Darkwing Duck - Getting Antsy

Normally I won't go back to a topic I had just recently covered in order to give other cartoons their chance to shine, but I'm going to make an exception with Darkwing Duck just because that first post was sort of a "test the waters, do I really have the capability to write a blog" sort of deal. It was fun to see what worked and what didn't work about my own blog writing, and for that it was a decent learning experience.

But there was one problem. I was covering an episode that I've watched over and over and over as a kid, one that had a well-loved place in a recorded VHS and I can practically recite by memory now. Because of that, I could instantly make reference about things that always bothered me as a kid, stuff that I would write in my diary next to a crude drawing of Bushroot and Rhoda riding off into the sunset riding the T-Rex from We're Back: A Dinosaur's Story. Suppose I covered an episode that I didn't like and therefore couldn't draw upon childhood frustrations?

Luckily for me, one such episode comes right after Beauty and the Beet, making it pretty convenient for a lazy person like me who feels like a winner when I don't have to switch DVDs. Darkwing Duck had been going good with both its two-parter TV movie and the introduction of one of the most memorable villains on the show, so what came next? A one-shot villain that's more annoying than endearing, one that a lot of people, when questioned about the show, usually have no recollection of the guy because not only is he annoying but he's also kind of forgettable.

All superhero shows have these lowly one-shot villains that no one cares about, the ones that aren't even lucky enough to get nonspeaking cameos in one of the movies later down the line. If Bushroot is Darkwing Duck's version of Poison Ivy, what's Darkwing Duck's version of The Ratcatcher or The Minstrel? Let's find out.

Getting Antsy

Airdate: September 10th, 1991

Availability: On DVD.

The episode starts with Darkwing Duck on patrol, listing off the bad guys he thwarted tantalizingly off-screen, leaving everything to imagination. The list includes car thieves, kidnappers, international terrorists, and a voodoo king with an army of zombies. Hey Darkwing, I have a great idea. Why not show us, the audience, how you fought off the voodoo king with the army of zombies? I'm sure if you run a poll with kids between the ages of five and fifteen, they will always list zombies as more interesting than ants and golf courses. But that's me.

"Hey, DW! If you go on this side of the building, you can watch
the local drive-in movie theater for free!"

Darkwing's tired, but Launchpad is hungry for burgers even though he just ate an entire bag of candy corn chips. The caped crusader decides to come along, because Launchpad needs constant adult supervision or something. He's obviously not thrilled that he has to watch his giant manchild of a sidekick stuff his face with processed meat products when he's so tired. While he's walking away, two buildings flash blue and then disappear! The plot thickens! And so do Launchpad's arteries.

You know what's missing? A voodoo king with an army of zombies.

At the Hamburger Hippo, the show's imaginary fast food chain with the amazing building designs (go on, admit that you would eat at a place that looks like a giant hippo), and we get some banter between Darkwing and an obese fry cook about how he's just some weirdo in a mask. Did that incident with Bushroot just not get media coverage or anything?

Meanwhile, Launchpad orders two cheese food product burgers with fries, a hippo shake, and an apple flavored pie substitute. You gotta admire a place with enough balls to not even hide the fact that its food is made of additives. Hamburger Hippo scoffs at McDonald's Get Active campaign. To hell with you, McDonald's, we're proud that our food is full of artificial chemicals and we're going to say it right on the menu!

And then Launchpad's heart explodes.

Well, nearly three minutes in and all this episode did is make me hungry for some food that doesn't exist (It is now my life's mission to find and eat potato chips that are candy corn flavored) and wish for zombie action in a Disney cartoon. The food arrives, and Launchpad makes Darkwing foot the bill because his hands are full. Geez, Launchpad's a jerk. Launchpad eats the food (or at least eats the shake; we never see him eat the other stuff), they get ready for home, but then, a crisis of epic proportions hits our dynamic duo. Launchpad left his scarf at the fast food place! The action is really heating up!

Instead of finding the iconic hippo standing there, mouth agape and breathing out cholesterol fumes for the world to enjoy, they find a Hamburger Hippo-sized hole in the ground and a traumatized fry cook. Not as impressive as a zombie attack led by a voodoo king, but it'll have to do. Buildings disappear as Darkwing Duck chews the scenery and hams it up to his fullest, leading the audience to wonder why there isn't more of a public outburst when this is going on. Saint Canard is a pretty sizeable city. Surely enough people are awake and are going "Holy crap, that building just vaporized!" right about now.

Pictured: The most unobservant city ever.

Launchpad is complaining that he can't find his burger (I'm willing to bet he dies of heart failure at the age of 35) when all of a sudden the burger starts moving on its own. Suddenly, ants! What will this engaging plot lead us to next? But first, Darkwing Duck calls Launchpad a "boobie". The 90's; an era where Disney characters are free to talk about boobies.

If it doesn't get all over the place...

Launchpad fights the ants for his burger, but all those additives and food substitutes have entrophied Launchpad's muscles to near uselessness, as he can't fight them off and the ants drag him absolutely everywhere. Considering the burger's been dragged along the ground, touched by insects, and stretched out to impossible lengths, Launchpad has to be one desperate fellow to still want that burger.

I've seen cardboard with more real food.

Launchpad loses against the ants, no doubt while Darkwing is secretly recording all of this in hopes he can win the grand prize for America's Funniest Home Videos, and he wants Darkwing for them to go after it. Darkwing refuses, a wise decision considering how Launchpad really doesn't need any more trans fat floating in his bloodstream. Sadly, this is the one time where such a denial bites Darkwing Duck in the tailfeathers because following the burger would've led him to...our villain of the day!

Prepared to be disappointed, ladies and gentlemen. There is really nothing that can prepare you for this!

Wonder Twin powers activate! Form of...plummeting expectations!

I'd like you to meet Lilliput. Want to know why Lilliput isn't in the Fearsome Five or even well-remembered like Splatter Phoenix? Because he sucks, that's why. There are several reasons why he sucks, but first let me touch on his design. Just take a good long look at him. If I told a random person on the streets that there's a bucktoothed midget with hairy eyebrows, golf cleats, and a hat shaped like bug antennae is in Darkwing Duck, I'd probably be arrested for disturbing the peace. The fact that duck society labels Bushroot as a mutant and yet lets this leprechaun roam the streets is a crime against humanity...duckity. Something.

When the ants show up, Lilliput yells at them in a voice that sounds like...I can't even describe it. Frank Welker gave him a voice that fits, at least. Too bad a fitting voice for a derpy dwarf duck means he's going to sound like they took all the Looney Tunes characters with speech impediments, mixed them in a blender, and then castrated whatever abomination pops out of said blender. He complains to the ants that he doesn't want them to lead Darkwing to him, because he invented that headgear just to talk to them! Random exposition is amazing!

You can still use the voodoo zombie king instead of this guy, Disney!
It's not too late to change your mind!

While Lilliput is freaking out, we get to see the ants close up, and they...don't look anything at all like ants. They look like generic insects that crop up whenever the animator is too lazy to draw an actual species of bug. The scene's description SAID just "bug" and by god they're going to just draw a bug. Nothing more, nothing less.

Pygmy Yoshis!

He tells his freakishly deformed insects that they can keep the pilfered man-handled burger, and then they hop into a truck that's clearly not Lilliput compensating for anything. Lilliput, there's a more subtle way to make yourself feel bigger. Riding a van where you're as tall as the wheels is not subtle.

Great truck design, Disney! Clearly this is the chariot of gods!
Also please tell me that thing gets wrapped around a telephone pole...

He mutters and ohohohohoooos about how much shopping he has to do in his irritating speech impediment/accent/whatever while driving the single most nondescript vehicle ever. It's basically a beige cube with wheels, either because it's a subtle commentary on how even a blank, normal facade can hide the seed of mental illness or because the animators got better things to do than draw a truck design for freakin' Lilliput. He parks his boringmobile, pulls out a shrink ray, and...wait, huh?

Those pants have an extremely low crotch.

Okay, seriously, how did Lilliput build the insect-communicating device and the shrink ray? I can buy, say, Megavolt and Bushroot having such devices because they've been proven to be super-intelligent. Lilliput? Yeah, he totally stole that equipment. Otherwise, if he was smart enough to invent that stuff, then he'd realize that those pants make him look like a doofus and opt for the dental surgery to correct that abnormal growth on his beak.

Shooting the audience would be an act of mercy, actually.

He shrinks all the buildings he could find (Are all those rows of buildings empty? Why isn't anyone freaking out? Saint Canard's a freaking ghost town, geez), makes his ants gather them up, and then he just all around lingers on screen for way too long. Luckily, his scene ends with bodily harm so it's not entirely bad.

"I love ripping off of plots from TMNT!"

We cut to the Darkwing residence. Launchpad and Darkwing are both passed out and draped on various pieces of furniture, sort of like Sunday morning at my friend's house. This scene is way too peaceful so that's when Gosalyn makes her grand entrance for this episode, with her friend Honker being surprisingly quiet and supportive of this indoor golf session. She shoots a golf ball in the house, causing property damage and narrowly puncturing Launchpad's skull. The golf ball lands on Darkwing's bill and if you know the rules of golf, you know you can't just move the golf ball. You have to tee off regardless of obstacles.

Anyone who's been to college has had this
happen to them after Finals.

She takes aim when Darkwing hisses the line "Have I ever told you the story of the little girl, the golf club, and the firing squad?", which no doubt appeared in a social services report down the road as a reason why Darkwing can now only see Gosalyn on the weekends under controlled supervision. The reason Gosalyn woke Darkwing up with property damage is because he promised her that he was going to take her to Goony Golf that day. The masked mallard tries to wiggle his way out of this promise, but Gosalyn gives him a very good reason to take him...

Since Darkwing wants his house in one piece, we find the family at Goony Golf, and absolutely no terror is happening on the streets even after like 20 buildings disappeared overnight and a lot of people now have no place to go to their jobs. While they walk there, Launchpad notices that some of the model buildings look exactly like the buildings he sees downtown. Yeah, you can see where this is going from a mile away. Disney writers are not known for their subtlety and twist endings. Whatever, I just hope we don't have to run into-

"What, me worry?"

Good lord, Lilliput owns a golf course? I guess he does look like some sort of deranged golfing mascot. I like to think that he used to be this tall, gorgeous duck until a freak accident with the golf ball cleaner or a copy of Caddyshack rendered him the deformed little mutant he is today.

Darkwing pays for everyone and Launchpad orders a hot dog to celebrate his last successful triple bypass surgery. Lilliput places the hot dog on the table when all of a sudden, it starts to get carted off by ants. Lilliput, knowing that no health inspectors are around, just scrapes off the ants in front of Launchpad and hands him the hot dog. Disgusting. Launchpad just eats it anyways because he's that much of a slave to his food cravings. Pray for this poor man, viewers.

They broke the #1 rule of hot dogs: Don't think about what's in them.

Golfing-related comedy shenanigans ensue that can be summed up with one sentence: Everyone unquestionably sucks at golf and Darkwing suffers physical agony because everyone sucks just that badly (or in Honker's case, wins at golf, but he assaults Darkwing with a golf ball anyways). It's all fun and games until someone has to go to the hospital to treat a compound jaw fracture, guys.

Two months later, Darkwing Duck woke up from his coma, his cognitive
abilities damaged and his motor skills severely weakened.

Darkwing, knowing that he could end up in a vegetative state being around his golfing companions, crawls off to a safe space and decides to take a nap right on the golf course, presumably because no one else goes to this place ever. Seriously, Darkwing's party is the only group of people in this entire golf course. I'm guessing Bullwinkle's and Boomer's (which have great pizza and arcade games, by the way) stole all of Lilliput's business and that's why he's a bad guy.

While Darkwing sleeps, he rolls down the hill and hits the now shrunken down Hamburger Hippo and finds Launchpad's scarf. Now that it all clicks in place for our hero, he decides to change into his Darkwing Duck costume. With Darkwing already at Lilliput's hideout, this plot was foiled right away. He marched up to Lilliput's booth, soundly handed his ass to him, and carted him off to jail, right?

Hey, wait a minute, we're only 10 minutes in. Something needs to happen to add more padding!

Man, I wish we had zombies and a voodoo king instead of this plot...

Lilliput, like most horrible goblins, are threatened by creatures taller than him. So thus he decides to shrink down Darkwing Duck, leading towards some rather familiar situations if you've ever watched Disney's Alice in Wonderland, Honey I Shrunk the Kids, or even Ferngully. Only Darkwing being tiny just makes you feel ripped off, since instead of discovering a secret colony of environmental fairies or a temperamental caterpillar with a drug problem, Darkwing runs into...snails and ants. Yippee. At least the kids in Honey I Shrunk the Kids found a giant Oreo.

Weird plant structures, Yoshis, strangely colored skies...obviously
Darkwing's in Super Mario World.

Our first "cut to commercial break while something's gonna happen to Darkwing to drum up suspense" incident is Gosalyn about to step on him. Of course Gosalyn doesn't (but this being Disney, Darkwing would've survived even if she did), but the fact that he found Gosalyn shows that he's not in a land of giant insects; he was just shrunken down! No, really Darkwing? After you ran into a shrunken down Hamburger Hippo with a shrunken down version of Launchpad's scarf? This plot point was already established.

"My colony is in trouble! Grasshoppers are coming! We've been forced to prepare all this food!"

Since Darkwing found his family, he's going to try to get their attention. Of course, he's doesn't really think this through, because he climbs on top of a golf ball while Launchpad is obviously teeing up. It's ends exactly how you would expect. (Hint: Golf ball sailing through the air with Darkwing on it) Moving on...

So prepare for the coup of the century,
Be prepared for the murkiest scam
Meticulous planning
Tenacity spanning...

Great, Lilliput's on screen again. I'm still holding out for that voodoo king to just come out of nowhere and have his army of zombies eat this annoying little troll. But wait, we find out why Lilliput's shrinking and kidnapping all those buildings! He's shrinking down buildings because he wants...all of Saint Canard in his mini golf course. Wow. That's just stupid.

"Hooray, now my golf course is full of glass and metal structures that can
be destroyed very easily by a golf ball! I'm a genius!"

But his happiness is shattered when his ant buddies tell him they lost Darkwing Duck. Lilliput's solution? Why, they can use the ant-sized race cars he built just for them! Sure, why not? I'm not even going to question how he built them, why he built them, or even what type of fuel they use. What makes this scene ultra disturbing is that he pulls them out of his shirt and cuffs his left nipple like he had them stored in a bra.

The ants are all "That's okay, you keep them. We'll walk."

The episode mercifully takes us back to Launchpad and the two children. Long story short, Darkwing's second attempt to get their attention fails. Now he's on the ground again and he runs into the "bugs in buggies". And then we find out just how useful Lilliput's bra buggies are because Darkwing disposes of them in like five seconds with a well-timed shot from his gas gun.

So...were the ants in those things crushed too...?

Before I can write on how stupid and time-wasting those cars are, some more buggies drive on by. Instead of doing the exact same trick he did a couple of seconds ago, Darkwing runs away from them. He ends up stealing a buggie, there's a car chase, yadda yadda yadda, and through the use of golf course props, Darkwing ends up in one of the shrunken buildings. And when I say "end up", I mean "he crashes through a window and tumbles down over forty stories without a single broken bone or scratch". Ducks are really durable, man.

But somehow, the forty story drop jarred an emo node in his brain because then he starts moping about how he'll never get back to normal and how he's doomed to be forever tiny, emulating our good friend Dr. Bushroot in the whine category.

I don’t want to be the one
The battles always choose
‘Cause inside I realize
That I’m the one confused

But before he can go on forever about how much his life sucks (unlike Bushroot's, his voice just isn't equipped for that sort of griping), some more ants drive on by. Darkwing hides inside, and that's when we find out that the tall forty story building is a bank. I don't even have to say what happens next because it's pretty obvious, but I'll say it anyways. The ants break in and steal money.

"Hey, uh, Bill?"
"Yes, Ray?"
"How the hell do we know how to drive? We're ANTS."

Ah, so the ants are stealing money from all the small buildings. Geez, Lilliput. Make up your stupid mind. You want Saint Canard as your golf course AND all of the money? I suppose that would be a good plan if you planned on spending money in a vacant lot. I guess he can go over to Duckburg to spend his riches but then the locals will start questioning how there's a billionaire that miraculously lives in the only place in Saint Canard still standing. In which case Lilliput would get his face punched in by Gizmoduck. Bottom line, you suck, your plan sucks, your ants don't even look like ants, and you should feel bad, Lilliput.

"Om nom nom nom my shrink ray is delicious!"

We wind up back at Lilliput's booth. The ants pile the miniscule money in front of him, and before you can ponder as to how he can amass any wealth if it looks like doll money, it turns out his shrink ray has a growth ray. I guess he set it to Wumbo. He grows all the money and it's a good thing no one goes to this golf course because otherwise a giant pile of money manifesting itself in full view in his booth would've gotten some questions. Seriously, where are the police? He's not even hiding the money.

This is the money you could save by switching to Geico.

When the money grows to its full size, Lilliput ohohohohooooos and says that he "amazes himself, I do, I do, I doooo!" (shut up, Lilliput) while gyrating like he's in a Gwen Stefani music video. While he's dancing, he notice Darkwing and calls him "Darkwing Ducky". I bet the voodoo king wouldn't be insipid enough to call Darkwing that. Unfortunately for Darkwing, the ball's in Lilliput's court, and we have a kind of meandering commercial break.

Holy merciful god, what's wrong with your faaaaaace!?

Lilliput taunts Darkwing, saying that he could shrink Darkwing out of existence, but he'd rather be a moron and try to squish Darkwing with his shrink ray. Hey, I try to squash stuff with delicate, highly advanced machinery too! Especially if it's a gun-like device and the muzzle is pointed towards me.

I've seen gobstoppers that were more competent supervillains.

Darkwing runs up a pyramid of golf balls and since Lilliput's a giant idiot, he hits it and manages to temporarily incapacitate himself. Also, during the scene where he slips on golf balls, Lilliput temporarily screams in Darkwing's voice in a weird voice acting blooper, thus temporarily making him a little less repulsive.

Good job, Disney! Now do something about the tooth and those eyebrows
and you might be onto something.

Lilliput continues to try to squash Darkwing even though so far all that he's accomplished is hurting himself. Through some rather contrived coincidences including a golf club and Honker standing in the right spot, Darkwing is discovered by his group and now they know he's shrunk. Darkwing explains his situation in an extremely good impersonation of Alvin and the Chipmunks. He even says "Let's Get Dangerous" all while speaking like Chip and Dale.

Well, I guess this means this episode's climax is upon us. Because the one thing I need right now is more of that vile gnome Lilliput. But alas, it's no use fighting back, because Disney is going to force him upon us whether we like it or not. Now we get to see Lilliput's base of operations' exterior at its fullest for the first time...

Sigmund Freud would have a field day.

I have one thing to say; Lilliput must be pretty frustrated about his height. Shrink and grow rays, giant trucks, and now added spires to what should be just a hut for a golf course. Get therapy, Lilliput. Seriously. This is unhealthy.

Luckily, the door bursts open and reveals three people that honestly look like they're about ready to beat the living crap out Lilliput. I've never seen such intense ferocious faces on these characters before and it's kind of scary.

They don't even need Launchpad. I'm pretty sure the kids could beat this guy up.

Anyways, Launchpad bursts in, but instead of beating the little dwarf up like it looks like he's going to do, he tells him to "hold it right there". Weak. Fortunately, he makes up for not assaulting Lilliput by rightfully laughing at Lilliput's name. Lilliput, angered, points at his hat and says "You probably think this is silly too!" while pointing to his antennae hat. Hey, he said it, not me.

Behold, the only man born without any shred of dignity.

Unfortunately, Launchpad sure isn't that bright of a crime-fighter as he just stands there and engages in small talk while the ants hand Lilliput his weapon. Now the revolting little hobgoblin has the advantage. Lilliput points the gun at the three heroes, ready to shrink them, but somehow doesn't fire. Instead he just stands there pointing the gun at them and saying villainous stuff while Gosalyn grabs a golf club, sets a golf ball down, says something witty, and hits the ball. I love it how villains just forget they have weapons whenever stuff like this happens.

The ball gets rid of the gun, but Lilliput, undeterred, shouts that he's gonna sic his ants on them. Oh no, not the ants! Throughout this entire episode, we've only seen about twenty at the most. That's not a lot...

Great job keeping the character designs consistent, animators!

Unfortunately, somehow a lot more ants than previously shown in this entire episode show up and are able to form working arms and hands. Hey, Lilliput? I have a question. Why didn't you use your giant army of ants to kill Darkwing? You sent like five ants after him before and now all of a sudden you have thousands at your disposal and they can make mobile hands to grab and destroy?

You know what? Hand over the hat. You don't deserve that ant-controlling hat. You clearly can't use it correctly.

Also, Lilliput makes the ants do this. That's just creepy, dude.

Darkwing decides that the easiest way to stop the ants from devouring his friends alive is to jump onto Lilliput's helmet and destroy it. Lilliput tries to fight back, but Darkwing wreaks vengeance by jumping down his shirt, tickling him, and biting his exposed flesh. Eww! That's just nauseating. I hope Darkwing has some strong mouth wash in his bathroom.

Lilliput's enjoying this way too much.

But this fails, and then Lilliput knocks him off to the ground and shrinks Darkwing again, reducing him to nothing. ...wait, what.

"Beam me up, Mr. Scott!"

The person to kill Darkwing Duck and it's Lilliput!? Gosalyn is as disgusted as I am, so she decides to take action against the ants. What does she use? Why, a six pack of soda of course. Sure, why not. This episode's almost over anyways so I'm not even going to comment how lame this recent plot development is.

Pictured: The Ant Massacre of 1991.

Gosalyn, after defeating the ants (or should I say killing the ants; that soda surely drowned several hundred of them), asks what Lilliput did to Darkwing. You know, because she wasn't there when he obviously shot Darkwing with the shrink ray. Lilliput explains anyways, and says that he shrunk Darkwing to the size of a germ. I thought you could shrink him out of existence, Lilliput! You said so in a previous scene! Why didn't you do that?

Anyways, right after he mentions germs, he starts coughing and sneezing violently. You can guess what happens next.

My eyes! The goggles do nothing!

I didn't think it was physically possible, but Lilliput actually becomes even more repulsive and hideous as the sickness hits him. Honker, realizing he barely had any dialogue in this entire episode, points out that if Darkwing is the size of a germ, then that must mean he's the one making Lilliput sick! Congratulations, Darkwing Duck. You've just ripped off the wizard duel from The Sword in the Stone. I know the same company owns both you and that movie, but that's still pretty weak.

So anyways, Gosalyn grabs Lilliput's shrinking/growing ray, sets it to grow, and uses it on Lilliput right as he sneezes. Lilliput, despite being caught in the ray's beams, doesn't grow an inch taller. Which is good, because the last thing we need is Attack of the 50 Foot Lilliput. However, Darkwing appears along with what looks to be Gumby after spending too long in the sun.

And this was around the time that the writers just stopped giving a crap.

Meet Darkwing Duck's new friends, Blob and Ray. Lilliput, struggling with his sickness, tries to fire once more at them, but then Darkwing denies him the privilege by kicking the gun out of his hand. And so ends Lilliput's role in this show. I like to imagine that he's still in Duckham Asylum, rotting away in a cell next to Jambalaya Jake and Isis Vanderchill.

So that ends this episode right? Nah, we need one last scene to wrap up a loose end; did Darkwing Duck ever get some sleep? Before you're confused, Darkwing Duck was struggling with sleep deprivation and they just sort of dropped it midway through the episode. We zoom into the house and it turns out everyone is sick! Even Blob and Ray!

By the way, whatever happened to Blob and Ray after this episode? How well can two giant germs adjust to city life, anyways? Were they labelled as monsters and shunned by normal society just like most of the other characters in this show, or do they have a successful job? Tell us, Disney!

And then they singlehandedly caused an epidemic that wiped out thousands of
innocent people and forced a city-wide quarantine.

Turns out when Darkwing made Lilliput sick, he also made everyone and himself sick. That's right, my friends, Darkwing Duck infected himself...with Darkwing Duck.

It's a good thing the supervillains were courteous enough to not cause any crime while Darkwing was sick in bed. I mean, who's going to stop them? The police?

Cue credits.

---

The Moral of this Cartoon
Don't tease the audience with the notion of a voodoo king with an army of zombies and then go "I was joking, have some midget that controls ants in his psychotic golf course". Because that's just mean.

Final Verdict

Despite the many, many things I've pointed out with this episode, this episode isn't entirely horrible. Darkwing Duck and his relationships with the other characters is automatically fun to watch, and you can tell that they put some thought into the episode as far as animation, inbetweening, layouts, and production values go. The best parts of the episode were clearly the parts where Darkwing Duck and Launchpad were just being goofballs, or Darkwing Duck is getting beat up by Gosalyn's golf-related antics.

Too bad Lilliput just isn't that interesting of a character. His voice, design, and villain gimmick are annoying instead of interesting and he doesn't give a good reason as to why he does the crime he does. Did he just decide one day to be an evil little snot? Does he have the Freudian Excuse that his golf course is failing or his wife is in a car accident and he needs the money that badly? No, he's just doing it because he's...evil I guess. He's a character that adds absolutely no characterization and personality to this episode. I just watched this episode twice to do this analysis and still can't tell you what this goblin's personality is beyond "he likes money and ants".

Plus it doesn't help that the whole "Darkwing is the size of a bug!" plot feels, well, cliche. It's like its written somewhere that all cartoon shows have to have some episode involving shrink rays. The conclusion, where Darkwing shrinks again and becomes a germ, is sort of cool, but that doesn't excuse the fact that a golf course supposedly teaming with ants had at most like five ants on screen when the climax showed Lilliput had millions at his disposal.

Bottom line: This episode is "Meh" at best and I'd really only recommend it if you're a Darkwing Duck completionist. It's not the worst episode in the show, but there are a bunch of other episodes a lot better than this one.

My next blog post will NOT be Darkwing Duck, of course. I should probably give this show a break for a while.