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Talespin: Plunder and Lightning Review: Spin It! (Comission for WeirdKev27)

Hello all you happy people! SPIN IT, HO HO HO HO LET’S BEGIN IT, as it’s FINALLY time to talk about TaleSpin, what I consider to be the best of the Disney Afternoon’s funny animal stuff (Gargoyles is in a class by itself and thus I feel it’s unfair to judge what i’ve seen of that against everything else) I still love me some Darkwing Duck and to a point the original DuckTales and I haven’t tried Chip N Dale yet but out of the three TaleSpin just alwasy spoke to me. While as I admitted in a recent house of mouse review i’ve never been all that attached to the Jungle Book, it’s weird AU spinoff where Baloo is a devil may care seaplane pilot, has a loveable kid sidekick, works for the bear version of Rebecca from Cheers, takes care of her adorable kid, goofs around at Louie’s bar and deals with wacky air pirates and a badass buisness version of shre kahn whose funko sits lovingly between my ones for kingpin and ash williams? Sign me the fuck up.

I admit i’ve only watched a handful of the show, but it’s always a delight to enjoy and I kick myself for not having watched more. So getting paid by Kev to revisit the pilot was a treat and paid for my nieces birthday present. It’s a two fer. Thanks Kev! If you’d like to comission your own reviews please hit up my ask box or patreon.

Plugs now out of the way there’s another special reason i’m spinning into this show besides sheer love for it: see Kev has, for almost the entire time he’s been comissoining stuff, wanted me to review the Disney Adventures 5 part comic “Legend of the Chaos God”, which took all 5 of the main Disney Afternoon Shows, Talespin, Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers, Goof Troop, Ducktales and Darkwing Duck, and crossed the mover.. sadly not all at once , as far as I know no one from any of the shows crosses into the others, but all facing the same deadly foe. The catch was he also wanted me to wait till i’d reviewed the pilots of each show since I was accidently slowly doing that: I did darkwing duck last year, and ducktales and goof troop this year for a patreon stretch goal. So he graciously agreed to comission the last two and then chaos god since I had some space between his weekly reviews before his next paid retrospective in october... if your curious.

So be ready for that. Point is it’s time to delve into the last two bits of the Disney Afternoon before we get to one of it’s most famous magnum opuses so join me under the cut as I spin it, begin it and bear and grin it because you can only win it when you spin it spin it spin it and take a look at the four part pilot of talespin!

Behind the Scenes:

I don’t have as much making of stuff as I did for Goof Troop but the story of Talespin is still engagingly nuts.

See series creators Jymn Magon and Mark Zaslove were tasked with coming up with a new show for The Disney Afternoon. As the deadline approached though they had nothing.... so Magon, thinking about how the Jungle Book had been recently re-released, thought “hey what about something with Baloo since kids like him and he’s a good character’. This quickly escalated as, since aeiral hyjinks and cargo delivery had done well when it copped up on ducktales, why not have a whole series about pilots, base it in an area much like the then recent adventure show tales of the gold monkey, a 30′s and 40′s archapelgo full of adventure, and the rest is history.

They built up from there giving him an impressionable kid to be a half-assed parent too in Kit, a foil in Rebecca (who they modelded after Rebecca from Cheers), added in a cutsey little girl because network, and wildcat based on a drunk pilot from a film i’ve never heard of. Shere Kahn was later added as a buisnessman, Louie as the propeiter of a neutral zone bar, and Kaa and bashera were told to fuck off they don’t need them. I actually don’t know why the two never showed up in Talespin, they may of just not had room I don’t know, though a pilot resembling the latter does show up in the first episode.

So with that out of the way let’s take off

Part One:

Part one opens with a daring raid on a Pilot working for Shere Kahn by the ruthless Sky Pirates lead by the fearsome Don Karnage

Close.. it’s the ORIGINAL Don Karnage, father of this one. Yeah Tailspin is one of two cases in DuckTales 2017 where instead of rebooting the concept from the ground up, they just outright say “the original show happened in some form”. So much like Goof Troop ALL of this is likely canon to DuckTales 2017 at most simply being updated here and there to account for being set 25-7 years in the past of present day, meaning it took place in the mid90s instead of the 30s.

Karnage was after a small box and successfully takes it.. only to loose it to a young member of his crew, one Kit Cloudkicker who sasses him before running off and then cloudkicking his way out of the ship, i.e. using a custom board to navigate the clouds.

He ends up at Louie’s. As mentioned Louie’s is a neutral zone for the various forces of the Tailspin Universe, where pilots can come to relax, have some TOTALLY NOT ALCHOHLIC JUICE, and party down with Louie, based on King Louie but no longer wanting to conquer the world in a sea of fire. That we know of, for all I know he’s buildling a massive flamethrower in the back and it backfiring is why he didn’t show up in Ducktales 2017. We don’t know Louie’s life. Point is it’s here we meet our other hero, Baloo, who honestly hasn’t changed mcuh: he’s still about havin ga good time, avoiding responsiblity and what not, ik’ts just here instead of being understandable because bear, he comes off as a slacker 30 something year old man who needs to grow up slightly. Basically the Jake Peralta of the skies.

So naturally here comes a little 10 year old moppet to warm his heart and change his life.. instead of an elderly gay black man who becomes his new dad. Look everyone has their path in life, I can’t help if Baloo got the short end of the stick.

Baloo however not only takes to the kid interupting his groove well, but protects him from a random asshole and instantly adopts the kid> That is the second fastest adoption i’ve seen in animation history. The first well...

Look no one beats donald at rage, self pity, sucking at life or adopting children. It just can’t be done.

Baloo gladly takes the kid with him even when the pirates come, with Kit stashing the loot and making a daring escape. .as you do. Our heroes escape, and Baloo takes Kit back home with him.

What I like about this episode is that it shows off BOTH sides of baloo easily: it shows how carefree he is at first, but also shows how, kind, warm and loving he is with his rescue of kit.. and then shows what a mess of a person he is by showing his messy home. Just like you could see what a mess of a person I am just by looking at my room. It’s just how life works. But Baloo’s got bigger issues than clutter as he has tons of unpaid bills and notices of said bills.. which comes to roost when a weird little man tells him he has till the end of the day to pay said bills, which he’s ignored by not going home for several weeks a solid strategem, or they’ll take his plane, aka the only thing he’s cared about in life up to an hour ago.

So to save Baloo’s plane wife he needs to take a job, as he’s a work for hire seaplane pilot. And to get the money needed to not loose his baby, he needs to take the worst and most lucative job avaliable: transporting gorilla birds, noisy super loud birds that don’t shut up. So imagine a plane full of the Three Cablleros version of Daisy, and you understand the hell our heroes are dealing with.

But the pirates attack, and have been attacking with baloo finally putting two and two together....

Oh and that their clearly after Kit for some reason. Still that’s tabled as Kit gets sore that Baloo cares so much about his plane getting damaged and runs off.

I mean it’s just kinda there to create conflict. It’s not the most guilty of it in this pilot but still.

So Baloo goes after him, lettnig the birds get loose and loosing his job if it means saving his buddy, a father and son relationship is forged and our heroes escaped. Baloo finally confronts kit about his treasure and after some incredulity finds out it’s a jewel.. and thus he could buy a whole FLEET of planes with that kind of money.

Before we move on i’m saving the voice actor introductions for the end of the first two episodes, both for time’s sakes.. and because I forgot to thread them throughout the first episode.

So Baloo is played by Ed Gilbert. They tried to get Baloo’s original voice actor, but the man’s age had affected his timing and it would be hard to get him out where they were recording so they let him enjoy retirement and brought in Gilbert. Gilbert is a minor voice actor having done some supporting rolls but is best known for this one... and for his work in etemology in which he descovered a new form of Beetle. I’m entirely serious, and find it a very notable and noble persuit good for you dude.

Kit is voiced by RJ Williams, who was a child actor but went on to be more of a mogul owning a bunch of media companies. Again good for him , but a genuine suprise.

Don Karnage and Louie are voiced by the one the only Jim Cummings who had it in his contract back then to show up in every disney series at the time: He voiced El Capitain in DuckTales, Montery Jack in Chip N Dale Rescue Rangers for the pilot i’ll be covering later this week and seasons 2 and 3 replacing Peter Cullen, Darkwing Duck as his breakout role and of course Pete in every disney production from Goof Troop until the day he dies. He also did some smaller work for gargoyles just in case you thought he missed one of the big ones. I frankly miss the days when he showed up in every disney show that came out and hope he appears in owl house or amphibia before both shows end this year.

Part 2:

So naturally having an instant solution to his problems... Baloo instead naps all day and wakes up to the new owner barging into his house. I’d mock him more but I also sleep all the damn time so glass houses, throw stones, you get it.

The new owner is Rebecca Cunningham, a naive go getting young woman whose trying to make something of the buisness and thus sunk all her money into a plane and the shop, so she also owns baloo’s house/office. She brings along with her her adorable as a button daughter Molly, who instantly endears herself to Baloo. Baloo also introduces Becky and the audience to his mechanic to get her goat, Wildcat, a scatterbrained cat who nonetheless is a mechanical genius and proves himself despite Becky’s skpeticisim. He was based on an alcholic pilot from some film i’ve never heard of, and knowing that puts Wild cat in a whole other light.

While Baloo is getting a rude awakening, we cut breifly to Kahn industries where we meet the best part of this already great show, Shere Fucking Kahn. In the movie if I undrestand right he was a powerful, cunning, nightmarish villian. Here he’s still every bit as pants crappingly intimidating and using an heir of class to mask it slightly, some things never change.. but is now instad of king of the jungle, king of cape suzette, owning countless companies, being richer than god himself, and being far from helpless in a fight.. he just rarely has to get his hands dirty. He’s a wild card: sometimes he’ll be the obstacle our heroes need to overcome, other times he’ll be their client, sometimes he’ll be int he middle like he is here, not HELPING them but not actively against them neither, just a force of nature that helps move the plot along and looks damn fine in a suit.

So while we wait to find out what it is, our heroes first have to go get it, bullshitting rebecca by agreeing to tow the line and what not, while really planning on darting to louies during thei rnext job to fetch the gem, have Louie apraise it, cash it in somehow, then come back with a succesful job done AND the money to buy the plane back. This does miss some steps such as “what if rebecca dosen’t WANT to sell the plane” and “how will they sell it” and “what if she gets supecious with the time”, but if planning ahead was something Baloo could do well, he wouldn’t have to buy his plane back in the first place.

They soon find an unexpected complication, Molly who not only stowed away on the Sea Duck but also threateans to rat them out if they go back right away. Not having a choice and with Louie’s being safe enough as it’s not happy hour nor baloo’s week to get blackout drunk, our heroes head back. There they have Louie appraise it. And let’s face it this isn’t the weirdest thing he’s appraised.

He finds out it’s artifical which should be an issue.. except the box says Kahn Industries so they can make a tidy sum giving it back to the guy.

After the fact their persued by the pirates who haven’t given up just yet. A scuffle insues, and Baloo cleverly uses their cargo, a bunch of fruit as child friendly ammo since sadly you coudln’t flame thrower a wolf to death back then. Now though stabbin a child, aging a guy to death, showing glomgold shirtless i’ts the thunderdome, they’d let Baloo put a grenade in one of the pirates mouth and pull the pin out. It’s awesome.

So with that Baloo returns home and naturally gets dressed down by Rebecca, but Molly covers for them, botha dmitting to stowing away and that baloo saved her, bonding the group. So they settle in for the night and it’s all wholesome but Baloo and Kit sneak awya, leaving the gem in molly’s doll.

Shere Khan.. is a man of honor and reason and thus isn’t put off by them not having the jewel on them, as he gets negotiations, and is willing to pull a dumptruck of money up to baloos house for his services. Baloo is naturally exastic goes back.. and finds the place ransacked. See this is why you take the jewel with you and just hide it under the boy’s hat or something. Less kidnappings that way.

Okay quick voice actor breakdown

Rebecca is played by Sally Struthers , best known by me as Babette from the Gilmore Girls, but also known for all in the family and dinosaurs. The fact I coudln’t recognize it was her speaks to her talent as an actress and voice actress, though weirdly this and Dinosaurs are her only starring voice works.

Molly was voiced by Janna Micheals, a child actor whose since retired and hasn’t done a lot of note outside of this. She was in Bushwacked so.. that’s something.

Wildcat was voiced by Pat Fraley, a va i’m less familiar with than most storied va’s but he’s got a hell of a career. Just looking at wikipdiea he has a giant list of credits, most for “additonal voice” and smaller parts but his vocal flair is notable. His biggest and most recontlizable role is as the TMNT 87 versions of Krang, Baxter Stockman and Casey Jones and he’s got my full respect. Anyone whose played Beta Ray Bill gets that automatically of course but Fraley gets it for being a workhorse in the buisness and a damn nice guy.

Finally we have a compete and utter legend in Tony Jay. If you grew up in the 80′s, 90′s or 2000′s, you know this voice. Even after you probably have. In addition to Kahn he’s the voice of Frollo, Megabyte, Galactus, Lord Dregg, Chairface Chippendale, The Magic Mirror, Dr. Lipschitz, Spiderus, Rex Smythe Higgens, and Lickboot. He’s also done live action work but my point is the man is the voice of my childhood and is sorely missed. No one could play a villian or narrate something quite like Tony.

Part 3:

Now back to our reguarlly scheduled pirates. So Baloo and Kit get to work trying to find their friends, with Kit’s past giving them an advantage as he knows something all of Cape Suzette dosen’t: where the pirates lair is. And it makes sense: if their lair were a known secret Kahn would’ve sent a battalion over to wipe them out by now. The show’s also clever in having it be under a waterfall so even know the heroes KNOW where it is, it’s not somewhere that can easily be bombarded: easy to exit, not so easy to enter, perfect hideout

We also get a great emotional scene with Kit as he explains his past: He was an orphan, left to fend for himself and joined the pirates because he had no where else to go, being utterly ashamed of being part of them. Baloo comforts the boy which is both heartwarming.. and makes what’s about to happen immensley frustrating.

So our heroes sneak in, rob some pirates for their clothes and disguise themselves, going in to save becky.. just as Becky flirts with a guard, takes him out, get shis keys and frees herself, because despite being a bit naive.. she’s still every bit as badass as her employee.

The two sneak around and find out the pirates big plan and plan for the jewel: the jewel as it turns out is a super battery, something that holds enough energy to power all of Kahn’s many buisnesses for free. The reason there’s only one is simple: it was expensive and harrowing enough to make ONE, the scientests reasonably feel, as they told kahn in an earlier scnee i glossed over, they can’t produce another.

Don Karnage plans to use it like any resonable man would: to make a giant LIGHTNING GUN and use it to fry the formidable defenses of Cape Suzette, a bunch of turrents kahn keeps staffed every hour that can blast apart any plane that isn’t welcome, as demonstrated in an earlier scene I genuinely forgot to mention because my memory is a styigian bog sometimes.

Cue a big musical number, which Cummings naturally nails with Desi Arnez flair, but sadly our heroes can’t escape the rythum or the pirates and get captured. Which brings us to the dumbest part of this 4 parter and the only real story cul de sac: With Karnage threatning Baloo and Rebecca, Kit makes a sacrifice: He puts on an act claming the other three mean nothing to them, he was just playing them the whole time and rips the head off molly’s doll to give it to karnage, givnig him the jewel back. This itself isn’t bad: Kit is forced to stay behind in a place he hates to save the people he loves and I buy that Karnage would buy it as Kit feeds into his own ego and frankly it gives hi mthe gem back so what does he care. Kit pushes away the people he loves.. to save them from his past and it’s heartrending.

See.. that’s not the dumb part. The dumb part is baloo FULLY buys the act. Hok line and sinker. Thinks Kit betrayed him and washes his hand of the boy depsite Rebecca INSTANTLY figuring kit didn’t betray them. And Kit.. just didn’t do enough to really sell it. if he’d really said something hurtful to baloo or done something bad but at most he called him a sucker and again, given context, it should be easy to figure out that you know, he was faking it to save their collective bearskin. Baloo is smarter than this and the pilot didn’t bother setting up any emotional baggage to make this credible.

It also spoils what SHOULD be the emotinal cliffhanger of the episode: Baloo buys the plane back, having both swiped the deed earlier and making sure to give becky some treasure as compensation showing he’s a good soul before flying off into the unknown. But instead of Baloo abandoning his future to embrace his carefree ways it comes off as an ass basically stealing a plane in the nicest way possible, abandoning a woman who wants to help him and her young child, and leaving a child in a cave because he bought a fucking 9 year olds ploy to save his fucking life.

Part 4: So we’re finally to the finale of this four part as the Air Pirates begin their assualt with the LIGHTNING GUN and decimate cape suzette, taking out the guns (the gunners flee for their lives because disney again wasn’t willing to get blood on it’s hands yet and deer blood didn’t count), and threatning to destroy the city.

In said city Rebecca is trying to find another pilot and comfort her child but finds herselft stuck in the storm instead. Kit’s no better off, stealing the gun’s gem the first chance he gets.. and getting caught meaning he’s on borrowed time till they catch him and skin him. And Baloo?

Burying his depression in a party hole the same way I do in a nintendo switch hole. Did you hear we got a castlevania advance collection today? Maybe once I can afford that it’ll help fill the void inside!

Anyways, kit sends a distress signal to whoever and Baloo FINALLY pull shis finger out of his ass, realizies “gasp” the child was lying to him to save his life and goes to save him with a daring aerial rescue and a heartwarming reunion.

Thankfully with that nonsense done we can get into the thick of it so Baloo can.... try to convince everyone to run away and let Cape Suzette burn to the ground.

It takes everyone else deciding no Baloo we won’t let people die and the city we all live in burn to a crisp to save our own asses, let’s save them. Rebecca being the only one of the team with a brain cell has a plan thoug: rubber! Since they have a bunch of tires from a cargo she was going to deliver, they can coat the Sea Duck in rubber, thus making it lightning proof, with everyone riding along

This being a cartoon that science does check out and our heroes are thus resitatn to Karnage’s best weapon, forcing him to rely on fighters which can’t outbadass a bear and thus crash. Still the heavy resitatnce forces Baloo to take drastic measures and our hero has the others bail out.. so he can dive bomb the lightning gun himself. As Shere Kahn elquonetly puts it, “Now that.. was a pilot”. Side note I want to fuck a tiger man.

So we get yoru standard death fakeout and while Baloo surivived, his common law wife didn’t and the sea duck is dead... until the next day where it’s been resotred, Becky having used the money and the druken cat what sleeps under baloo’s house to fix it... and kept ownership again. So Baloo agrees to stick around till he can buy it back, though even he dosen’t seem to buy that, and our heroes head off into the blue to have wild adventures for another 60 or so epsiodes till Kit eventuallyg rows up and this story repeats all over again only with more john caprentery-body horror and a bunch of ducks. But that’s a story for.. earlier this year.

Final Thoughts: Plunder and Lightning is an excellent pilot that fully sold me on the series both times. It’s adventerous, has some good slapstick, and sells just how great the cast is and introduces all of them perfectly and with good rythum, only taking two episodes to bring everyone in, much faster than both other 4-5 part piots and then letting them bond naturally enough to have an emotional connection. The anmation is fucking breathtaking, taking a page from the the Myazaki manga that would become the wonderful film Porto Rosco, seriously check it out it’s amazing and I will be covering it some day, and holds up shockingly well, the voice acting is top notch. Everything just comes together for a perfect storm of adventure, fun and awesome in the classic disney manor. The best of the pilots i’ve seen thus far. We’ll see with Gargoyles some day. Probably next year. Next time, some crimes slip through the crack, but these two, gumshoes, have your back. It’s c-c-hip n dale baby! If you enjoyed this review consider commisioning your own or checking out my patreon. It’s been a pleasure

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