9.05.2007

Something I Don’t Understand

Growing up, Disney’s DuckTales was one of my very favorite TV shows. Every day when I got home from school, I would watch the 30-minute cartoon and enjoyed following the adventures of Uncle Scrooge and his nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie while devouring a couple of Soft Batch chocolate chip cookies.

Unlike a lot of other cartoons that I grew up with (ahem, Transformers), DuckTales was cleverly-made, being very entertaining for children while at the same time having a lot of humor and historical allusions that only adults would get.

Because of this, I still enjoy watching a few episodes when I’m in a nostalgic sort of mood, so my wife, being aware of my DuckTales fondness, purchased the first two volumes for me on DVD.

I was watching a pretty good episode—Back Out in the Outback—today when I noticed something highly disturbing: Sundowner, who helps run Uncle Scrooge’s sheep ranch in the Australian Outback, has a pet dog named Dingo.

What is strange about this you ask? Only this: Sundowner himself appears to be some form of canine.

DuckTales, how in the world does this work? Does this bother anyone else?

Here is a screenshot of the speech-capable Sundowner comforting his bark-only-capable friend:

6 comments:

Justin and Heather Bland 9/5/07, 4:59 PM  

HAHAHAHA!! oh man, POG! thats fantastic. I dont know how that works. I do want to submit a possibility though: Could it be that it represents the chain of evolution... Dingo is just not as far down the chain as Sundown is. But then again, you are the Ducktails King. I am wondering about your opinion on the matter.

Paul Murphy 9/5/07, 10:38 PM  

Maybe it's a racist jab against the Aboriginal people's of Australia, that they are for working and should be considered property. Especially with a name like "Dingo."

Racist ducks.

Luke Dockery 9/5/07, 11:27 PM  

Justin,

Being an evolutionist myself only in the micro sense, I'm afraid I'm going to have to pretty much plead ignorance on this one, but I guess it could be like the supposed co-existence of Neanderthals and Cro-Magnon men.


DuckTales King, wow, I am flattered. Sadly, I don't have any great explanation, but I think it can all be traced back to Disney's heritage. After all, Goofy, a talking, albeit, very stupid dog, had Pluto, a non-talking, though very possibly smarter-than-his-master dog, as a pet.

That's pretty much the same situation, and while that doesn't really explain it, it might show that since that was apparently okay with Disney from the beginning, they didn't see any reason to start using reason in DuckTales?

Luke Dockery 9/5/07, 11:32 PM  

Paul,

Hmm, that must be it. Of course, I think "dingo" is actually just an Australian wild dog.

But shoot, that might even strengthen your point.

Anonymous 9/7/07, 4:33 PM  

Of course, you are speaking about a show that features talking ducks in the first place. Not that I object to DuckTales in the slightest. But if you want to start nit-picking - why does Donald not wear pants, but he wears a towel around his waist when he gets out of the shower? But that raises the question, why is Donald taking a shower?

Luke Dockery 9/10/07, 10:13 PM  

Veronica,

Unless you have a specific episode in mind that I’m unaware of, I don’t think Donald ever showers in a DuckTales episode. Maybe in a different cartoon, but not DuckTales. Of course, now I’m the one who’s nit-picking.

But your point is still valid—Scrooge wears spats but no shoes, and sometimes dons a swimsuit which covers parts of him that his regular clothes don’t.

All of these problems stem from the desire to make non-humans more human like (modesty, hygiene, pets), but to me, the Dog-Person having a Dog-Pet was just a little too outrageous.

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