This free Disney+ subscription that Verizon Fios is giving me continues to come up clutch. Today, I finally got around to checking out one of my all-time favorite cartoons. That brings me to this week’s moment in the Flashback Friday series: the Darkwing Duck TV series.
How I first came across this moment? I first came across Darkwing Duck in 1991. I was a 1st grader at Elyton Elementary School and I remember getting home around 3:20pm every day and DuckTales—a show in which I never watched a full episode until 1993—was finishing up. Darkwing Duck was up at 3:30pm ahead of Tale Spin and Chip ‘n Dale: Rescue Rangers in The Disney Afternoon programming block. The show started with the famous intro and that was my first exposure to the series.
What it meant to me then? In the immediate moment, I was a fan. I liked the whole persona Darkwing Duck carried and I loved when he said “let’s get dangerous”. I liked how Launchpad McQuack was a perfect sidekick and always called him “DW”. I even liked the real-life persona he carried as Drake Mallard. As a young, exuberant kid, I felt a connection to his daughter, Gosalyn. For the longest, I thought her friend—Honker Muddlefoot—was Ralphie from A Christmas Story. Before I got into Spider-Man, Drake Mallard as Darkwing Duck was the first superhero I cheered for.
What it means to me now? Before today, the last time I saw an episode of Darkwing Duck was on Christmas Day 2006. According to Triumphs & Tribulations VII, I watched the Christmas episode while rocking my sister-in-law’s then 2-year-old daughter to sleep in the La-Z Boy recliner. Even after all of these years, I’m still very much a fan of the series. After all, it’s like I wrote: Darkwing Duck was the first superhero I cheered for. You never really forget your first love of anything.
