disneytva:

Meet the new faces of Duckburg!

Premiering in August, the series has been carefully crafted as a familiar reboot albeit with contemporary comedy updates to the Disney Afternoon original. “One of the things we always loved about the old show was that it was this family of adventurers, but the emphasis in every episode had always been on the adventure and plotline,” says co-producer Francisco Angones. “The basic conceit of growing our show was that this is a big blended family of adventurers, so it should feel like a combination of Indiana Jones and a blended Arrested Development-style family sitcom where every character has a different relationship to one another.”

Donald Duck (Tony Anselmo)
Expect to see a lot more of this world-class walking temper tantrum in the new reboot, which bumps Donald Duck up to main cast status. “He’s been a single parent obsessively taking care of the boys, and he’s a little bit overprotective and doesn’t want to take a lot of risks, whereas so much of Scrooge’s success is based on the fact that he’s willing to take risks,” says Angones. “In our world, about 10 years ago, Scrooge and Donald used to go on these big, crazy, rip-roaring adventures, and then they stopped talking to each other, to the point where when we start our show, Huey, Dewey, and Louie don’t even know that the richest duck in the world and this legendary explorer is their great uncle.” By the end of the first episode, Donald reluctantly moves his whole family in with Scrooge, but maintains some degree of his own independence — by keeping his houseboat in the pool.

Gladstone Gander (Paul F. Tompkins)
Few things can unite Scrooge and Donald like a shared nemesis, and we find that in Gladstone Gander, a dandy old character who always irked Donald and now gets under Scrooge’s feathers, too. Angones says, “The great thing about Gladstone is that since Donald is fundamentally unlucky, Gladstone is supernaturally lucky, and so Scrooge and Donald can both agree that they hate Gladstone because he does nothing and gets everything.” (Also worth hating: Gladstone’s father’s name is Goosetave. GOOSETAVE.

Gladstone Gander (Paul F. Tompkins)
Few things can unite Scrooge and Donald like a shared nemesis, and we find that in Gladstone Gander, a dandy old character who always irked Donald and now gets under Scrooge’s feathers, too. Angones says, “The great thing about Gladstone is that since Donald is fundamentally unlucky, Gladstone is supernaturally lucky, and so Scrooge and Donald can both agree that they hate Gladstone because he does nothing and gets everything.” (Also worth hating: Gladstone’s father’s name is Goosetave. GOOSETAVE.

Goldie O’Gilt (Allison Janney)
Returning as Scrooge’s longtime paramour is Goldie O’Gilt, a fellow adventurer who has a curious relationship with old McDuck. “In our adaptation, Scrooge is more of an adventure junkie than a gold addict, so we kept saying, ‘Well, if Scrooge is like Batman, then Goldie should be like Catwoman,’” says Angones. “She’s equally adventurous, every bit Scrooge’s equal, and he hates and loves that. They have this amazingly contentious relationship that’s been going on ages and ages, spanning back to the Gold Rush days.” Plus, the producers say it was David Tennant who geeked out the most about Janney joining the cast: “He heard us play a line she had recorded and he said, ‘That’s C.J. Cregg!‘” 

 Ma Beagle (Margo Martindale) and the Beagle Boys (Eric Bauza)
The perennially annoying villains are back in full force to block Scrooge’s adventures, with beloved character actress Margo Martindale on hand to voice the maniacal matriarch of the family of genuinely idiotic criminals. Big fans will note that they actually look like dogs this time. Relatively.

Flintheart Glomgold (Keith Ferguson)
One of Scrooge’s wealthy equals in Duckburg is Scottish showman Flintheart Glomgold, whom Youngberg describes as “this kind of go-go ‘80s billionaire who made all his money from branding and getting his face on every storefront.” Angones says, “Glomgold is bigger, faster, and cheaper. An in-joke we had for him was that originally in the comics, he was South African, and then they made him Scottish in [the original] DuckTales, so we really leaned into that and decided that when Glomgold saw that Scrooge was a Scottish billionaire, he decided to be the cheap knock-off. More Scottish and even richer.”

Mark Beaks (Josh Brener)

The Silicon Valley actor adds fresh blood to the echelon of wealthy ducks that dominate the city. “We had a bunch of old money billionaires — Scrooge is the oldest money, this billionaire of the industrial revolution, and we have Glomgold — so we included somebody who’s representative of today’s billionaires, which is the tech industry billionaire,” says Youngberg. “Mark Beaks doesn’t care as much about money as he cares about status and being buzzworthy and how many followers he has.” Angones adds, “Josh Brener was so incredibly on all the time, selling and pitching. He’s a character who’s so broad and over the top, you love to be annoyed by him.”

disneytva:

Kim Possible Was All That—and Still Is, 15 Years Later!

Before Star took on The Forces of Evil. Before Rapunzel took her first swing of a frying pan. Before Elena of Avalor broke out of that amulet. There was a “basic average girl… here to save the world.” When Kim Possible premiered on Disney Channel—15 years ago today, on June 7, 2002—she was a very different kind of hero, especially compared to most other animated series—including those from Disney Television Animation, which at the time was producing a number of shows based on films like Hercules and Lilo and Stitch or on classic characters, like Goofy. In fact, Kim Possible creators Mark McCorkle and Bob Schooley came to Disney as writers for the Goof Troop series in 1992.

The basic premise came together quickly. How quickly? “We usually hate puns. We’re the most anti-pun people in the world,” McCorkle remembers. “But one day, we were coming back from lunch and stepping into the elevator and I said, ‘Kim Possible. She can do anything.’”

Schooley says he barely missed a beat: “I said, ‘Ron Stoppable. He can’t.’”

“That was the fastest development of a series we’ve ever had,” McCorkle says.

Right from the beginning, McCorkle and Schooley were focused on the chemistry between Kim and Ron. “From the first episode, we knew that’s where it was going, and it was just a matter of how we could get there very slowly and teasingly,” Schooley says, and they assumed that the couple’s happily-ever-after would take place at the end of the 2005 Disney Channel Original Movie Kim Possible: So the Drama. But the show had such a strong following, it was renewed for a fourth season. McCorkle and Schooley were surprised, but appreciated the opportunity to continue Kim and Ron’s story as that of a power couple. The self-described “nerds” confess that they originally identified with Ron, but they changed their minds as time went on. “We came to realize that [with Ron] we just created a funny character. Drakken was us,” McCorkle laughs, referencing Kim’s most determined adversary, who was impatient and somewhat oblivious and always bested by youth.

“I think one of the reasons why Kim Possible endures is that kids just identify with those characters as real,” Schooley says. “I think part of Disney storytelling is those characters transcend in terms that make you forget they’re cartoons and you start engaging with them as if they’re real people. And I think a lot of people had somebody on that show that they identified with because of the way they were portrayed.”

Adds McCorkle, “There’s always heart.”

McCorkle and Schooley still hear from fans all around the world who would love to see more of Kim’s adventures, and they’re accustomed to running into cosplay “Kim Possibles” at conventions. Plus, there’s that theme song… “Call me, beep me, if you want reach me…” Schooley acknowledges, “Every now and then you’ll hear it somewhere. The ringtone lives on.”

And so does our love for Kim Possible—even 15 years later.

Source: d23.com