Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for the DuckTales Season 3 episode "Let's Get Dangerous."
The 2017 DuckTales reboot made many references to the 1990's Darkwing Duck series during its first season, establishing Darkwing Duck as a fictional superhero beloved by Scrooge McDuck's chauffer/pilot Launchpad McQuack. The fictional hero became a reality, however, in the Season 2 episode "The Duck Knight Returns," when actor Drake Mallard was cast as Darkwing Duck in a reboot movie, only to take up the role in earnest to save the day after the original Darkwing Duck actor, Jim Starling, went insane and tried to burn down McDuck Studio after learning the role had been recast. Darkwing also aided in the defending the Earth from alien invaders from the moon in the DuckTales Season 2 finale, "Moonvasion!"
DuckTales Season 3 establishes Darkwing Duck as the defender of St. Canard with a one-hour special, "Let's Get Dangerous," which also introduces Gosalyn Waddlemeyer; an orphan who becomes Darkwing's sidekick, despite his best efforts to keep her out of the action. The episode centers around Darkwing's discovery of a sinister conspiracy after stopping a break-in at Scrooge McDuck's lab in St. Canard, which ties into the Missing Mysteries of Isabella Finch. The special features Stephanie Beatriz (Rosa in Brooklyn Nine-Nine) as Gosalyn, Tony Award winner James Monroe Iglehart as Taurus Bulba, and Jameela Jamil (Tahani in The Good Place) as supercomputer W.A.N.D.A. Lin-Manuel Miranda and Chris Diamantopoulos reprise their roles as Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera/Gizmoduck and Darkwing Duck/Drake Mallard, respectively.
Screen Rant was able to speak with DuckTales executive producer Matthew Youngberg and co-executive producer/story editor Francisco Angones regarding the special and their future plans for Darkwing, Goslyn and Launchpad in Season 3 and beyond.
How long has this Darkwing Duck special been in the works?
Matthew Youngberg: This Darkwing Duck special has been in the works since Frank was eight years old, tripping over a purple cape while playing with his toy gas gun. But seriously, when we started developing DuckTales, we realized a big part of our mission was to bring these iconic characters that we loved from our childhoods back for a new generation of kids, to reinvigorate their legacy. And a big part of the legacy of the original series was the The Disney Afternoon programming block. It set the standard for comedy, adventure and heart that practically created its own genre of animated programming.
Francisco Angones: So in those very early meetings with Disney, we had a meeting where they asked us which classic characters we'd want to use, and in addition to all the classic DuckTales and Donald Duck/Uncle Scrooge comics characters, we decided to press our luck and ask for Darkwing Duck and his cast, as well as TaleSpin and Rescue Rangers and a slew of other characters we loved watching alongside the original series. We always said that we wanted to give today's kid audiences the feeling we got watching the original DuckTales, and a big part of that feeling came from the idea that starting your afternoon with DuckTales meant you also got to see adventures with all these other amazing characters coming up as well.
So bringing back Darkwing Duck as part of DuckTales been part of the plan since Season 1?
Matthew Youngberg: Darkwing's involvement in DuckTales always stemmed from Launchpad. In the original Darkwing Duck pilot, Launchpad introduces himself to Darkwing Duck as "Darkwing's Biggest Fan." Something about that spoke to the version of Launchpad we were building for our series; while other kids may have loved traditional superheroes, Launchpad modeled himself on a well-meaning goofball hero who was constantly getting blown up or electrified or deep fried but always got back up to fight for what's right. That speaks a lot to his nature as a good natured dude who crashes a lot, but always brushes himself off and keeps pushing forward with the heart of a hero.
Francisco Angones: We always knew we wanted to introduce the idea of Darkwing Duck as a TV show that inspired Launchpad his whole life, in the same way it inspired us. And in that first appearance in Season 1, we knew we were setting up our Season 2 episode "The Duck Knight Returns," introducing ideas like the actor Jim Starling and the cancelled show, etc. The original Darkwing Duck series was always very meta and the character of Darkwing tends to bring out the meta in us as well. Our basic idea was "What if Adam West decided to keep being Batman after his show was over?" Once we had those pieces set up, we realized we had the exciting opportunity to expand on those characters as a means of expanding on Launchpad's character growth. Launchpad has become part of this great adventuring family with the McDucks and now he's going to expand into his own found adventure family too. Season 3 is all about legacy, and that's a big part of Launchpad's legacy.
Will Darkwing and Gosalyn's story continue on DuckTales? If so, will we see more of them this season, helping out with the Missing Mysteries?
Matthew Youngberg: This season, the Duck family are facing off against the Fiendish Organization for World Larceny (F.O.W.L.), a top secret organization looking to claim some of history's greatest supernatural artifacts in order to gain control of this crazy, over-the-top world of adventure. And they have a top secret plan to stop Scrooge McDuck and his family's adventures once and for all. Now that the Ducks know that F.O.W.L. is out there plotting against them, they're going to need help from their extended, crazy, over-the-top family of adventurers to stop them. This special reveals a very interesting connection between Gosalyn, Darkwing, and the Missing Mysteries F.O.W.L. is after, so they're very much a part of that adventure family too.
The show's dropped a lot of nods to other Disney Afternoon series, such as bringing in Goofy and the Rescue Rangers for one-episode cameos. Any chance we'll see more of them in the future?
Francisco Angones: Again, one of our main goals in bringing back DuckTales was to bring these characters we loved to a whole new generation of today's kids in a new way, to try build on and amplify that legacy. And a big part of that legacy involves all those other Disney Afternoon cartoons. And while Scrooge, Donald and the nephews have a deep history and will always be around in some form or another, some of those other characters like Darkwing or Kit or Don Karnage from TaleSpin or the Rescue Rangers, or even Webby and Launchpad and Beakley and Gizmoduck, aren't as firmly established. Whenever we introduce one of those characters on our show, we want to make sure that we're not only trying to make them interesting characters and honoring what came before them, but also hopefully keeping them alive for new kids and families for the next thirty years. Because of that, we try to treat each of these characters' first appearances kind of like a little pilot for them, setting them up for tons of future adventures.
Ignoring that our chief villain is a scientist and that Scrooge outright praises Huey for always asking questions, Drake and Launchpad are able to make practical use of their superhero trivia knowledge over the course of the episode. How important was the "nerd pride" element of this episode while it was being written?
Matthew Youngberg: Being a fan of the original Darkwing Duck series is very much a part of the DNA for our versions of both Launchpad and Drake. Launchpad is perhaps at his most eloquent when talking about what Darkwing means because, as we've said on the show, "He knows a lot about this one thing." If there's any element of "nerd pride" here, we think it comes from the fact that we're such huge fans of the original series, so I guess that can't help but shine through a bit. I guess the moral of the story is "Always become impossibly hyper-fixated on an old cartoon show because that knowledge might help save all of reality."
Finally, the big question:. Darkwing Duck spin-off series - what are the chances we'll have one?
Francisco Angones: We love these characters and have so many more stories to tell with them. We'd love to keep exploring those stories in whatever format as long as we can.