Thursday, January 17, 2019

Dime Enough for Luck (DuckTales Vol 3 Part 4) - 'Toon Reviews 25


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Dime Enough for Luck

This episode has an interesting scenarios within a featured character who’s an entertaining play on superstitions and the idea of good luck. 
He’s one of Scrooge’s nephews, Gladstone Gander whose main trait is running his life by good luck.  He never considers earning his own living through a job or anything of the sort for a healthy productive life.  Things just happen at the right moment for Gladstone to get what he needs without actually doing any work.  He finds free money and wins free stuff from being a certain numbered customer or sweepstakes notices he finds. It’s remarkable how much good comes from Gladstone relying on luck.  In addition, it would be easy to make him look like a smug jerk due to how great things turn out because of his lucky streak. However, Gladstone is a very charming and friendly character to watch all throughout so all’s good with him personality-wise. 
Of course, just relying on luck isn’t looked at as a smart move, so the story takes an appropriate turn showing the downsides of his actions when Magica de Spell gets involved. Her use of magic here is among some her most interesting.  She cons Gladstone into competing in a game show with a convincing voice. Her spells creatively turn every aspect of the security system to Scrooge’s money bin into something from a game show which Gladstone gets through in a mind-controlled state.  Her tricks successfully get her Scrooge’s lucky dime, and what happens makes it more relevant than it seems.  It’s never really been explained why this number one dime is such a huge deal or what would happen if Scrooge ever lost it.  It’s only after Gladstone ends up giving it to Magica when Scrooge losing the dime has weight to it. 
As part of her spell, Magica is able to strip Gladstone of his good luck once she has the dime. It shows how much a lack of good luck affects him when he’s unable to find money by chance and loses some of the free stuff.  Even Scrooge gets a share of bad luck with so many bad sales and profit drops from his prized dime getting stolen.  It brings the idea that this being his lucky dime wasn’t all figurative. 
Anyway, Scrooge and Gladstone have to team up to get the dime back in Magica’s lair before she melts it down and obtain good luck forever.  The trek to find her is highly enjoyable with the two needing to fight off a creature as outrageous as a fire-breathing bunny and runs into traps that get more threatening. One particular one has the ceiling close in on them, and they have to escape by breaking a mirror.  Also, Scrooge and Gladstone are entertaining partners with Scrooge’s resourcefulness in adventures clashing with Gladstone and his superstitions.  When they finally reach Magica, it’s a combination of both main traits that let her feel what bad luck is like and break her spell once Scrooge gets his dime back.  It’s a fun character-driven climax to wrap up all the plot points. Even though Gladstone is still a strong believer in luck with things going great for him again, there is some hint that he’ll be smarter and get a living in a more practical way.  The sign could’ve been clearer, but it’s still there. 
As it stands, this episode is one of the most creative with the different types of characters and the adventurous atmosphere.
A

The Ranking
  1. Dime Enough for Luck
  2. Duck to the Future
  3. Launchpad’s First Crash
  4. Jungle Duck

The next DuckTales review has Dewey stands out from the three nephews as he wants to be recognized as his own duck during an adventure about a duck in an iron mask.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews is the Rocko's Modern Life Season 2 finale with "Short Story" and "Eyes Capades."
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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