Welcome to the weekend! Let us talk about adventure, though not the sort one usually talks about these days. We're going way back to the late 20th century today.
I don't think I have to reiterate how big the Disney Afternoon was in the late '80s and early '90s. While the company itself did not do so hot during the 1980s, they still tried whatever they could to try and stand out from the crowd. Some of that stuff holds up better than others. One of its projects was to create a block for syndicated cartoons (airing every day of the week) called the Disney Afternoon which had the goal of producing near theatrical quality animation for an entire two hour block at 65 episodes. They carved out a two hour block on the ABC network (this was before they bought it) and spent the next decade more or less owning the after school timeslot. As a result, it ended up being one of the most impressive projects of its time.
But what was more impressive were the series it produced. You see, a bunch of simple gag cartoon series wouldn't be enough to hold kids' attention every day of the week (a lesson they would unfortunately forget by the end of the block's run), so why not make full-throated adventure series in the style of popular Disney comics from years past? You could also mix and match it with well known Disney characters as well as new creations. That is exactly what they did, and the final result was a smash hit.
Much has been said about some of the more popular entries of the block, though truth be told it was all uniformly great up until the time of Gargoyles, which would end up being its crowning achievement and the peak of the entire project. Believe me, that one is still great today. However, you've heard about most of these many times before: DuckTales, Rescue Rangers, Gummi Bears, Darkwing Duck, Bonkers, the aforementioned Gargoyles, and even the more slapstick-inspired Goof Troop. But little is said about what is probably the hidden gem of the entire block: TaleSpin.
Though the series was based on the movie based on the Kipling stories, it took quite a bit of inspiration from other sources to produce its unique setting and style. It's not quite as comedic as Darkwing Duck, as high energy as Rescue Rangers, or as full of danger as DuckTales, but it has its own groove where it comfortably sits in the middle of them all and can bend in different directions depending on the episode airing that day. This makes it quite an interesting series to revisit because you never quite know what you're going to get.
The interesting part about TaleSpin is that it was probably every kid's least favorite series on the block at the time it aired, but now as adults they would easily consider it one of the best if not the best one. It wasn't even that kids didn't like it at the time--they liked it a lot. It was more that it was surrounded by DuckTales, Rescue Rangers, and Darkwing Duck, for most its run, series that appealed more to their youthful sensibilities. It's really as you grow to appreciate things like pulp adventure serials, screwball romance comedies, and general wonder, that you truly grow to get it in a way you couldn't when younger. It's aged extremely well.
I linked the above video talking about the show's production and how it was received when it aired, and you could tell that critics even at the time disliked adventure stories. The number one criticism of the series (and pretty much the block as a whole) is how it was aping and reheating "Spielberg/Lucas adventure stories" for dumb kids. Such a thing, again, is indicative of the hatred of the pulps the mainstream press has pretty much always had, since they did not even know DuckTales did not originate as a cartoon in the first place. None of these series were reliant on movie formulas--they were reliant on old comic book and serial storytelling that had worked countless times before them. It was an attempt to update an old style for newer audiences. They also proved that it could still work on audiences that had no nostalgia for the format.
Of course, Disney had major success in the '90s thanks to moves like this, but it would eventually go to their heads and by the 2000s would almost implode in on themselves, relying on John Lasseter era Pixar to carry them for a good while. But for my money, the studio itself peaked here with these productions and would never quite hit these highs again. Many people consider A Goofy Movie a swansong to the Disney Afternoon era (since it had so many of the same people working on it) and I'd probably agree since not long after the film the block caved in on itself, dying out with the very decade it helped usher in. Perhaps it was a sign of things to come.
Regardless, if you've not seen these old series in a while, or have young ones or relatives that have not experienced any of them, they really do hold up surprisingly well. Check out the video above for proof of that. I would still call them some of the best things the studio ever put out.
Adventure and wonder never fall out of date.
That's all for this weekend, and I'll see you next week!
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