New DuckTales Animated Series

They had already revealed that Beakley wasn't her real grandma earlier in the season, and she was the character most involved in the FOWL stuff so I assumed they were gonna reveal she took Webby with her so she wasn't raised by them.

I also thought that all the focus they gave to Pepper in the Blot's second episode would be building up to something else with her, but it wasn't, really.

I have a crazy fan-theory that they intended to do something with Pepper, but didn't shared that with the rest of the world.

Yes, that was plausible back then, but that's not where they went with it.

Maybe they had a different idea at first, it's possible. Though if Webby's obsession with Scrooge is any indication, they planned this from the start, or at least had this idea rolling around.

I just thought of something: for all the progressive changes the reboot made, it was the original Ducktales that came up with a female Yeti, which is an interesting choice considering Yetis in fiction tend to be males.

It's played as a Female Monster Surprise if I remember correctly.

I don't think it's much of a surprise when she is wearing makeup and jewelery, to be honest.

Does Ducktales 2017 have a pilot? Considering how pilots for Disney TVA shows have been leaked recently, does Ducktales 2017 have one?

Yeah, it's the first two parter, basically.

Something like seven to ten pitch bibles, storyboards, early drafts for episodes/the pilot of the series leaked. We do have the pitch bible for the 2017 series we ended up getting as well. Pretty insane.

Edited by entut1 on Apr 27th 2024 at 6:17:56 AM

We also got the pitch for the Darkwing Duck show they were trying to get made.

Judging from what we see in the actual pitch, it seems it was made before Season 3, even.

Since we're allowed to post the bibles like in the Amphibia and Owl House boards, I'm gonna just show the pitch bibles for those not wanting to download it themselves.

There's too many images for each one so I'm just gonna link each one from screenshots (not gonna do Angones' pitch bible or the various pilot scripts and storyboards since they're too long.

Here's the Darkwing Duck spin off bible by Angones/Youngberg.

A pitch by Paul Dini (yeah, he was actually expressing interesting in running the show)

Joe Pitt's full pitch.

Mark McCorckle and Bob Schooley's pitch

Becky Dreistadt and Frank Gibson's pitch (seems Webby and Beakley weren't in this and Donald wasn't gonna be in the main cast, but Daisy was still in this weridly enough)

Any thoughts on these pitches?

Edited by SpongeGuy11 on Apr 27th 2024 at 6:03:56 AM

Just for a bit of clarification, the first one is a Darkwing pitch, the rest of them are Ducktales pitches.

The Paul Dini one looks like it was interesting - his take on Webby seems to have been to more or less turn her into Gosalyn, and his concept seems to have put more emphasis on the Beagle Boys as Scrooges nemeses.

(Though now that the idea is in my head, an alternate universe where Paul Dini pitched a Darkwing reboot sounds heavenly)

Meanwhile, several of the things I see in Angones and Co. + Rogen's pitch for Darkwing reaffirms my relief that we never got it.

Especially the bit where they list all the things they perceive about the original series that they were trying to be better than, where they claim Gosalyn was just a "troublemaking tomboy obstacle" or that their relationship was "rote 90's father and daughter lessons" and so on.

Edited by KnownUnknown on Apr 27th 2024 at 3:19:55 AM

The Dini pitch is actually pretty good, but ultimately Webby sounds a less nuanced character than she is in the finalized product, where she is a badass but in return for social skills and just plain common sense, balancing her in much better fashion.

I agree that he would have been a much better writer for Gosalyn, and the Darkwing mythos in general.

Paul Dini doing a Darkwing Duck reboot would sure feel like it'd be in full circle considering he was a writer on Batman The Animated Series and Darkwing Duck is based on Batman.

Becky and Frank's pitch is a mix of things that probably wouldn't work (Gyro working for villains. No. I actually like the amoral Gyro of DT 17, unlike apparently everyone else, but having him as an actual villain is a bridge too far) and things that sound great, like Magica being a TV celebrity, and its take on Rockerduck, which gets him much better than DT 17 did.

Torn on Rupert as an idea— it sounds fine, but also something that probably could be done with Duckworth or Jeeves regardless.

Edited by TomWithoutJerry on Apr 27th 2024 at 5:44:31 AM

Mark and Bob's pitch has two things I really like— Quackfaster and Beakley as Webby's mother instead of granddaughter, which changes their dynamics while also keeping them true to the original. Very clever! The rest sounds a bit samey though.

It's funny that none of the pitches and the actual finished product give the nephews the same roles, and their traits are randomly thrown around from one pitch to the next pitch and so on. Hopefully DT 17's relative longterm recognition success leaves the trio in a regular position of sorts.

Quackfaster is way too old to be Webby's mom, though.

The reverence for Don Rosa in Joe Pitt's pitch speaks to me, lol. It's also pretty notable how even the 2017 series bible recognize Barks and Rosa as giants lol (in case anybody still thought Angones and co hated him or the way he wrote or something)

I also find it interesting that several of the pitches did have Scrooge starting out the series as no longer richest duck in the world.

The idea in one of the pitchs to do a bunch of epics (continuous multi-episode arcs) and then repackage them as Duck Tales features down the line sounds really neat. The 2017 series particularly excelled at this when it pulled it off, in general the multi-parters of the show are almost always the best material the show has to offer.

I also like the pitch from the Kim Possible showrunners, and its emphasis on making up a new interesting artstyle that would allow for more cinematic visuals and stuff. It's also the only pitch for which storyboards had leaked somehow heh.

Hm? The show makes it very clear they idolize Rosa, pretty much from the very first episode.

I very much agree with you. The show loves hyping up Scrooge and treating him more as a hero, as well as putting a lot of emphasis on his backstory and family background, much like Rosa's take. Been lurking this forum for months during the airing of the show, reading the thoughts here but I did find the sentiment in another place (which I think you know of XD) that ducks engaging in high-octane action make it too unlike the Rosa version of the character (which literally tears apart an entire town once).

Edited by entut1 on Apr 28th 2024 at 10:11:44 AM

Yeah, this show clearly idolizes Rosa's Scrooge, almost to a fault.

And yeah, Rosa and Barks are giants for good reason. They basically defined the whole universe between them.

Scrooge did once tear up an entire town in a massive brawl when Whats-His-Name pigface insulted his dead mother (though the narrative does note that this may or may not have been what happened).

And yeah, Rosa especially can get quite action-y, though Barks and Rosa tend to prefer the adventuring aspects of stories over action, which tends to play better on the page.

Edited by Redmess on Apr 28th 2024 at 7:21:33 PM

I don't think the reboot team hate Rosa and Barks. I just think all their shoutouts are, like, flavor text.

I don't think the MCU is devoted to the comics because Stan Lee appeared in most of the movies.

Redmess: Italian Quackfaster seems way younger than the American version, so there is precedent. But the pich had Beakley herself being Webby's mom instead of her granddaughter, not Quackfaster. It is a bit of resembling Rebecca and Molly in Tale Spin, I suppose.

They certainly had some difficulty getting a grip on who these characters were at the start. It's telling that for Donald, they basically went with his cartoon persona, rather than the comics one.

They especially had trouble with Scrooge, who doesn't have much of a cartoon history anyway outside of Ducktales itself: what makes him funny, what makes him heroic, what makes him a villain. I got the impression they read Life and Times and came away with a very heroic vision of Scrooge, but didn't read much else from the comics, and thereby missed a lot of the more villainous aspects, as well as the comedic aspect of his ridiculously petty greed.

I think the biggest single thing they've missed is that Scrooge is not the Big Good, it's Donald.

That makes sense. All the Quackfasters I've seen in the comics have generally been old gray-haired grannies.

Edited by Redmess on Apr 28th 2024 at 7:56:11 PM