Wednesday, January 24, 2018

'Toon Reviews 12: DuckTales Vol. 2 Part 18: Raiders of the Lost Harp

Raiders of the Lost Harp
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
A lot of entertaining and creative things happen in this episode, and they’re all made engaging by the characters we follow.  The treasure Scrooge is after this time around are the artifacts of the lost city of Troy which he plans to put in his museum.  There turns out to be a lot of ancient artifacts in what appears to be a dark cavern that used to hold Troy, but as the title implies, the artifact that Scrooge sees the most value in is a magic harp that belonged to Helen of Troy held in a stone box that’s in the arms of a Minotaur statue.  The reason why the harp is so special to Scrooge occurs when he finds that it has the ability to detect when people fib in an operatic voice that’s set up to be grating but turns out to be hilarious and gets even more so the more it does its thing.  Scrooge being who he is uses the harp’s trait to his advantage from small things like finding out if the boys cleaned their room and are doing well in school, to big things like striking deals, and with the established humorous effects of the lie-detecting harp it, the episode is always entertaining.  It’s not just Scrooge and the harp that make the episode such a joy though.  We also factor in the antagonist of the episode, Magica de Spell in her first appearance in a long time (which is even longer if you follow the DVD arrangement of the series).  She continues to delight in her scenes through her eccentricity and magic powers as she plots to one-up Scrooge and steal the harp knowing how powerful it made Helen of Troy.  She’s just a full show of character which makes her a great addition to the cast.  Even when she’s completely oblivious to the reason for the harp’s power, making it easy for Scrooge to detect her when the harp points out her lies, Magica is still able to put up a good fight to get what she wants.  One particular instance of this is when Scrooge locks the harp in his desk and Magica turns into a wrestler to try and beat it out.  These two highly entertaining characters on the opposite ends of the morality scale have a great sense of banter with each other and that’s all it takes to make for a great fight sequence that sends Scrooge sliding through Duckburg on his desk into a bunch of road hazards with big comedic effect.  However, even with Scrooge having a major benefit with the harp and others growing to live with it, Scrooge still comes through with doing the mature thing.  Throughout the episode, we’ve seen bits of the Minotaur statue from Troy coming to life as a result of Scrooge taking the harp it was holding.  We witness how huge of a threat it is when the forces are unable to stop it, and all of Duckburg has to evacuate leading to a vacant museum opening for Scrooge.  Finally, when the Minotaur reaches the museum and Scrooge has to resort to bubble gum of all things to temporarily stop it, he eventually figures out what it really wants, and he willingly sacrifices his handy harp for the protection of the innocent.  We’re left with Scrooge as not just an entertaining character who’s amusingly great with benefits, but also one who’s smart enough with decisions, making this episode a great example of a great character he is.  His performance along with many others and the humor from the harp and the ways the story grows in engagement make this another noteworthy episode for this show and highlight of this DVD set. 10/10
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.      Raiders of the Lost Harp
6.      The Treasure of the Golden Suns Part 2: Wronguay in Ronguay
7.      The Treasure of the Golden Suns Part 4: Cold Duck
8.      Time Teasers
9.      The Treasure of the Golden Suns Part 1: Don’t Give up the Ship
10.  Catch as Cash Can Part 4: Working for Scales
11.  Ducks of the West
12.  The Treasure of the Golden Suns Part 3: Three Ducks of the Condor
13.  Merit-Time Adventure
14.  Back Out in the Outback
15.  Catch as Cash Can Part 3: Aqua Ducks
16.  Scrooge’s Pet
17.  Horse Scents
18.  The Golden Fleecing
 
Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where Launchpad's lack of intelligence shows off its strengths and weaknesses in "The Right Duck."
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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