Duck Tales: The Ducky Horror Picture Show – review

Director: Terence Harrison

First aired: 1987

Contains spoilers

I was informed of this episode of Duck Tales by Alex and found it online, at Daily Motion, though it is available on DVD.

It is, of course, a Disney series featuring Scrooge McDuck (Alan Young) and his Grand-nephews Huey, Dewey and Louie (all voiced by Russi Taylor).The premise being that the nephews have been left wqith Scrooge after their uncle Donald joins the navy. Scrooge is the richest duck in the world but is always trying to find ways of becoming richer.

movie monster

The first of his money making schemes in this episode is a movie theatre, in which he plays monster movies. The boys wonder whether monsters are real, and panic when they are confronted by the Frankenstein’s Monster, but he is only an actor drumming up publicity for the cinema and Scrooge tells them that monsters are just in movies, they are not real.

Wolf hires the convention centre

To further make money he buys a wreck of a building and has it renovated to make a convention centre. He is approached by a Mister Wolf who wants to hold a convention there and, hearing that they’ll need a hotel, he offers to hire his mansion out as a hotel also. Of course Mr Wolf is actually a werewolf and the convention is for monsters.

the creature, Drake-ula and the Mummy

We have a full house of various monsters. The wolfman has been mentioned and we also get Igor, the Mummy, the Creature from the Blue Lagoon (as it is renamed), Frankenstein’s monster and bride, the invisible man, King Kong, the blob and, of course, Dracula. Actually Dracula is renamed in this as Drake-ula (get it) and tells the nephews that although he is a real vampire he only bites apples (they keep his fangs healthy).

as bat

The only other real vampire lore we get is the fact that he can turn into a bat (a tad redundant for a duck, but there you go). The episode sees Scrooge on the verge of making his first loss in a business venture and turning it around. It also sees the monsters protesting his cinema because of the way that monsters are portrayed – that is until they realise that the kids love them.

I only bite... apples

It really is standard fare and I guess whether you love it or not will depend on whether you are a Disney/Duck Tales fan, which I’m not particularly. For me, therefore, it was an average episode of an average kid’s show – doing nothing particularly wrong (bar pushing an ultra-capitalist worldview, if you want to get picky), treating the monsters with due reverence and just getting on with it. I understand, however, that some will love it. 5 out of 10.

The imdb page is here.