Here’s how TaleSpin’s Don Karnage was airdropped into the DuckTales‘ reboot as a guest villain. Any self-respecting child of the 1990s watched DuckTales, which involved Donald Duck’s uncle Scrooge McDuck taking care of nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie. As his name implies, Scrooge is all about making money and isn’t fond of the way these kids draw him into countless adventures and shenanigans. In addition to the main family, other notable DuckTales characters include pilot Launchpad McQuack, Duckworth and Darkwing Duck, who later earned a popular spinoff of his own. The original DuckTales series came to an end in 1990.
TaleSpin is another animated series from around the same era, which was based upon Disney’s animated The Jungle Book movie and features characters like Baloo. The show follows Baloo and his navigator as they run an air cargo business and dodge air pirates, including the suave main villain Don Karnage. The style and tone of the show was very inspired by 1930’s movie serials, with the show invoking an Indiana Jones-style tone.
Despite ending back in 1990 DuckTales is still very popular, which is one reason it was rebooted in 2017. The new version of DuckTales has some starry voices actors too, including Doctor Who’s David Tennant as Scrooge McDuck and Ben Schwartz (Sonic The Hedgehog) as Dewey Duck. The reboot also featured some familiar faces, including Darkwing Duck, Gizmoduck and a special guest appearance by TaleSpin’s Don Karnage himself.
In TaleSpin, Don Karnage was the captain of the Iron Vulture, who despite being reasonably intelligent is usually foiled thanks to his own overconfidence. He showed up in DuckTale’s episode 20 “Sky Pirates…In the Sky!” and causes no end of trouble when he nabs Scrooge’s treasure. Karnage is his same, overconfident self – he even sings a tribute to his own greatness – though this new incarnation is voiced by Jamie Camil (Jane The Virgin) instead of Jim Cummings. He becomes enemies with Dewey in this episode, who convinces Karnage’s crew to stage a mutiny against him.
Don Karnage is naturally defeated by the end of the episode, but makes a return in DuckTales season 2 episode “GlomTales!” This featured some of Scrooge’s biggest enemies uniting against him. It was nice to see the TaleSpin villain return, though some fans were underwhelmed by the character’s new design and missed Jim Cummings’ vocal performance as the character. A DuckTales season 3 has already been confirmed, so he will likely make a return appearance in a future episode.
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