Something You Might Not Know About Me...

I absolutely love cartoon ducks.  No rhyme or reason but I find I'm oddly drawn to characters that are ducks more than I am to other animated animals.  Let's take a look.

Let's start with the big one.  I loved Daffy Duck.  Bugs Bunny was always entertaining, and I could easily watch Road Runner/Coyote Cartoons for hours.  But there was just something about Daffy I've always enjoyed.  I know, not the role model for kids right.  I mean he's a narcissistic greedy sociopath.  But he's also hilarious.  And he had a wide range of characters that I generally enjoyed more than some of Bugs encounters.  There was Robin Hood, Drip Along, Stupor Duck, and the creme de la creme Duck Dodgers.  




I was in college when Duck Dodgers got his own series, but that didn't stop me from watching it and enjoying it thoroughly.  And yes, I've gotten my Dad at least one season on DVD because he enjoys it too. 
When Tiny Toons came out, who was my favorite?  Yep, Plucky Duck.  I enjoy Babs, Buster and the rest.  I own the entire series on DVD, at least what's been released so far, but of all of them it's the heir to Daffy's throne, Plucky that I find I enjoy watching the most.  Even when we look at the well written but brief Loonatics Unleashed series, my favorite character is none other than Danger Duck.  True, Tech-E Coyote is a close second but for my money, the duck wins again.
 

Of course, there is the divide between Disney and Warner Bros.  But even when we jump that divide, I still wind up on the ducks side.  See, I grew up in the 80's and 90's.  This was a great time to be a kid and we enjoyed a rich landscape of cartoons that we got to watch.  Disney was putting out some top quality shows at the time.  I enjoyed Rescue Rangers, including the original NES game (which I still have).  I was never really able to get into Tale Spin for some reason, though there are plenty out there who did.  I loved Ducktales though.  True, a part of me never understood the physics that allowed Uncle Scrooge to swim through his money pit. 

But I dug the show, even the feature length movie they did.  And though I never beat it, I remember going down to Video World and frequently renting the game.  My favorite though, has to be "The Terror that Flaps in the Night."  Of all the shows that Disney released when I was growing up, it's just hard to beat Darkwing Duck.  If you're a fan of alliteration, this show literally cannot be beaten.  But just in general, I liked a somewhat lighter take on the Batman type of vigilante.  .

This was also my first real introduction to the concept of a meta text.  Darkwing was always after fame, hoping he could get his own cartoon show or comic book.  And there was plenty of room for parody, as the show would pay homage to some of the inspirations it drew from I was thrilled to get the, sadly shortlived, comic series when it was released by Boom! studios  Partially because I loved how often they would pay homage to classic comic covers as an alternate.

And of course, then there is one of the only cartoon characters to ever be successful with a voice that you can't understand.  Donald Duck.  Sorcerer Mickey is probably my favorite of all the classic Disney characters.  But he's a variant on Mickey Mouse.  For the characters themselves, I preferred Donald.  The character seemed more honest than Mickey.  Things seldom worked out for Donald, and he would always screw up.  He'd try but he just didn't get as far as the mouse did.  And unlike the imperturbable Mickey, Donald would lose his cool and flip out.  It's why I was so thrilled to meet him when I went to Disney World this year (thanks to the tolerance of my cousin and her fiance).  I got the character. 

And just because it's fun.  What list of great cartoon ducks is complete without this one.  That vegetarian vampiric scourge of transylvania.  Count Duckula.  I don't know why I enjoy cartoon ducks so much.  Particularly given that I grew up on Thundercats.  But for some reason there's just something I find I like about them.  What can I say, they quack me up.