From: arielle@taronga.com (Stephanie da Silva)
Newsgroups: alt.fan.disney.afternoon
Subject: Darkwing, Goof Troop, Raw Toonage, *Spoilers*
Date: 10 Oct 92 18:27:49 GMT
Organization: Taronga Park BBS
Status: RO
X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.2 PL16]

First of all, Darkwing Duck -- Steerminator.  I have only one word --


INCREDIBLE!!!

This makes five for five, we're still batting a thousand.  This one is
clearly the best of the new season (so far).  I would have ranked it the 
best ever, even surpassing A Brush With Oblivion except for two things -- 
a very weak third act (which contrasted starkly with an exceptionally 
strong first act) and some of the cast who kept slipping out of character.  
Despite this, I'd still put this one up in my top ten list.

For you credit watchers:  the episode was written by Tad Stones and
Dev Ross and the story editor was Tad, so I'm not at all surprised
this was such an excellent episode.

Voice credits: Chris Cavanaugh, Jim Cummings, Tim Curry, Katie Leigh,
Danny Mann, Terry McGovern, Rob Paulsen.  Only one I can't connect here
is Danny Mann.  I don't know who does J. Gander or the voice of the
chief FOWL agent.

Comments:

+ Wow.  FOWL and SHUSH and Steelbeak and Taurus Bulba all in one
  dynamite episode!  This sort of serves me right for procrastinating
  on my list mail as for a response for the "Where does DW get all
  his money?" thread, I was going to speculate on SHUSH and FOWL and
  wouldn't it be interesting if Bulba worked for FOWL?  Now it's all
  sort of moot.

o I've never seen Terminator (I have this thing about violence) so I
  don't know how true to the movie they were.  Even so, Bulba's getup
  reminded me of Darth Vadar and the Borg from Star Trek.

+ A reference to Steelbeak's beak!  Too bad they didn't go further and
  make an allusion to the circumstances of how he got it (was it
  intentional or the result of an accident, like Bulba's?).

+ LOADS of continuity!!  All right!!  Stayed true to Darkly Dawns the
  Duck.  Things of note -- Bulba's flashback that used scenes from
  DDtD and "You were the one with spirit!". 

+ "This thing has a life of its own."
  "Good -- now you have one to share."
  "Heeey..."
  "I'm sorry, LP...."

+ Taurus Bulba was perfectly in character!  Only one line seemed out of
  sorts for him: "I am not having fun anymore."  Maybe it was in the
  delivery.  Nah.
  However, the entire scene where he was brought back to life was just 
  awesome! This has got to be the best of anything of any DW episode so far!
  And it was amazing when he turned around and used his new-found power
  against the people that gave it to him.  Loved it!  I wouldn't have
  expected anything less from Taurus Bulba.

o This was an episode for showing characters in their underwear.  First
  a scorched Steelbeak, then later, a defrocked Honk.

- The table in between the two chairs was missing, along with the
  statue of Basil.

- Gosalyn seemed strangely out of character for most of the episode,
  in an oddly subdued way.  One thing that really surprised me was how
  she froze from fright upon reseeing Taurus Bulba.

- Peter complained how DW didn't explain to Gos why he was banishing
  her to her room.  I told him if he did, she wouldn't have reason to
  climb out of her window later on.  Sure enough, that's exactly what
  happened two minutes later.  Tho I did like the resolution of all 
  this, with DW apologizing and admitting he was wrong.

- Why did Honk tag along?  The only reason I could see was so he could
  be a plot device with Gos spraying him with paint and then using his
  clothes to signal DW which was kind of reaching.  Other than that,
  he was just excess baggage.

+ Kudos for once again having a positive portrayal of a handicapped
  character.  I especially liked the bit there DW fired the plunger
  gun at the screen and it landed on J. Gander's beak with J. Gander
  reacting as if he really were hit with it.

- LP was awfully overprotective of the HoverQuack.  Didn't seem right 
  for him, somehow.

o Was that new music at the beginning of the second act?  Or am I
  just imagining things?

- When LP closed the window of the ThunderQuack on Dark's foot, it
  looked like his foot was inside the window, not out.  A little bit
  of awkward animation here.

+ OTOH, the animation was really good with some beautiful backgrounds.
  I missed which animation studio did it.  If you watch, the entire
  first act was at night, but the second act gradually progresses
  through the sunrise, was really neat.  At the start of the third
  act, we're back to night again, the only thing I can figure is an
  entire day passed between the two.

+ "And now to barbeque some Bull..."

- Darkwing giving up so easily and so meekly?  Where was Launchpad
  during all this?

- "We were hired to write his biography."  And Bulba swallowing it.

+ "Take off your shirt & clothes."  Kinky.  :-)

- Third act got kind of lame.  It was just one gag after another.
  No sort of flow at all.

- If Bulba's get-up was vulnerable to rust, why would he have his hideout 
  underneath a waterfall?  If the rain bit was just a plot device to cool 
  off Taurus at the end, why did they spend so much time leading up to it?

+ When Bulba fell into the water at the end I thought, "Neat.  They're
  leaving it open like before."  But then he flew away and even tho
  the mystery was spoiled, it made for a more impressive ending.
  If we do get a third season of DW (I wish!) this would leave things
  way open for a third Bulba appearance.

o Anyone else notice that the intro has elimanated all scenes from
  non-Saturday shows and only shows scenes from last year's and this
  year's Saturday shows?

Whoa.  I had a lot to say about this one.

On to Goof Troop.  Three Ring Bind.  This one should make all the
Pistol fans happy.  This was one of the ones Wendy sent me before and
I didn't think that much of it, but after seeing some of the regular
season duds, it looked a lot better.  So I upgraded it.  A lot.
Still, I'll leave the reviewing to others.
This is the one with the "Get the truck out of here" comment.  When
I saw it again today, it sounded like "Get *your* truck out of here."
Maybe my memory is playing tricks on me but I did go back and replay
my copy of it and I could have sworn Pete said "your truck" and not
"the truck."  However, I've already taped over it so I can't go back
and check.  (sigh)

Now Channel 13 pre-empted the rest of the Saturday line-up with
coverage of some stupid pre-Columbus day parade.  Good thing they
didn't pre-empt Steerminator or both Peter and I would have been livid.

Raw Toonage:  almost missed it cause it showed at 10 instead of 10:30.
Only reason I caught it was cause Alex came to me demanding (in her
little 3 year old way) that I tape The Little Mermaid.  I was like,
huh? and went in and guess who was the host?  Sebastian and Louie the
Cook from TLM.  Today we didn't have Totally Tasteless Video (I can
hear the cheers from the peanut gallery already).  Instead, the host
section was expanded and we had a bit with Sebastian doing a musical
number with Louie trying to cook him but getting cooked instead.
The Bonkers short was "Draining Cats and Dogs" and once again was a
good one, tho I didn't like Fawn's portrayal as the helpless female
who couldn't unplug a drain if her life depended on it.  The Mars
short was kind of "eh".  The theme was Norman the bad guy was building
condos in the middle of the jungle and wrecking Mars' habitat.  Then
at 10:30 when RT was supposed to show, we had a repeat of the first
one with Professor von Drake.  A whole hour of Raw Toonage.

Gads.  I can't believe I ran on so much!  Woo.
-- 
Stephanie da Silva                                    arielle@taronga.com
                 "Roo, Roodle, Apple Strudel!" -- Dale