handrain caelie eternally
Kellye Tunks
As the new project for training and as just fun, I plan to recreate in Affinity Designer some objects or characters from cartoons or comic books from my childhood.
Nothing specially serious. It doesn't have to be perfect and I also allow myself to do some minor changes in original designs.
Disney Afternoon was a staple of after-school procrastination for nearly a decade, from 1990-1997. Several of those years included my own pre-high school life, and I was a regular watcher. A devoted watcher once Darkwing Duck joined the line-up. But several classic shows found their home there: Ducktales, Talespin, Goof Troop, the amazing Gargoyles. It was a haven for generally high quality cartoons that, while definitely for kids, were well above average in storytelling or humor.
It was a success, and as Disney can never refrain from capitalizing on success, a spin-off magazine was to follow. Disney Adventures was a digest-sized magazine, a little bigger than a paperback book. They would sell them at grocery counters, so kids dragged shopping with their moms could get them at the last minute.
All of the Talespin comics are full-length, 24 pages (50 for the title story.) The Rescue Rangers and one of the Ducktales stories is a full-length as well. The other stories vary from about 15 pages down to 2-page gags.
What surprised me in reading these comics is how solid the stories and art are. The drawings are on model for the cartoons, and feature mostly good, professional storytelling. But the writing is often really good. It matches the spirit of the television show, action packed while also having solid characterization and sometimes surprising pathos.
So yeah, essentially everything I want from the DuckTales cartoon is coming true. Check out Entertainment Weekly for some close-up shots of some of the characters. And this Reddit thread for even more.
I had such high hopes. And it made so much sense in my mind. The dream was a crystal clear vision of a bunch of interlocking Disney cartoon shows from my youth, a vast tapestry of fan favorite characters and shows intermingling in the new DuckTales to all our glorious benefit.
We are on the verge of greatness, people. Nothing has been absolutely confirmed so far, but a new commercial for the DuckTales cartoon has a snippet of awesomeness hidden inside. You can spot it at the 51 second mark.
Some of you know,otherssuspect it and others should really look up Talespin's history: onthe Ninth of September 1998 it will be exactly eight years ago thatPlunder and Lightningfirst appeared(unedited and uncut) and really got the Talespin-traingoing. In my first editorial you can expect a brief rundown ofTalespin's history and my personal thoughts about the too-shortlifestory of this magnificent series.How many among you rememberthis?!
As far as I know not manyshould. This is a preview promotional picture as it appeared in aGerman magazine (if my info is correct of course; BTW this picture istaken off Aviar's image page).As you all see there were many changesto the concept before the first TaleSpin episode aired the fifth ofMay (I Only Have Icefor You). Notice theoval airboard of Kit, his clothes and baseball cap.Also take a goodlook at Baloo; not quite that half-lazy cargo pilot we know, huh? Theduck doesn't look like a cargo plane either, does it? The weirdcontraption in the background is "The Sky Shark", a veryearly version of "The Iron Vulture". It is my guess thatoriginally Talespin wasn't the peaceful(?) cartoon we all know andlove but a rather hard series in which Baloo and Kit finished off thepirates.Of course I can be wrong and am now making a total fool ofmyself(but then again I may now become a target of an assassin hiredby Disney because I know too much, hehe :-) Am I boring you with anunproven hypothesis? OK, here are the facts:
Now, the reason I'm writingthis editorial is for the birthday of Plunderand Lightning. Itaired on 09/09/90 in the full version: unedited, uncut and withoutinterruptions.for me and much of the TS community this episode markedthe birth of one of the finest animated cartoons of Disney's history.I had the pleasure of viewing this episode on a local network, two orthree years after it was first aired.I was hooked after the firsttime I saw the beautiful artwork and caracters that somehow appearednatural to me.I'm sorry but I have not been able to find a picture ofPlunder & Lightning that fairly represents the spirit of thatepisode. TaleSpin was then seen on syndication with "FromHere to Machinery"on the tenth of september, one day after Plunder& Lightning hadleft the American population speachless. Plunder& Lightning,however, had to wait until November to get its debut on syndication(if someone knows the exact day, E-Mail it in! I sure hope it was the18th since that's my birthday). The fans of these early days areshocked to find that two songs were brutally cut and some scenes wereedited or worse: cut! This was the first mistake of Disney! ButDisney wouldn't be Disney if they didn't try to make the fans happyagain. They thus created a special Christmas episode of TaleSpinentitled: "A JollyMolly Christmas" whichaired 20/12/90. I consider it to be one of the finest Christmasspecial ever made by Disney (but then again, I am a loyal TaleSpinfan). This successtory was brutally grinded to a halt when disneyreleased the very last TaleSpin episode"FlyingDupes" on08/08/91.With only 65 episodes made it certainly wasn't the longestrunning cartoon ever, but hey: Quality beats Quantity! As if sellingthis series short wasn't bad enough, Disney decided to take TaleSpinoff of syndication on 01/09/94. I still haven't fogiven them. It is ablack day for the fans... But TaleSpin was never forgotten,by now theweb is crawling with sites of the true fans who wanted to carryDisney's greatest series into the next millenium.Although in mycountry TaleSpin is no longer on the cable or any local network, Iwill remain loyal to the best seeries ever created: TALESPIN!
Plunder and Lightningaired officially in syndiction on November 19th,1990- November22nd,1990 and there are reports that "I'm Gone" might havealso been edited badly. Now it seems that today's Tale Spin has beenedited to near death. I'll give you one example: In the episode:"Polly Wants a Teasure" there is a three secondsence where Dumptruck takes the muzzle of the gun and shoves it upBaloo's nose. That part was in fact edited last year. In other words;the editing still continues even after Plunder and Lightning was insyndication in 1990. To makes matters worse; if they did censor TaleSpin why didn't they cut the sence where Kit Cloudkicker said "ShutUp!" to Molly Cunningham. (I betcha there were parents whocringed when they heard/saw that.) That makes no sense to me at all.But then again; this is Disney we are talking about. Tale Spinpremise is one of most clearest in Walt Disney Television Animation;however, until December of 1997 when I saw the concept picture on thetop. Now I'm not so sure anymore: maybe there was a hidden secondpremise. I have talk to the writer of the editorial about this and weeven felt that maybe Disney could have a preview version of Plunderand Lightning locked up in their vault that will never be shownto the public. Now there is a feeling: The Tale Spin we got was thebest: the original concept was even better. Of course; its only rumorand both Disney and Jymn Magon have so far denied such an intention.
Two more final notes: [1.]Did you know that Sony picked September 9th as the date to launchthe Sony PlayStation video game system in the US. Hmmmmmm...and [2.]Even though this is Tale Spin's eighth birthday from the TV moviereleased on September 9th,1990; Tale Spin actually started productionby Jymn Magon and company in 1988; making it really Tale Spin's tenthbirthday from the start of production to present. I hope that clearseverything up.
2015 Gregory Weagle Says: I have kept the editorial as iswith formatting changes and some editing for clairty reasons. ToonDisney's editing of TaleSpin was no where near 1990 syndicationediting of TaleSpin where scenes were reanimated, dialogue changesand all the 4Kids Entertainment edits they would have made. At leastthe scenes that Toon Disney cut were restored for the DVD release,and two blacklisted episodes are also on the DVD. The onlydisappointment is that the 1990 Disney Channel version of Plunder andLightning is still on the blacklist. Only one song was brutally cutin syndication by the way; "I'm Gone" is the same in allversions of Plunder and Lightning. While Jymn Magon has denied such athing; please remember that he has also flip-flopped on pretty mucheverything and getting a straight answer out of him is impossible atthis point. I'm guessing that he was shocked that anybody likedTaleSpin since he was told that everyone hated it. It's not hard tosee why; I mean, regardless of what Jymn Magon thinks, people sawTaleSpin as a parody to the Jungle Book and parodies often causepeople to be offended. That's where the "disgrace to the JungleBook" and "discriminate our tastes" come from. I don'twhat the point was to mention the Playstation thing other than tomake bee impersonations. If you are looking for Aviar's website,don't bother; it has disappeared down the memory hole as well. Onefinal note: The second premise thing is a fairy tale; but it did to acertain extent play into the work Kit and Wildcat were playing inCaptains Outrageous where they pretended to be Air Pirates to giveOscar Van Der Snoot an adventure of his own. Sure; they had nointention of killing anyone, they just wanted Oscar to have some fun.Strangely; that premise would be great for a grand finale series ofepisode to end the series outright. Of course; Disney execs screwedthat up, so it never came to that.
The complete Talespin 1990 animated series on 5 DVDs. This collection contains all 65 episodes from the cartoon series. With over 22 hours of uncut, original footage, this collection is a must have for any fan of this classic 90s television show.
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