter shows that the Three Caballeros world is connected to the DuckTales one, with Daisy already acquainted with Launchpad. The chapter was uploaded just three weeks before it was revealed that Daisy is appearing in DuckTales.
  • Not long after the premiere of "Beware the B.U.D.D.Y. System!", a fan on Tumblr edited a screenshot of Darkwing Duck to make him look like Negaduck. This post definitely aged like wine after the ending of "The Duck Knight Returns!".
  • The Sesame Street episode "Porridge Art" had Bobby Moynihan play the Quacker Duck Man, a guy in a duck suit. Cut to a few years later, and in this series, he voices Louie Duck.
  • Shortly after the Poorly Disguised Pilot "Let's Get Dangerous!" aired, reputable sources reported the bizarre story that there was another Darkwing Duck reboot in the works by the company responsible for Darker and Edgier superhero shows The Boys and Invincible (2021), instantly bringing to mind the reboot film from "The Duck Knight Returns!".
  • The fact that family (found and biological) is a very strong theme in the series, emphasizing it to be the "greatest adventure of all" (said sentence even being the key to Bradford's undoing at the last episode), is this considering that about four months after the finale, memes popping up about how "nothing is stronger than family", featuring Dom needing nothing more than family to kick ass and break logic, almost similarly to how the Papyrus of Binding was broken.
  • After voicing Gladstone Gander in this series, Paul F. Tompkins had a minor role in The Bob's Burgers Movie as the carny who initiates a Crowd Song titled "Lucky Ducks".
  • In "Woo-oo!", when Dewey asks Scrooge "Which triplet am I?", Scrooge responds with "It's, um... Bluey?" In 2018, a show called Bluey premiered on The ABC, with Disney acquiring the broadcasting rights in 2019 (airing it on Disney Junior beginning in September of that year, and adding it to Disney+ in the US in January 2020).
  • "Timephoon!" shows Dewey and Webby stocking up on chili cheese dogs as their food source for the incoming storm. Dewey's VA Ben Schwartz would voice Sonic the Hedgehog (whose Trademark Favorite Food is chili dogs) for the 2020 live-action film.
  • Paget Brewster voiced Birdgirl in Harvey Birdman, Attorney at Law. Now she voices an actual bird girl in Della Duck.

I-Z

• I Knew It!:
  • While it threw most people for a loop, many fans accurately predicted that Della Duck's absence would be addressed.
  • Lena's real identity as a renamed version of Minima De Spell, Magica De Spell's niece.
  • A few people managed to predict that the Spear of Selene was actually the name of a rocket ship.
  • Glomgold's Scottish ethnicity has long implied to be fake due to how over-the-top it was, so many fans early on guessed correctly that Glomgold was actually South African like he was in the comics, and that he was just putting on an act.
  • It was speculated as far back as Season 1 that Bradford Buzzard and the Board of Directors were actually new incarnations of the F.O.W.L. High Command trio, especially due to production materials listing them as villains. The Season 2 finale, "Moonvasion!", would confirm this is the case.
  • When her design was first seen, many fans suspected that Emma Glamour from "Louie's Eleven!" would have some connection to Mark Beaks. The episode revealed that they're mother and son.
• It Was His Sled: Della's presence on the show was treated as a huge reveal at the time of the show's airing, to say nothing of the reveal that she was still alive. The secret spread fast, however, and now you'd be hard pressed to find someone who doesn't know about her, even if they have never seen the show.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • All of the Beagle Boys despite being career criminals, mainly because of how horribly Ma Beagle treats them all.
  • Jim Starling a.k.a. Negaduck. He was an egotistical actor who treated his older fans like walking paychecks and he went berserk when he found out he was no longer going to be reprising his most iconic role, Darkwing Duck. He tried to reclaim the role by force and almost killed several people when the filming goes wrong. However, his career did suffer after his show was canceled and he did still have some enthusiasm when he thought he was getting new fans. He also realized the error of his ways when Launchpad and Drake talked him out of his rampage. The last act he performed was knocking Launchpad and Drake away from an exploding generator, but the trauma of the explosion drove him mad and decided to become Darkwing’s greatest nemesis.
• Just Here for Godzilla:
  • A lot of younger fans who have never seen the original Duck Tales are interested in the show just because David Tennant is in it. Likewise, quite a few fans who were originally uninterested in the reboot but were won over by Tennant's involvement.
  • The show has both Wander over Yonder and Gravity Falls alumni, which most certainly prompted interest in this series, especially since both series had ended a year before this one aired.
  • Donald Duck's expanded role garnered interest from his fans who might not otherwise be interested.
  • Ben Schwartz as Dewey. Alternately, for those that associate him with Jean-Ralphio... There's also Kate Micucci for those who are fans of Garfunkel and Oates and/or Steven Universe, Danny Pudi, Jim Rash and Paget Brewster for Community fans, Beck Bennett and Bobby Moynihan for Saturday Night Live fans, David Tennant and Catherine Tate for Whovians, Lin-Manuel Miranda for Hamilton fans, the list goes on and on.
  • Quite a few fans only expressed interest once it was revealed that Darkwing Duck was making an appearance, and teased that Jim Cummings would be voicing him again. And now that it's been revealed that he wasn't just playing the original Darkwing, but Negaduck...
• Launcher of a Thousand Ships:
  • Webby has been shipped with all of the triplets, separately and together, with the "Roxanne" lookalike Recurring Extra, and with Lena. Now also with Violet Sabrewing as well as both Lena and Violet.
  • Donald is on his way to this status too, as he's already been shipped with Daisy Duck, Mrs. Beakley and Gabby McStabberson. Comic fans have also started to ship him with Magica De Spell, despite her being way more evil and dangerous in this adaptation. Donald has also been paired with Jose Carioca and Panchito Pistoles, who are both confirmed to appear in Season 2 ^note after all, they are three gay caballeros. Storkules has been popping up as well, thanks to the amount of Ho Yay between him and Donald.
  • Launchpad has been shipped with Della (further explained below), Gyro, Donald, Lord Dominator, Fenton and even Darkwing Duck, the latter of which was already a popular ship in its own fandom. It helps that, per Word of God, he Really Gets Around and has numerous Amicable Exes.
  • Della is also becoming this. She's been shipped with Launchpad, Magica, Selene, Gyro, Poe, Penumbra and even Don Karnage.
  • Scrooge is no slouch in this department either: he's been paired up with Goldie, Flintheart, Fenton, Beakley, Duckworth, Gyro, Launchpad, and Magica.
• Love to Hate:
  • Flintheart Glomgold. He's an awful bastard to the ninth degree, but his hamminess and desire to one-up Scrooge make him an entertaining character to watch, helped by Keith Ferguson's stand-out VO performance. After "The Ballad of Duke Baloney" he quickly became the most popular and liked villain of this series, a major improvement over the 1987 and comics' Glomgold namely for having an actually fleshed out personality that justifies his hatred for Scrooge.
  • Gladstone Gander is a narcissistic layabout who lives a charmed life he did nothing to merit or deserve, but he's such a perfect foil to Donald and Scrooge, with his bizarre luck introducing a lot of cool storytelling and thematic density, and that he's a unique character for being neither a hero nor a villain, that many are willing to put up with him.
  • Mark Beaks is described by Word of God as a character "so broad and over the top" that fans will love being annoyed by him.
  • General Lunaris being the shows first completely evil arc villain who is always two steps ahead of Scrooges and his allies, and manages to manipulate all his followers with ease.
• LGBT Fanbase: After Season 3 introduced Violet's dads, and Frank Angones promising more LGBT representation as he's been big on inclusion and diversity in cast, LGBT fans went nuts, to say the least.
• Magnificent Bastard:
  • Goldie O'Gilt, Scrooge's old flame and "ex-everything," is a beautiful, conniving treasure hunter who rivals Scrooge's skills but — possessed of a penchant for betrayal — Goldie has backstabbed Scrooge countless times to leave him in the wake of danger, while she constantly walks off untouched. During the Gold Rush, Goldie competed with Scrooge for the gold under Gumption before helping Scrooge steal a giant gold nugget from John D. Rockerduck. In the present, Goldie plays both Scrooge and Flintheart in her pursuit of the Golden Lagoon, using Scrooge to locate the Lagoon for her before managing to fake her death with the Eye of Demogorgon and making off with the treasure herself, completely untouched in the end. Taking Louie Duck under her wing, Goldie helps him con Doofus Drake, while growing genuinely fond of the young duck, before making off with their stolen gold for herself. Later joining forces with Scrooge to find the Fountain of Youth, Goldie helps stop Ponce de Leon from stealing others' youth before saving Scrooge's life. Even through their constant quarreling and rivalry, Goldie and Scrooge retain a fierce, mutual respect for each other, with Goldie always knowing Scrooge will make it out alive out of whatever conundrum she leaves him in and Scrooge acknowledging her as his greatest Worthy Opponent.
  • Gandra Dee, an F.O.W.L. agent, is a well-intentioned but morally ambiguous scientist who is determined to push the boundaries of science. Agreeing to help Mark Beaks steal the Gizmoduck armor in exchange for funding, Gandra charms her way onto a date with Fenton where she tries to trick him into saying the suit's activation code one word at a time, legitimately falling for Fenton along the way. After preventing Gizmoduck from stopping Beaks from escaping, Gandra helps Fenton take out Beaks before sneaking away and leaving Fenton a way to complete his experiment. Helping Bradford hack a robot to try and kill Scrooge, Gandra later races Dewey and Webby for a piece of the Sword of Swanstantine, even temporally blinding the two to impede them. Later switching sides, Gandra leaks F.O.W.L. plans to Fenton so he can prevent them, helps stop Beaks from using the Gizmocloud for evil, and even helps to save Donald before he is erased from existence. Never losing her wit and charm, Gandra Dee shares Fenton's love for science and firm belief in using it to change the world even when they are on opposite sides.
• Memetic Badass: After Donald Duck's temporary voice change in the season finale (so he's easier to understand), he becomes this. In fact, he even devises a good plan and uses reverse psychology on the nephews and Webby.
  Beakley: Get ready for the storm.
  Donald: I am the storm.
  Beakley: Seriously, have you been saying things like that the whole time?
• Memetic Mutation:
  • Calling Scrooge "Ducktor Who" since David Tennant is voicing him.
  • Scroll through the YouTube comments on any of the promotional videos, and you're bound to come across at least one person telling Cartoon Network to take notes on how to make a better reboot.
  • Several one-liners from the first episode have already become memes:
    • Heck, one of Launchpad's lines from the first trailer was quickly — OH NO, THE GROUND!
    • But I'm wearing a KILT, MCDUCK! A KIIIIILLLLTTTT!!!
    • "I'm a pilot."
  • Viewers citing their ability to understand what Donald is saying to playing Kingdom Hearts. Alternatively, Kingdom Hearts fans still not being able to understand what Donald is saying.
  • Donald being a Good Parent while being a terrible healer in Kingdom Hearts.
  • Donald's one-liners from "The Shadow War!" when he is voiced by Don Cheadle, including:
  (normal voice) "Hands off of me, y-" (switches to Don Cheadle) "-ou mad scientist!"
  "Rubber baby buggy bumpers, rubber baby buggy bumpers..."
  "I am the storm!"
  • Fans saying that Webby's line "My heart! It's too full!" perfectly described their reaction to the triplets finally meeting their mother, with phrases such as "On this day, we are all Webby", or "Webby is us right now" also being used.
  • Pairing the quote "You either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain." with Jim Starling's Face–Heel Turn is becoming increasingly popular.
  • EVERYONE IS HERE! and challenging Endgame's spot as "the most ambitious crosover ever" after Comic Con 2019 where it was revealed that a bunch of beloved characters from Disney Afternoon shows such as TaleSpin, Rescue Rangers, Goof Troop and even The Wuzzles would be guest staring on the show.
  • "MORE ANGST!", which is used to describe the scene from the trailer of Lena seeing herself in the mirror with Magica's signature serpent eyes and hair highlight and being tormented by her in another scene, which fans are just more horrified that Lena is going to suffer once more.
  • "We're killing off Louie in the next episode." ^ExplanationFrank Angones' answer when asked if there were any characters who wouldn't be reappearing that season, leading fans to quote this every time Louie is seen in dangerous situations.
  • Lena is a Magical Girl.^Explanation Fans began comparing Lena to magical girls after she gained a Light Is Good Super Mode through The Power of Friendship in "The Phantom and the Sorceress!"
  • "Larry, I'm on DuckTales" ^ExplanationA quote from Danny Pudi to Larry King in response to their different notions of what constitutes "luxury".
  • “He’s not gonna be happy when he gets outta there!” “You mean IF he gets outta there!” “If…’if’ is good”^note In "New Gods on the Block!", Zeus enacted a similar plot as Hades from the Disney film, which also ended with him falling deep in the underworld
  • "Look at this cocky teenage Latina coming to destroy your fragile ego with a look." ^note  A tweet from Frank Angones, widely considered one of the worst tweets of all time
  • Catboy Louie. ^ExplanationIn "A Nightmare On Killmotor Hill!", we see that Louie has dreams of becoming a cat. This revelation launched a lot of fanart and memes of him as a catboy.
• Misaimed Fandom: According to Frank Angones, there's not meant to be a right or wrong side in Della and Louie's fight in season 2; they're just two flawed individuals who need to work out their issues, and are the only ones who can help each other do so. However, a significant number of fans missed the memo, and instead chose to paint one side as a complete saint who has done no wrong and the other as a horrible person to the "good" character (with which character getting what treatment usually depending on which character each fan likes more).
• Misblamed: After the highly praised pilot episode, some fans complained that the episodes that followed seemed to focus on the nephews, and especially Webby, at the expense of Scrooge and Donald, and that they were entirely in Duckburg. Co-producer Frank Angones later clarified that Disney was airing the show out of the intended order, offsetting the Duckburg/globetrotting ratio that was originally envisioned by the showrunners.^note To elaborate: after the Pilot and "Daytrip of Doom", "The Impossible Summit of Mount Neverrest" (a globetrotting episode focusing on Huey and Scrooge) should have aired, then "Great Dime Chase" followed by "Beagles Birthday Massacre". As per the current slot, the fifth episode, "The Terror of the Terra-Firmians" was intended to be the 9th Episode, "The Infernal Internship of Mark Beaks" which is the 6th was originally supposed to be the 7th, "The House of the Lucky Gander" was to be the sixth following "Beagle's Birthday Massacre" but is now the 7th, and "The Living Mummies of Thoth-Ra" was the 8th but supposed to precede "Terra-Firmians".
• Moe:
  • All of the kids - Huey, Dewey, Louie, Webby, Lena, Violet, BOYD, Gosalyn, June and May. Their childish personalities are endearing, their friendship and brotherhood with each other is heartwarming, and the designs for them invoke the image of cute children onto anthropomorphic birds.
  • Even some of the adult characters manage to be quite cute, namely Donald, Launchpad, Fenton, Fethry, Della, and Drake. As of The Fight for Castle McDuck, Pepper definitely counts big time.
  • Boyd as well due to being an Adorkable Nice Guy in a cute bow-tie, and who especially looks good when placed next to the likes of Mark Beaks, Doofus Drake and Dr. Akita.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Glomgold crosses it in the first episode when he leaves Scrooge, Donald, Launchpad, the nephews, Webby and his henchmen to die in the sinking Atlantis (which he himself sank).
  • It's revealed in "Jaw$!" that Magica De Spell has her own niece Lena enslaved to do her bidding. To make it even worse, "The Other Bin of Scrooge McDuck" has her now able to literally possess her to get what she wants. And then in the finale we find out that Magica created Lena, which for all intents and purposes makes Lena her daughter, and get to watch Magica kill Lena practically as soon as she's done what Magica created her for. Twice, if you count the murder of the physical body and the spirit that showed up later separately.
    • Magica may have crossed it long before that when she reveals in "The Phantom and the Sorceress" that she kickstarted The Phantom Blot's career by destroying his village and killing everyone in it but him when she got bored of the tributes she was given to NOT destroy it.
  • Jim Starling/Negaduck ran past the horizon and seemingly isn't going to be looking back. He took the fact that he wasn't going to be cast as Darkwing Duck in the big budget remake... a little poorly. As in he tried to hijack the picture, assaulted numerous guards and attempted to straight-up murder his replacement, including with an electric gun and a chainsaw. Then, after seemingly dying in an explosion, he's revealed to have become Negaduck, a completely evil villain who completely lacks what little morality or sanity Jim had left prior to the explosion.
  • Lunaris crosses it when it's revealed that he's planning on killing Huey, Dewey, and Louie just to break Scrooge and make him easier to finish off, something he gloats to Donald about with a sickening grin on his face. And when Penumbra learns of this, he electrocutes her without remorse. He crosses this further in the Season 2 finale when he eventually resorts to destroying the Earth, not caring if he kills his people who are on it.
  • Dr. Akita, Gyro's former boss, is revealed to have crossed it in the past as he deliberately turned 2-BO into a Weapon of Mass Destruction behind Gyro's back, destroying the city of Tokyolk and causing Gyro to hate and blame himself for the next twenty years as he was the one who treated 2-BO like his son.
  • Ponce de Leon crossed it when he discovered the true powers of the fountain of youth and stole young people's youth tricking them into going to his hotel.
  • Bradford crossed the line in "Let's Get Dangerous!" when he decides to trap the triplets in another dimension, after they found him out. And if not then, he definitely crossed it in "The Last Adventure!" by planning on erasing everything and everyone related to adventure from existence. Then, when he told Scrooge that he would let him and his family return home safely if they stopped adventuring, he went back on his deal and tried to kill Donald anyway. But arguably the worst thing of it all is his revelation that he was the one who told Della about the Spear, essentially being the core reason as to why the show's plot kicked off in the first place, putting Scrooge in emotional hell for ten years and blaming himself for the incident, Donald cutting ties with Scrooge and having to raise the triplets on his own, the boys not having their mother for ten years, and Della being trapped on the moon for that long, all while losing her leg and suffering from PTSD.
  • Taurus Bulba crossed it by being perfectly willing to let the Ramrod destroy reality, just so he could make a "better" one.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • From "Beware the B.U.D.D.Y. System!": "Let's Get Dangerous!" - in Jim Cummings's voice, no less.
  • The first few notes of the Moon theme at the ending of "The Shadow War!", accompanying the Wham Shot of Della's survival.
  • Negaduck's Evil Laugh at the end of "The Duck Knight Returns!"
  • If you are a fan of Adventures of the Gummi Bears, then the sound of Webby drinking Gummiberry Juice in the episode "From the Confidential Casefiles of Agent 22" takes you right back.
• Narm Charm: The loophole that Huey and Louie find to defeat Bradford Buzzard in the finale is that it's impossible for Scrooge to never adventure in exchange for his family's safety because "Family is the greatest adventure of all". Many fans agreed that while it was extremely cheesy, it fit the theme of the series so well that it worked either way.
• Obvious Crossover Method: Due to the show featuring several characters becoming superheroes, it's not uncommon with fics that cross over with Paperinik New Adventures (or classic Paperinik) by having the Duck Avenger be an older or even retired hero^note The first Paperinik story was published in 1969, over 20 years before Darkwing Duck who Gizmoduck and/or Darkwing Duck look up to and admire, often with plot revolving around them finding out that Donald is the Duck Avenger.
• Obvious Judas: Scrooge's Board of Directors. It didn't help that production materials for the series that were shown behind-the-scenes (and thus freely available to see everywhere on the internet) had already clearly listed them under "Villains"; it was more of a matter of time when they would be revealed as villains, rather than if.
• Older Than They Think:
  • Donald's portrayal in this series, as a competent adventurer who's simultaneously an everyman and devoted father-like figure to Huey, Louie and Dewey. It surprises many who are just familiar with animated incarnations of Donald, unaware that this characterization is the norm in comics ever since Carl Barks' 40's work and to this day. On top of that, his appearance in the DuckTales (1987) series pilot has him portrayed as this, hinting at his Barks adventure origins. In fact, Donald's semi-ridiculous voice change in the season 1 finale is a reference to those same comics, as Donald is perfectly eloquent in print.
  • This series isn't the first time Huey, Dewey, and Louie were redesigned and given separate voice actors to make them easier to tell apart. This technique was previously done in Quack Pack.
  • The treasure hunt adventure motif and appearances of tropes like the Atlantean Temple of Doom full of Durable Deathtraps and a swarm of snakes have already evoked comparisons to Indiana Jones, which are to be expected... because Indiana Jones was partially inspired by Carl Barks' Uncle Scrooge comics of the 1950s. Steven Spielberg was never shy about admitting how things like the Raiders of the Lost Ark rolling boulder Signature Scene was taken directly from Barks' story The Seven Cities of Cibola, or the mine-cart-through-a-flood chase from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom from the story The Prize of Pizarro. Like its 1987 incarnation, the show resembles Indiana Jones because Indiana Jones was inspired by Scrooge McDuck, not the other way around.
  • The idea of Dewey in particular wanting to stick out from his brothers was actually used in an episode of the original series, "The Duck in the Iron Mask". (The Nephews actually having different personalities dates from at least 1988, when an Italian comic book story had Huey and Louie dealing with their brother's first crush and not having any idea while they still think that Girls Have Cooties.)
  • The idea of Louie being a bit more cowardly than his brothers was subtly used in the original Ducktales series. There's more than one occasion where he's the first to demonstrate fear and show hesitation to go into a dangerous situation. Though it could vary depending on the episode and he was more of a Cowardly Lion in contrast to his Lovable Coward portrayal here
  • Gyro's portrayal as a mad scientist (as in, a well-intentioned scientist who is also a certified loon) has actually been used in comics, mostly in the early Paperinik stories-where he knowingly collaborated with a criminal (as the Paperinik of the early stories acted only to avenge the wrongs he suffered as Donald, and had no qualms about committing crimes such as stealing Scrooge's money-filled bed while he slept on it), and even after Paperinik became more heroic he would from time to time 'demonstrate' his inventions on Donald's skin-such as when he came up with a pool that made those who bathed inside invulnerable, and demonstrated it by pushing Donald into it and then shooting him with rhino-hunt bullets. The earlier Barks comics also show him having anger issues.
  • The Nostalgia Critic sees an enjoyable similarity between Webby and Mabel from Gravity Falls, but she also bears a strong resemblance to earlier young Ellie from Up and the even earlier Gosalyn Mallard, so she's actually the latest in a line of spunky, spirited, adventurous young girls in Disney animation.
  • Gladstone losing to Donald's anger is actually a recurring plot point in Italian comics, where Paperinik, the superhero/antihero persona Donald created in part as an outlet for his anger, regularly overcomes Gladstone's luck (and, in one epic occasion, tricking him into thinking Donald used the Mail Shaman's magical medallion to successfully curse his luck away).
  • Another recurring plot point about Gladstone's luck in Italian stories is said luck ending up as causing more trouble than it's worth, such as when he was mistaken for Paperinik and, after enjoying dates with half the girls in Duckburg, criminals and paparazzi started persecuting him, or when he fell in love for a woman who loved him back but hated extremely lucky people and couldn't stand being around him.
    • For another Gladstone and Luck thing, look at how Donald doesn't benefit even remotely from Gladstone being lucky. The Puppetteers were horrified when they learned that breeding Luck into humanity (of the same kind that Gladstone has) would extend only to humanity, and not to their allies.
  • Scrooge warning Louie he'll crack his skull if he tries diving into money like Scrooge does is often cited as if it's the first time Scrooge's money swimming hobby has ever been deconstructed. "Only Scrooge can swim in money, anyone else who tries will suffer the predictable consequences" has actually been the rule for over 60 years — Carl Barks was writing such moments as far back as his 1952 story "Only a Poor Old Man" (from the very first issue of the Uncle Scrooge comic), which has Scrooge tricking the Beagle Boys into diving into his money and getting knocked unconscious (when the boys ask Scrooge how he can do it, all he'll say is, "It's a trick.").
  • Many people were flabbergasted that The Phantom Blot, one of Mickey Mouse's antagonists, appears in the Ducktales Universe despite Mickey himself being off-limits. However this isn't the first time the Blot appeared in Ducktales canon, in the original 1987 Ducktales episode 'All Ducks on Deck' he appears as a one shot villain. He also appeared as one of the main antagonist in the obscure comic Wizards of Mickey which contains elements of both Mickey Mouse comics and Donald Duck comics such as Magica, and in Ultraheroes where he's part of the main villain team and faces off against Paperinik in one part.
  • Scrooge's checkered relationship with Santa Claus is a recurring plot point in Italian comics: while they don't have a feud, whenever they meet something happens to get them on each other's nerves (such as Santa stealing the Number One Dime after getting brainwashed by Magica) on top of Santa’s feelings of humiliation due having to buy toys from Scrooge because his elves can't make enough. Even Scrooge having to sub for an injured Santa already happened.
  • Scrooge valuing his family over his money may seem like part of his Adaptational Nice Guy treatment, but Carl Barks' original Scrooge consistently did the same in multiple stories such as "Oddball Odyssey" and "The Mysterious Stone Ray." Even at his greediest and his most villainous, when forced to choose between his money and his family, every incarnation of Scrooge will pick his family every time.
  • The tactic of using a character's in-universe board of theories, conspiracies, and connections to make Mythology Gags was previously done with Beast Boy on Teen Titans (2003).
• Paranoia Fuel: The end of season 2 revealed that Scrooge's board of directors are the leaders of F.O.W.L., and several established characters are agents of F.O.W.L. Imagine living in a universe where anybody from a businessman, to a scientist you trust, and even a mascot from a children's playhouse, can turn out to be agents for an international crime syndicate.
• Periphery Demographic: Donald Duck, Uncle Scrooge and the rest of the Ducks have large, built-in fan bases that consist of people outside of Disney XD's preteen audience that are already interested in this show's take on the characters. The fact that this is the first time the classic Disney characters have ever been used for serialized storytelling adds to this.
• Questionable Casting:
  • Catherine Tate, a comedic actress, as the menacing villainess Magica De Spell. It should be noted that her original voice June Foray was also primarily a comedic actress, but in that show Magica was extremely hammy, whereas here she's a dead-serious Knight of Cerebus. That's only in her first speaking episode, though; later episodes show her with the Evil Is Hammy personality she's well known for, though she's still pretty dangerous.
  • Some people feel this way about the casting of Allison Janney as Goldie O'Gilt, mostly due to the lack of her southern drawl (never mind that in relation to what is known about her in the comics, it makes no sense for Goldie to have a Southern accent when she's an Irishwoman who immigrated to Dawson City). There are also those who think she's just essentially using her Charlene Doofenshmirtz voice .
  • Downplayed with Don Cheadle doing Donald's normal voice in the season 1 finale. While many people think he is good, they think it's unnecessary given that Tony Anselmo could've just used his regular voice.
  • A similar case happens in "Last Christmas!" while some were glad to have Russi Taylor voice young Donald in the same voice she used for Huey, Dewey and Louie in the 1987 DuckTales, others wonder why they didn't just pitch Tony's Donald voice higher, like with the triplets in House of Mouse and a few other properties.
  • Speaking of Huey, Dewey and Louie, while their voice actors are by no means terrible, many viewers still can't get over the fact that the boys sounded too old to be preteens.
  • Though Chris Diamantopoulos was praised for his performance as Drake Mallard in "The Duck Knight Returns!", considering how Jim Cummings was cast as Jim Starling aka Negaduck, some fans wished this had gone full circle and cast Cummings as Drake Mallard as well. Then again, the theme of the episode was about accepting newcomers who prove to do a capable and passionate job at performing, so this may be somewhat justified.
• Realism-Induced Horror: Ask any fan what the scariest thing about Magica is and they'll tell you that's not her impressive magical abilities, but her extremely abusive treatment of Lena. Magica openly treats her like a puppet, actively insulting and belittling Lena whenever she gets the chance. Lena also physically cannot run from Magica and is only shown to be helping her to get away from her. Even once Lena is freed, she's shown to be utterly terrified of Magica, who is more than happy to continue tormenting her wayward niece, whether by Gaslighting or intimadation.
• Remade and Improved: While DuckTales (1987) is considered to be a classic show and a staple of the Disney Afternoon, DuckTales (2017) is widely considered to be the better version by most fans, mainly due to the improved continuity, darker stories and villains and improving the character's personalities and characterizations.
• Seasonal Rot: Many agree that season 3 is the show’s weakest of the three. Reasons stated for this include the season’s central triplet Huey is frequently Out of Focus, introducing too many new characters in one season, more focus on comedy instead of family moments, and the twist regarding Webby’s origins not being set up properly as well as the twist itself turning Webby’s Found Family arc into a Broken Aesop. Criticism has also gone to how the season often devotes hefty time to being a Poorly Disguised Pilot for a Disney Afternoon reboot, to the point that the mid-season Wham Episode where Bradford is outed as the Big Bad is treated as a B-plot to the transparent Darkwing Duck reboot pitch of the episode. The showrunners sensed that the third season may be the last, so at the end of the season began devoting time to Scrooge and the cast’s legacy and future, but some felt it was too little too late with “The Life and Crimes of Scrooge McDuck!” coming under serious fire for having a major revelation that was crammed into one flashback. Still, most fans don’t outright hate the season and have argued that it could've turned out much worse.
• Ships That Pass in the Night:
  • Delpad (Della/Launchpad) was originally one, as Launchpad only came into Scrooge's employ after Della got stuck on the Moon. It stopped being this in season 2, when the two had more interactions with each other.
  • Violyn (Violet/Gosalyn) gained some popularity within the fandom despite the two never appearing together until "The Last Adventure!", and not even talking to each other in said episode.
  • Louna (Louie/Lena) is a decently popular pairing in the fandom too despite neither having much interaction with one another in the series.
• Ship-to-Ship Combat: As of season 2, there's one between the Drakepad shippers (who migrated over from Darkwing Duck) and the Delpad shippers (who mostly came about with the premiere of this show). There had been tensions between the two groups for a while, but after the summary for "The Golden Armory of Cornelius Coot!" came out (which hinted at major interactions between Launchpad and Della that could potentially become Ship Tease), all bets were off.
• Shocking Moments: There's a couple.
  • "The Shadow War!": Della's still alive and is trapped on the moon.
  • "The Duck Knight Returns!": Jim Starling's replacement is revealed to be Drake Mallard, who decides to become a real-life superhero. Meanwhile, Jim Starling undergoes a full-on Face–Heel Turn and becomes the reboot-verse's version of Negaduck.
  • "Moonvasion!": Scrooge's board of directors is actually the F.O.W.L. High Command. And among the agents of F.O.W.L. are Steelbeak, the Phantom Blot, John D. Rockerduck, and Gandra Dee.
  • The show's panel at SCDD revealed that not only characters like The Three Caballeros, D'jinn, and the like would return but so are characters from Talespin, Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, and Goofy as well. But the biggest surprise for everyone was Gosalyn from Darkwing Duck and most of all, DAISY. Yes, THAT Daisy.
  • If the panel was something, the trailer for Season 2 is even more intense, showing Flint getting aid from all of the enemies of the McDucks, including Magica, who not only gets her powers back, but seems to plan to get Lena back. And that's not even getting to General Lunaris planning his invasion of Earth with Donald as his captive.
  • With the third season being the last, the show did not hold back with reveals, notably that Bradford was the reason Della found out about the Spear, essentially making him the reason the family was split for ten years, Finch was Bradford's grandmother, but what is the biggest reveal is FOWL had made three clones, one of them being called "April"...who's actually Webby, who is a clone of Scrooge, making her his daughter!
• Signature Scene:
  • For Season 1, the last scene of the two part pilot, and its single line of dialogue.
    Dewey: Mom?
  • For Season 2, the flashback showing Glomgold and Scrooge's first meeting.
  • Another one for season 2, Donald seeing Della's ship then accidentally being blasted off into space.
  • Immediately following that, the scene where Della meets her children for the first time. There's also Webby's reaction.
  • The season 2 episode "The Duck Knight Returns" gives us two of these: Jim Starling's replacement actor signing a Darkwing Duck poster with his real name Drake Mallard and the Wham Shot right at the end that shows us what has become of the now clinically insane Jim Starling...
    Negaduck: They want “grim and gritty”, huh? Happy to play the part... (Evil Laugh)
  • The season 2 finale "Moonvasion" ends with a scene which reveals that Scrooge's board of directors are in charge of FOWL.
• Take That, Scrappy!:
  • Those who don't like Mark Beaks probably appreciated Ma Beagle questioning how someone like him could ever be a nemesis of Scrooge in "McMystery at McDuck McManor!".
    • While he became a Not-So-Harmless Villain, Beaks maintained his obnoxious personality. Fittingly, his final appearance portrays him as a pathetic flash in the pan that everyone has moved on from, forcing him to desperate measures to prove that he's still relevant.
  • This is the reasoning for turning Doofus into a villain for this show, as according to Frank Angones, he was the one character on the original show that he and Matt Youngberg never liked when they were kids.
  • In "The Other Bin of Scrooge McDuck", Lena's nightmare has Webby turned into a doll version of her widely maligned original 1987 incarnation... which ends up getting completely torn apart.
• The Producer Thinks of Everything: Webby being made from Scrooge was planned from the show's inception, as stated in this interview.
• Theme Pairing: Delpad started out as a ship because both Della and Launchpad are/were pilots.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!: As is expected, about many, many things:
  • Quite a few die-hard fans of the original have openly expressed dislike (or downright hatred) of the new animation and art style, going as far as to call it "cheap Flash garbage" (ignoring the fact that it's animated in Toon Boom Harmony, not Flash).
  • Characters being changed:
    • A lot fans think Scrooge is way too nice and generous for a character who's named after one of the most famous tightwads in literature; it's probably due to changing social values but a lot of the character's humor is how cheap he is.
    • The fact Webby does not address Scrooge as "Uncle Scrooge", but merely "Mr. McDuck" — especially it's clear in "The Living Mummies of Toth Ra!" that Scrooge loves her just as much of the nephews. As of "From the Confidential Casefiles of Agent 22!," it looks like Webby will start calling him this now.
    • Huey, Dewey and Louie having separate personalities. A lot of the new crowd love the new characters as such, but making the nephews separate is upsetting for much of the comic fans, especially since the abysmally-received Quack Pack.
    • Gyro becoming an Insufferable Genius with "mad scientist" tendencies has upset many fans — especially since it takes away from what made Gyro so lovable in the original.
    • Launchpad. In the original he was somewhat ditzy, but still competent, extraordinarily brave, and a Woodchuck Scout Troop Leader that the children often looked up to as a hero. Here, his ditziness is exaggerated to the point of being a Manchild that even the kids almost never take him seriously.
    • Burger Beagle changed from being overweight who talked a lot into being both skinny and silent. Francisco Angones admitted on Tumblr this happened because Burger was a stereotypical fat guy and a target of bullying toward overweight people that had no place in the reboot.
    • Goldie O'Glit being turned from an amoral saloon girl into an amoral Catwoman-esque adventuress who's always one step ahead of Scrooge.
    • Doofus Drake goes from a nice, if bumbling, kid who's friends with the triplets to a Creepy Child and Spoiled Brat who essentially wants to torture Louie into blind obedience.
    • Steelbeak getting changed from a Smug Snake Evil Genius to a (still smug) Dumb Muscle disappointed many Darkwing Duck fans who liked his original characterization. In the Grand Finale, however, he grows closer to his original characterization once he uses the intelligence ray on himself, becoming a full-on Genius Bruiser.
  • The replacement of fan favorite Jim Cummings with Jaime Camil as Don Karnage has provoked this reaction from many fans. The purpose is so the character would be voiced by a Latino actor, fitting for Don Karnage's supposed ethnicity; but the most scholarly of TaleSpin fans know that Karnage's accent is intentionally "a mix of Spanish, Cuban, French, and Ricky Ricardo" and tying him down to one particular, accurately-portrayed background is sort of missing the point. (His new design, with a broader snout and no tail, has also drawn criticism, not so much because the new design is unappealing per se as because the change was really unnecessary.)
  • Similarly, some fans of Legend of the Three Caballeros aren't happy that José Carioca and Panchito will be recast for their appearance in Season 2, especially since both their actors from that show have already provided voice work for the new DuckTales cartoon^note Eric Bauza (Jose in Legend of the Three Caballeros) as all of the Beagle Boys and Jaime Camil (Panchito in Legend of the Three Caballeros) as Don Karnage. Knowing the creators' preference for Actor-Shared Background, it's justified for José (as Eric Bauza is an American-Canadian dual citizen rather than Brazilian), but not for Panchito (as Jamie Camil is Mexican). And that's not even getting into how Carlos Alazraqui (Panchito) and Rob Paulsen (Jose) are again being replaced despite voicing them on House of Mouse and Mickey and the Roadster Racers .
  • The focus on the kids over Scrooge. Some fans of the first cartoon or the original Uncle Scrooge comics feel the show gives too much focus on the nephews and Webby both in single episodes and the overarching plotlines where they have far more proactive roles, while Scrooge is often a supporting player at best, and while he does get focus episodes, they are notably fewer in amount. Plus for some fans taking Donald and Scrooge, the title characters from the comics and pushing them out of the limelight in favor of the kids, undermines the show's claim of being Truer to the Text to them.
  • Fergus McDuck and Downy O'Drake are immortal, and, thus, still alive in this series. While this provides good opportunities for an adult Scrooge to interact with them, it's a wild departure from the Prime Universe, and one that foolhardily gives up two of the only unambiguous deaths of major supporting characters in the comics' Duckverse.
  • The upcoming character designs revealed at SDCC 2019 showed new designs for Butterbear and Rhinokey from The Wuzzles, but given a more realistic, Darker and Edgier design, as opposed to the other Disney Afternoon crossover characters who remain relatively close to how they looked in their respective original shows. Even those who aren't too familiar with the cartoon find the new designs too radically different from the rest of the characters.
• Theme Pairing: Some of the fanbase ships Delpad (Della Duck/Launchpad McQuack). One of the main reasons is them being daring pilots who often enough cross the line toward recklessness. They also have a close relationship with the Duck/McDuck family.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot:
  • A lot of complaints in the episode "Who is Gizmoduck?" revolve around how the episode felt like it was fitting three or four good stories into one single episode, making none of them feel really developed.
  • Dewey is Easily Forgiven by his brothers once they find out he's been keeping secrets of their mother from them. Quite a few fans are disappointed by the lack of lasting consequences for Dewey's decisions.
  • Despite episodes like "The Shadow War" and "Louie's Eleven" indicating Donald considers Webby his honorary kid and the pilot showing Webby admiring Donald (being the only kid at the time to do so) as an adventurer, we never get any episode showcasing Donald and Webby's relationship with one another. Made more jarring by how she has had some episodes showing her relationships with Della (who has been around for less time than Donald) and her true father Scrooge.
  • Daisy Duck never really got to interact with Della Duck and Gladstone Gander. it would have been interesting to see Della be protective of Donald Duck, because he is her brother and as far as Della is concerned, Daisy is a Stranger that she never met before, and Daisy might also by that same token tell Della she can't forbid her from seeing Donald, because he is her boyfriend and she loves him. It would have also been interesting to see Daisy in the middle of a Love Triangle between Donald's Duck and Gladstone Gander, with the two cousins competing for her affections and love and possible hand in marriage.
  • Season 2's plot features Lunaris a cunning yet hammy alien villain with an extreme focus on Scrooge, a personal enmity with Donald, an apparently affable personality and the inability to adapt to unexpected developments as a fatal weakness. This can also be said of Rebo of Saturn a villain from the comics, and a past encounter with him would have also explained why Scrooge felt the need to put defensive Kill Sats around Earth and stash away numerous powerful weapons (Rebo being that dangerous)
• Too Cool to Live: Launchpad's intelligent side from the Intelliray was a very formidable version of Launchpad who was able to easily figure out about F.O.W.L. and their plot against Scrooge. Too bad he got reverted back to his normal dimwitted side by taking Steelbeak's Intelliray (which was supposed to dumb down all of Duckburg). He was still conscious inside of Launchpad, and Huey was able to interpret his sleeptalking as a call for help.
• Toy Ship: Word of God has denied any possibility of Webby and any of the trio bros becoming a "thing". Unfortunately for the writers, it seems regardless of their intent, Webby is well on her way to being a Launcher of a Thousand Ships ... that is before The Reveal that Webby was actually Scrooge's daughter via cloning, which would make things very awkward for any of the triplets.
  • Many people almost immediately started shipping Dewey with Webby due to having similar personalities and also being close to each other during the theme song. In the episodes themselves, these two would often partner up with each other (including for solving the mystery of what happened to the Triplets' mother, which is very personal to Dewey) and mutually considered themselves to be close.
  • By the end of the second episode, Louie and Webby began to gain popularity, due to ther former giving unethical life tips to the latter during the episode.
  • Huey and Webby gained steam from the Terra-Firmian episode, which involves Webby helping Huey over his fear of the unknown.
  • Shipping Webby with Lena also quickly started to gain popularity, especially thanks to the pet names they call each other in the show.
  • Huey/Violet fics began popping up after their competition in the Season 3 premiere, due to them both being the brainiacs of their respective groups.
  • Louie/Lena is also fairly popular in some circles due to their similar personalities in being the more cynical ones in their trios, fairly scheming, and having similar development in learning to use their abilities for good.
  • Huey/Boyd has also gained popularity since "Astro B.O.Y.D." due to their shared interests and the abundance of bonding the two shared in the aforementioned episode.
• Unexpected Character:
  • At a demo reel at San Diego Comic-Con 2017, fans were shocked to see another familiar duck: Darkwing Duck!
  • While not a specifically a character, the same demo reel showed an updated design for the Iron Vulture aircraft from TaleSpin, suggesting that characters from its series of origin could be popping up as well. The pilot bringing up Cape Suzette only furthers this, and a promo for the series' return not only confirms the appearance of the Sky Pirates, but also shows Don Karnage dueling Dewey.
  • Who would have thought that Della Duck, Donald's sister, and the triplets' mother, would have been involved in the plot at all, given that the animated canon has never mentioned her before. Della appears in a painting in one of the last shots of the pilot, being brought into the animated canon for the first time.
  • The Sasquatch from A Goofy Movie appears in the Huey short, and then returns in "The Other Bin of Scrooge McDuck" as "Tenderfeet".
  • Although some people predicted it beforehand, it's still a surprise that Minima De Spell — a one-shot villain from the Ducktales comics — is going to be playing a role here, albeit under a different name.
  • The SDCC 2018 demo reel also introduces two characters into the animated canon: Fethry Duck and John D. Rockerduck. Many were especially surprised at the latter due to the belief that Mark Beaks was created to take his place for the show.
  • Even with the show's frequent references to the Disney Animation block, no one was expecting an episode centered around Castle Dunwyn and the Gummis.
  • The main antagonist of "The Richest Duck in the World!" is Bombie the Zombie, a character most people didn't think the series would adapt due to his controversial origins.
  • At SDCC 2019, the crew revealed more characters for season 3. Such surprises include: Gosalyn Mallard, Taurus Bulba, Goofy, Daisy Duck, the Rescue Rangers, adult versions of Kit and Molly from TaleSpin, and a realistic looking Butterbear from The Wuzzles!
  • While many people predicted F.O.W.L will appear after some mentions past episodes, the season 2 finale "Moonvasion!" reveals that one of the members is The Phantom Blot, a Mickey Mouse antagonist that no one saw coming since the mouse himself isn't legally allowed to appear in Ducktales.
  • While at least some classic Darkwing villains showing up in "Let's Get Dangerous" was to be expected, Bonkers D. Bobcat came as a surprise to many, and nobody was expecting a cameo by the Fluppy Dogs.
  • The creators managed to pull this off one last time in the series finale: Manny, a comic relief side character who's been around since season 1, is revealed to be an expy of Goliath of all characters. Complete with the voice of Keith David, him saying "I live again!", and his One-Winged Angel transformation being accompanied by the show's theme song!
• Values Dissonance:
  • Almost certainly a factor in the decision to downplay Scrooge's Greed and cheapness. With now decade-long recession afflicting the States, what was once an amusing flaw would probably rub modern viewers the wrong way.
  • Similarly, the reason why Burger Beagle is changed from a Big Eater Fat Comic Relief to a skinny crook is that the creators thought that fat jokes, popular in the 1980s, would be considered tasteless and encourage bullying of fat people nowadays. Despite this, they introduced the Ugly Failure Beagles in a later episode, who are a trio of loser stereotypes, including a fat one. No fat jokes were made around this character so far, though.
  • It also goes the other way, as Glomgold was changed from South African to Scottish in the '80s series due to their discomfort in having a character be associated with Apartheid. Now that it's long over, Glomgold in this series is revealed to actually be South African, and just pretending to be Scottish in order to best Scrooge at literally everything, including being Scottish.
• Vindicated by History: Season 1 got a lot of complaints for focusing too much on Dewey at the expense of the other two. This naturally died down once the later seasons came and it became clear that each one was deliberately designed to focus on one specific character.
• Visual Effects of Awesome: The animation is very fluid and, like The Loud House, feels like a comic strip coming to life. Which, given the notion it will take much more material from the original source, the comics, the comic-like appearance may be the entire point.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Let's see here. Black comedy freely littered throughout? Check. A realistic depiction of abusive relationships with Magica forcing Lena to do her bidding? Double check. Characters often subject to trauma and realistic violence? Triple check. Yeah, there's definitely quite a few elements that make this show much darker than its predecessor.
• The Woobie:
  • Donald Duck. The combination of his bad luck, overwhelming love of his nephews and earnest determination had many fans feeling sorry for the jerkish and short-tempered duck, many for the first time. Epitomized in the episode The Golden Spear!
  • Webby spent her whole life cooped up in the mansion without anyone to hang out with. Even when the triplets arrive, she's afraid they'll eventually ditch her because she's not normal like them.
  • Dewey, after seeing just how much learning about Della's disappearance has started getting to him. When he discovers that she could have betrayed Scrooge and Donald it ends up leaving him reluctant to continue finding out the truth, out of fear that she may not be who he thought she was.
  • Fenton is constantly demeaned and insulted by his boss, and his attempts to help others only end up backfiring on him.
  • Lena is revealed to be this at the end of "Jaw$!", being enslaved to do her evil aunt's bidding, with Magica not giving a damn about her wellbeing. It gets even worse in subsequent episodes, as it becomes clear that Magica is an abusive maniac, and when Lena tries to resist her and tell Scrooge the truth, Magica stops her by hijacking her body.
  • As it turns out, Scrooge himself. He was responsible for building the Spear of Selene and not talking down Della when the latter stole it to go up in space. He nearly bankrupt himself and sent many men to their doom trying to save her only to fail. To rub salt in the wound, when the triplets find out about the situation they think he didn't care to search for her because of his greed and didn't talk her down because of his adventure lust. The bitter old man we saw at the beginning was all because Scrooge never moved on.
  • Fethry Duck is a good-natured mellow guy who is an even bigger loser than Donald but has none of the latter's bad temper and self-pity, and yet he's dismissed by his relatives, except for Huey and Dewey who come to see him for the good sort he is.
  • And then you have the biggest one of it all: Della Duck. While it was obvious she was a head-strong but stubborn duck, it's obvious she shows regrets over taking the Spear of Selene and becoming a prisoner of the Moon. Add to the fact that she eventually starts to undergo Sanity Slippage as she's unable to watch her children grow for ten years and at one point, had to amputate her leg due to an accident and it's made clear Della did not deserve her fate.
  • Drake Mallard is almost as big a fan of Jim Starling as Launchpad. He even explains that Darkwing Duck got him through a difficult childhood. Once Drake finally meets his childhood hero, Jim tries to kill him in a jealous rage.
  • Zan Owlson certainly falls under this category. At the start of the second season, she's introduced as competent and good-intentioned businesswoman ready to take over Glomgold Industries as its new CEO following Flintheart's disappearance and was planning on using her new position in the company to change it into a force of good by forming a charity with Scrooge called "Dimes for Ducklings". Only then does Flinty comes back at the last minute and regains control over his company, demoting Owlson to his CFO and reducing her to playing second fiddle to Psychopathic Manchild whose Card-Carrying Villain tendencies repeatedly undermine her attempts to draw in more profits for the company. Then, just when it seems she'll get to work with Scrooge, a competent businessman despite his thrill-seeking nature, she's forced to work under his lackadaisical and frivolous great-nephew who nearly gets her and two other employees killed, at which point she officially loses patience with the likes of Louie and basically gives up on trying to improve Duckberg's rich folks for the better.
  • BOYD desperately wants to Become a Real Boy and in both his debut episode and "Astro BOYD," he is distraught when faced with the knowledge that he is actually a robot. Additionally, he was surreptitiously programmed by Dr. Akita to become a weapon of mass destruction against his will.
  • Gosalyn. Her grandfather is thrown into another dimension by Taurus Bulba, and she herself is forced to destroy the only way of finding him in order to save reality. Even though Drake is taking care of her now, she doesn’t yet appear to be Happily Adopted like in the original series since there’s still a chance (however slim) that her grandfather’s still alive.
  • May and June just want to know why they were created, but everyone around them just wants to use them or lie to them. May and June are often treated as failed experiments, Bradford doesn't even see them as people, and despite them referring to her as mom, even Black Heron tends to only see them as people and refer to them by name when they prove useful. Even so it doesn't stop the two from being devastated when Heron is killed by Bradford. To top it all off the two finally find out why they were created, as replacements for Webby that were going to be destroyed once they outlived their usefulness.
• Woolseyism: As in the original series, the Italian dub gives Magica a heavy Neapolitan accent to reflect she's from there (or at least did). Due its hamminess and hilarity connotations, the Neapolitan accent makes her even more unsettling.
  • The Danish dub actually replaces "Happy Birthday to You" with the well-known Danish birthday song, "I dag er det Oles fødselsdag" ("Today it is Ole's birthday"), even if it doesn't properly match the lip movements. This can be heard in the Danish-dubbed version of the promotional short centered around Donald, as well as in the dubbed version of "The Beagle Birthday Breakout!".

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