The season 3 premiere of ‘DuckTales’ found meta comedy gold by trapping its characters in a ’90s sitcom.
DuckTaleshas done it again.
EW caught up withDuckTalesshowrunners Matt Youngberg and Frank Angones to break down “Quack Pack!”
Credit: Disney
and find out what to expect from the rest of season 3.
Going into season 3, what were your goals for this year?
Season 1 was about everybody coming together and trying to figure out how they fit as a family.
Now theyre a functional unit.
Its really fun to see all of these characters working with each other in their element.
In season 3 we talk a lot about legacy.
What are they gonna specialize in, where do they belong?
Are they going to take over for the adults and how does that work?
MATT YOUNGBERG: It was a happy confluence of events, because weve been seeding F.O.W.L.
all the way back since the pilot.
We knew this was a story that we wanted to tell with Bradford and Scrooges Board of Directors.
Itd be cool to have Rockerduck in F.O.W.L., itd be fun to have Gandra Dee in F.O.W.L."
Even though Della only arrived a season-and-a-half into the show, she’s become one of my favorite characters.
How did you guys manage that?
YOUNGBERG: We can speak to three things on that.
One is the approach Frank and his team took with writing and developing her character.
How does she fit in this family and how does she stand out?
What makes her unique?
The second thing I would say is Pagets approach to the performance.
Paget Brewster is amazing.
The third thing is the approach the directors and broad present her in episodes.
She was this standout character who wasnt trying to take the limelight away from anyone.
Della has been an absolute gift to write for.
Shes still every bit an adventurer, but shes also very supportive of her children.
She puts all of the enthusiasm she wouldve put into treasure hunting into raising children.
The “Quack Pack!”
episode blew me away.
What did you like about doing it that way?
ANGONES: It was really the case of necessity being the mother of invention.
We joked a lot about doing bottle episodes onDuckTales.
What would actually be easy to produce?"
I said, “oh you mean a multi-camera sitcom?”
We knew we wanted the opportunity for a couple of different characters to come up.
But the whole other key in of Disney Afternoon show was the family sitcom side, likeGoof TroopandQuack Pack.
Its not a family going off on adventures, its arent these cartoon characters a wacky TGIF family?
Those are things we have affection for.
We wanted to ensure we were being true to those things.
IfDuckTaleswas a sitcom, this is how it would be.
The jokes had to work.
It had to feel like a good sitcom.
If youre just making fun of sitcoms and saying boy arent bad sitcoms lousy?
People would just turn it off.
YOUNGBERG: We had this really funny thing that was just complete luck.
So Paget was used to it.
It was a lot of fun.
You were just explaining the concept of a bottle episode.
When I first heard of “bottle episode” was on a show calledCommunity.
Season 3 is Hueys season.
Huey could not be further from Abed.
So it was like, this is the perfect person for aTwilight Zoneepisode to happen to.
ANGONES: It was really a choice with making sure that Huey was the one uncovering it.
It speaks to the overall season for Huey.
YOUNGBERG: We had known we wanted to use Gene for a while.
We had kinda been keeping him in our back pocket.
It was this amazing confluence of events.
We go in and record Jaleel White, and hes incredible, hes hitting all these beats.
That same inherent rhythm.
Like, you are the reason that I think what is funny is funny.
To our ducks, who had never seen this kind of creature, they would look horrifying.
We looked at the originalQuack Packhuman designs and did a riff on those designs.
So the people in the audience are based on human characters from the originalQuack Pack.
That was a fun homage.
“Quack Pack!”
ANGONES: “Quack Pack!”
is a good table-setter for the rest of the season.
Since then Ive said that about multiple episodes.
