Monday, January 22, 2018

'Toon Reviews 12: DuckTales Vol. 2 Part 16: Time Teasers

Time Teasers
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Even with this show’s adventure aspect, it can still fit in simpler slice-of-life stories, especially those that focus on the boyhood adventures of Huey, Dewey, and Louie.  That’s the best way to describe what you’ll get from this episode, even if it is mostly prominent in the beginning.  It’s all about Huey, Dewey, and Louie’s mischief leading to entertaining chaos.  They start off facing the childhood issue of there not being enough hours in the day when they want to do one thing, but the adults want them to do certain chores.  This relatable problem leads the boys to find a way around it when they find Gyro Gearloose’s newest invention, a small clock that can allow the user to travel really fast in time called a time teaser.  They use it for their own advantages through rushing through their Invention of the Month delivery work to make it to a baseball game they want to see, making it easy for their favorite team to win (though you have to question why they love them so much if they never win), and still making it to Scrooge’s money bin in time to help arrange the money.  Every time the time teaser is used, there’s a nice visual cue to show how it works.  Everything looks to be frozen except for whoever’s using it, but it’s explained that everything else is actually moving normally, while the holders of the teaser are moving really fast even if it doesn’t look like it.  That’s why when everything else operates in real time, it looks as if the holders of the time teaser have disappeared.  It amounts to a creative perspective of how it operates making the visuals just as impressive as the story.  Onto how the boys’ fun backfires, it’s when the Beagle Boys get a hold of the time teaser as Gyro demonstrates it to Scrooge at the money bin since the inventor just can’t keep his inventions away from criminals, and of course they use it to rob the bin dry.  From there, the plot works in the show’s trademark creativity in adventures as the Beagle Boys try to get away with the money on a ship and get sent back in time when they break the teaser while Scrooge, Gyro, and the boys follow them using Gyro’s bathtub time machine from “Sir Gyro de Gearloose.”  This gives the plot to get Scrooge’s money back a more comedic tone when in the year 1687, the Beagle Boys along with our heroes are taken by another Pete lookalike, the pirate Captain Blackheart to, of all things, perform at his birthday party which is something that you probably wouldn’t expect from a group of pirates.  Much of the entertainment from the scene comes from everyone’s performances, especially the Beagle Boys’ which surprise everyone with how well they sing old show tunes.  It also has a rare instance of Scrooge and some of his enemies being willing to work together to get out of the mess, making their dynamic more than one-sided good vs bad.  This point to the dynamic is especially felt when Scrooge willingly rescues the Beagle Boys when the pirates chase them when he could’ve easily left them behind.  That said, they probably could have shown more of it if we actually saw how Scrooge’s money was returned and how the Beagle Boys were re-arrested back in the present.  It’s still a solid conclusion to the episode and topped off with a humorous backfire to the boys’ earlier unfair attempt to bring their baseball team to victory.  The episode greatly blends slice of life boyhood antics and creative, comedic adventures into a memorable story with some of the show’s best moments. 9.5/10

The Ranking:
1.      The Treasure of the Golden Suns Part 5: Too Much of a Gold Thing
2.      Catch as Cash Can Part 2: A Whale of a Bad Time
3.      Catch as Cash Can Part 1: A Drain on the Economy
4.      Back to the Klondike
5.      The Treasure of the Golden Suns Part 2: Wronguay in Ronguay
6.      The Treasure of the Golden Suns Part 4: Cold Duck
7.      Time Teasers
8.      The Treasure of the Golden Suns Part 1: Don’t Give up the Ship
9.      Catch as Cash Can Part 4: Working for Scales
10.  Ducks of the West
11.  The Treasure of the Golden Suns Part 3: Three Ducks of the Condor
12.  Merit-Time Adventure
13.  Catch as Cash Can Part 3: Aqua Ducks
14.  Scrooge’s Pet
15.  Horse Scents
16.  The Golden Fleecing

With that, we’ve finished disc 2 of Volume 2.  Next time, it’s onto the third and final disc starting with our heroes " Back Out in the Outback".
If you would like to check out other DuckTales reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them.

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