The ambition of the Disney shows were higher than for cartoons in general, and in order to afford higher quality, the animation production were outsourced – to TMS Entertainment in Japan and Wang Film Productions in Taiwan. Consequently, four of the five earliest episodes to be produced were based on stories by Barks, although with new characters added, most notably pilot Launchpad McQuack, a character originally pitched by creative duo Ken Koonce and David Wiemers, who would end up being the shows most frequent writers.īrad Landreth was hired as art director, and key layout stylist Michael Peraza met up with Barks to share ideas and key layouts. the ones created by Carl Barks, creator of Scrooge McDuck – while also giving them a modern flavor. The idea was to build on the quality of some of the best Duck comics available - i.e.
Unlike Disney's earlier cartoons, which aired on network television's Saturday morning schedule, Disney decided to have DuckTales premiere in syndication on weekday afternoons, which meant an initial order of 65 episodes (13 weeks á 5 days). Production on DuckTales began during the Summer of 1986.
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Both series starred all-new characters, but ideas for a show based on the Ducks of the studio's animated shorts and comics were already tossed around. The first productions of Walt Disney Company's Television Animation subsidiary were released in 1985 – The Wuzzles and Adventures of the Gummi Bears.
Early DuckTales ad from 1987, prior to the show's final design.Īn early idea for a DuckTales logo, dated 1985