From my favorite movies..

A Brilliant Conflict

Excellent characters with emotional depth. My wife, daughter and granddaughter all enjoyed it...and me, too! Very good movie! You won't be disappointed.

All of these films share one commonality, that being a kind of emotional center that humanizes a cast of monsters.

"Darkwing Duck" was one of the great animated treasures of my childhood. I was only about six-years-old when this show began its original run on ABC, which was also during the same time that a wealth of animated cartoon shows were popping up featuring anthropomorphic animals as its lead characters. "Darkwing Duck" was one of the best to come out during this time. With its hip, New Jack-inspired opening theme song, the show is about its titular character, Darkwing Duck, a Batman-like, non-super-powered superhero who fights crime in St. Canard (surely this show's animated version of Batman's Gotham City). He's capable of getting the job done, surely enough, but he's very egocentric and desperate for fame and attention from the city's citizens and police officials. In his civilian identity, he is Drake Mallard, a typical, unassuming suburbanite who tries to be a good father to his adopted daughter Gosalyn, who learns of his superhero alter-ego pretty early within the series. Drake's best friend Launchpad McQuack is also his sidekick and pilot. "Darkwing Duck" is a fun show. Being a fan of comic book superheroes including Batman (who this show seems to delight in routinely parodying), I've always gotten immense enjoyment from watching it. One of the best things that can be said about "Darkwing Duck" is that it has a great, recurring cast of super-villains, including Megavolt (who can control electricity), Quackerjack (an insane former toymaker), Bushroot (a half-duck/half-plant mad scientist), Negaduck (an evil version of Darkwing Duck himself from an alternate dimension), and my personal favorite The Liquidator (whose entire body is made out of water). Each one is powerful enough to give Darkwing a significant challenge whenever they come to blows, but nonetheless Our Hero always triumphs in the end - this IS a kid's show, after all. "Darkwing Duck" was unfairly taken off the air a lot earlier than it should have been. This was during a boom time when there were all sorts of animated superhero cartoon shows on the air, like "Spider-Man: The Animated Series" and "Batman: The Animated Series." Thank goodness the advent of DVD has allowed this show a new after-life for a newer generation of TV-goers and old-school fans - like me - who grew up watching this show.10/10

I would reminisce like most people I know and ask "where have all the good cartoons gone?", and I do, but regardless, the good cartoons were made, and this was one of them! For one thing, it was an original idea. It did use characters from previous Disney endeavors (Launchpad) which I think enhanced it. The villains were a riot! They were in a class by themselves! I remember having a Megavolt action figure, I don't remember what happened to him, but when I found out he was voiced by Dan Castellanetta (Homer Simpson), I really, really wanted that action figure back! Bushroot is cool, the Liquidator rocks!! Splatter Phoenix was an inspiration for a character in my animation series I'm developing, Taurus Bulba was a jerk (and a great one), but my favorite (and probably yours too) was Negaduck! Negaduck is the only Disney villain (or character, for that matter) to ever wield a chainsaw. Everyone needs to see this cartoon. I can't continue to write about it without spoiling anything or reminiscing about how I used to get yelled at in first grade for telling my teacher that I invited these characters to school to join us for lunch. Ah...those were the days!

I think everyone has shows they look back on with nostalgia, comparing them to what's on TV today and thinking, "Cartoons were so much better when I was a kid!" For me, that show was Darkwing Duck.I was only two years old when the show was released, but growing up I caught nearly all of the episodes in reruns on Disney. I'll admit that at one point in my life I wanted to marry Darkwing. (Along with Negaduck, Launchpad, the Liquidator, and Bushroot.) Ask me about my childhood, and if the first thing I mention isn't this show, you can bet I'll start humming the theme song as I think.Darkwing Duck was not only a clever series with great parodies of the more serious super hero shows, it was also funny without the bathroom humor or ADHD plots you get on kid's shows these days. Darkwing Duck always got a message across, without being loud and in your face about it. Now that I'm a teenager, I've seen some of the old episodes. Much to my delight, it wasn't just nostalgia making me thing Darkwing was great-it really is. It's just as funny to me at age seventeen as it was at age five. It's a shame Disney stopped making shows like these.

I loved Darkwing Duck when I was 5 years old and I still love it now! It's interesting how most cartoons from childhood seem lame when I watch them now but Darkwing Duck remains funny and entertaining. The witty dialog, action, diverse characters, and style made this show unique from most Disney cartoons. If they ever remade the series I would most definitely watch it!One thing I find interesting about this series --there is a large amount of violence including knives, heavy artillery, and explosives. Some of the villains are high-class sociopaths (Negaduck) and there is subtle adult humor. As a child, these depictions of violence never had an affect on me and as an adult I find the cartoon to be more interesting due to the use of classic weapons. The family life of Darkwing Duck is also quite interesting. Unlike most cartoons where the hero either has no children or a family of his own, Darkwing has a spunky, adopted daughter and a sidekick for his family, as well as a former criminal sorceress for a girlfriend. I found this family dynamic to be refreshing and interesting. Being raised by a single parent myself, I felt like the show was acknowledging children like me who don't come from "whole" families with a mother, father, and 2.5 children. Overall I think Darkwing Duck was one of the most original and interesting cartoons to emerge from the early 90's and when contrasted with today's cartoons it has a very different approach that makes it unique. I await the release of the next seasons on DVD.