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The Great Dime Chase
So far, a notable strength with this reboot has been its use of characters. They’re very broad in how they develop and give a fresher perspective of the setup to the original series. This is especially prominent of in the events of this episode.
Louie, who wants to take the easy way in achieving riches and live it up while staying with his rich uncle, is taken to Scrooge’s money bin to learn the meaning of hard work. On this particular day at the bin, Scrooge is thrusted into a meeting with vulture investors who have come to criticize his alleged reckless spending. Louie is meant to be taking notes on how Scrooge goes about business affairs like this, but unsurprisingly, he has no patience for such things.
He ditches the meeting, finds a dime Scrooge happens to have on display, and uses it to buy a soda. However, by chance, he later learns that this dime is Scrooge’s Number One Dime. As was the case in the original DuckTales, this dime was the first bit of money he ever received from shining shoes in Scotland, ultimately leading to his great fortune of today. While this episode doesn’t explore the deeper meaning behind the dime the way a great original episode did, it’s enough to get Louie to realize his mistake.
Now he has to scramble to get the dime back, and in the process, there are smart ways of him learning the hard work that goes into getting great fortune. It’s especially felt in a running gag of him needing to climb flights of stairs to get to where the vending machine coins are collected. Then there’s Louie’s idea of recovering the dime without actually doing any work himself, relating to this reboot’s introduction to its version of a familiar DuckTales character. Gyro Gearloose is known for being a skilled inventor in spite of his creations mostly just escalating problems, but despite all that, he’s still a general nice guy. In the reboot, Gyro has more of an edge and defined personality of being egotistical and easily frustrated. Other than that, the general nature of his character is similar to what came before albeit to a more drastic extent. Louie plans on using his latest invention, a sentient lightbulb Lil’ Bulb, to find Scrooge’s Number One Dime.
While Lil’ Bulb completes the job at first, it goes on a rampage taking control of the coin collector and sucking up all dimes, essentially going evil like most of Gyro’s inventions do. Louie ends up with a bigger mess to fix chasing down the bulb and making sure he gets the dime all without Scrooge knowing. He even ends up living the dream of swimming for money in ways he never expected, something Scrooge claims to need basic training for.
By the end of it all, it does feel like Louie learns a good business lesson from all this, really gaining more than he would have from listening to Scrooge’s meeting. The fact that Scrooge had the real Number One Dime on him the entire time and the one Louie was after was a decoy further proves this. Louie getting a dime of his own is also a solid starting point to his own business as further indicated by that being a recurring goal for him through the rest of the series.
Relating to this show’s talent with characters, this episode also has a significant portion featuring Dewey in a significant plot development arc. As previously seen, he has a deep fascination with the mystery of what happened to his and his brothers’ mom Della, which in turn is one of the biggest Disney mysteries to exist. With the help of Webby, a well-known fan of the Duck family, he aims to learn more about Della by accompanying Scrooge to the money bin.
Within the bin is a huge archives on the family in question, but getting the information isn’t so easy. Information on Della is so secret that a mailman who once delivered something with her name on it is banned from the mansion. As for the archives, Dewey and Webby have to deal with its secretary Ms. Quackfaster whose love for knowledge is so huge, she actually has the kids battle to see it. This approach to getting information along with how the archives seem to magically clean themselves up is certainly a challenge. That’s not even mentioning that the journal of Della is completely blank. All the while, like his brother in his own subplot, Dewey is too impatient to go through the hard work practice and just wants to reach the results.
During the fighting though, he ends up using the seemingly tedious information by the end of it when he finds a code related to Della he saw in an earlier scene with a card catalog. With this newly obtained information, a whole chamber devoted to Della is revealed, but there’s one thing of substance that stands out from everything else.
There’s a message from Della apologizing to Scrooge that she took something called the Spear of Selene. As the audience knows that the Spear of Selene was a notable issue in a past episode of this reboot, this message enhances its importance. While the truth about it is fully revealed later on, for now, the mystery to what this spear is leaves a lot to ponder as well as Della’s nature. It also sets up another arc of Dewey hiding this reveal to his brothers out of fear of hurting them with what may be a disturbing truth. Little does he know, he’ll just end up hurting them in an even worse way. On the whole, this portion of the episode not only connects to the other one in terms of morals, but still leaves major emotional investment.
The strengths of this episode come from the character portrayals and development and the clever ways they connect through the message on the importance of hard work. For all their similarities they stand out in their own way by starting their own personal arc or coming to a break in major reveals. And as all these characters stand out, they ultimately help this reboot shine as its own product.
A
Series Ranking
1.
The Impossible Summit of Mt. Neverrest
2.
Daytrip of Doom
3.
The Great Dime Chase
4.
Escape To/From Atlantis
5.
Woo-oo
The next review shows Webby make a new friend for life and gain further insight on the nature of the Beagle family.
Next time on MC Toon Reviews, we escape to Amphibia.
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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