Product Details

• Actors: Ducktales
• Format: Animated, Closed-captioned, Color, NTSC
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Number of tapes: 1
• Studio: Buena Vista Home Video
• VHS Release Date: February 6, 1991
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
• ASIN: 6301017137
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #8,408 in Video (See Bestsellers in Video)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Better Than You'd Think, September 10, 2005

By	Scott "Boom-Body" (Texas) - See all my reviews

At first glance, you'd think there wouldn't be much to something like DuckTales; just an attempt to cash in on a Donald Duck spin-off. That isn't the case at all though. Often DuckTales has a very surreal and unique quality. This collection of episodes is a good example. The first episode shows Scrooge in panic mode regarding earthquakes in his dreams, so he gets a crew to dig under his house to fix any potential problem that might happen by putting a big shock absorber underground. They find a race of ball-shaped people there, who cause an earthquake breaking Scrooge's money bin in half. Poor Scrooge loses all of his money. Then with the help of a deus ex machina story-writing technique, somehow the ball-shaped people are able to toss all of the money back up in the money bin.
My reflections on this episode are as follows. First, DuckTales doesn't bash absurdly rich people saying they should give most of their profit to the poor. I guess things were different in 1987. I don't know. I was a kid then. I wonder if cable TV could make a show today where the hero is a guy who has so much money he can swim around in it. Second, Scrooge should have diversified his assets more. Third, the way the episode is resolved makes no sense and is totally bogus. Since this is just a cartoon though, no one would make a big deal out of it. Just me.
The second episode on this tape is a really good DuckTales episode. It shows just how complex and surreal the show can be. Impressive for a kid's show, really. Scrooge goes on an expedition to find Aladdin's lamp. At the same time, his bearded Scottish nemesis has the same plans. They both find the lamp and fight over it. In the process the lamp is rubbed, and the genie pops out. The genie isn't sure who his master is, so Scrooge and the bearded Scottish guy have a race across the world to see who can get home first, with the winner getting the services of the genie. The genie is put up in Scrooge's house during the race, living the high life.
Here's where it gets interesting. The genie doesn't want to serve anybody, so he tries to make it so neither Scrooge nor his opponent can win the race. So he sends both of them back in time, so they won't be able to get back home.
In a funny scene, the two old farts are disguised as concubines in an ancient harem to avoid being fed to alligators. I can't remember how (I think Huey, Dewey, and Louie force the genie to do it), but Scrooge and his opponent get back to modern times. Unfortunately Scrooge's opponent wins the race and the services of the genie. The guy starts making wishes and it turns out he's not a very good wisher. He gets mad and says, "I wish I'd never seen this blasted lamp." With that, the episode flashes back to the beginning where Scrooge is searching for the lamp, only it isn't discovered this time around. Scrooge chases his nemesis away, and they both walk home lamp-less. Interesting, if not confusing.
DuckTales episodes are pretty advanced in complexity, often investigating legends and things of that nature. I believe Home Sweet Homer is an episode that's even better than these here. These are good tapes for kids, chock full of imaginative fodder. Just don't expect them to be as educational as a PBS special. They're not. They're much more entertaining though. Highly recommended.