EPISODE TYPE: Growth Ray
(Potion) & King Kong Situation
(see Common Themes section for more
on this category)
WHAT IS WEBBY?: An anthro, white
feathered, duckling
IS SHE MACRO ORIGINALLY?: No
HOW DID SHE BECOME MACRO?: Fell
into a pond of growth inducing water
WHAT DOES SHE BECOME AFTER SHE GREW?:
Larger Version of Herself
IS GROWTH SHOWN?: Yes
HOW MUCH OF BECOMING MACRO STAGES SHOWN?:
All of the growth stages shown.
QUOTE: "Grammy said
I would have growth spurts. But nothing like this!"
SEX: Female
LOCATIONS: Duckburg & African
jungle
MACRO SIZE (Approx or Average ):
50 Feet
NATURE: Heroic Good
DESTRUCTION LEVEL DONE:
Low - A circus tent and some bi planes.
SYNOPSIS OF EPISODE: Bubba, Huey,
Luey and Duey are all playing hide-and-seek outside of Uncle Scrooge's
mansion. Bubba is counting while the other three hide up in a tree.
Bubba starts to sniff the ground as he searches for them and find them
easily. They all hop back onto the ground out of the tree and hear a
faint sneeze. They go to investigate and see Webby hiding under
an over turned wheel barrow. Webby gets annoyed that no one was looking
for her while she was hiding and the boys all answer that they didn't
even realize she was playing. Duckworth comes out to offer the
boys some drinks not realizing Webby was there making her even more
mad. Then Scrooge tells Bubba and his nephews to come up so he can show
them something important. Again not noticing Webby.
The boys all listen to Scrooge as he explains that a
long tailed gorilla has been spotted in Africa. He wants the gorilla
for his new theme park where people can drive through and see
endangered animals. He will use Bubba's nose to sniff out its location.
He tells the boys they can all come. Webby asks if she can come too and
Uncle Scrooge tells her that its too dangerous for her and to stay
there even as she protests he has already moved on to preparing for the
trip. Webby decides she is going to go anyway without anyone
knowing and storms out of the room.
A ringmaster for a run down circus is dealing with his
performers all complaining that they haven't been paid in weeks. He
explains that he is working on it and to just give him more time. They
all protest and decide to quit instead walking out on him. He realizes
that he needs something bigger and better then them to attract people
and notices the long tailed gorilla in the newspapers. Just then the
Beagle Boys show up complaining at the lack of attractions at the
circus. Barker decides to let them in on his plan to capture the
gorilla and wants their help. They don't want to help until Barker
tells them they can have all the cotton candy they can eat. Burger
Beagle quickly accepts the offer for them.
Scrooge lands in Africa with the nephews and Bubba and
they start the search. Webby reveals herself from her hiding place and
follows a bit behind so she isn't seen. Bubba sniffs about and gets on
the trail of something. He comes back with a bone in his mouth barking.
Scrooge tosses it away and tells him to try again. Webby meanwhile gets
startled when she sees a dragonfly almost as big as she is. She runs
quickly to Uncle Scrooge in a panic. Scrooge is less then pleased to
see her having stowed away. She promises that she won't be any trouble
and Scrooge reluctantly lets her join them as they head into the jungle
deeper. The Beagle Boys and Barker follow in the distance.
Scrooge gets his net ready to capture it while The
Beagle Boys put on gorilla outfits and jump out from behind some
bushes. Everyone runs away as the gorillas show up and Webby flees into
a river that she trips in heading down to a waterfall. She starts to
fall down the waterfall only to be saved by the long tail gorilla that
picks her up into his hand and lands on a near by tree. Webby makes
friends with him calling him Mr. Fuzzy and giving him cocoa she brought
along in her canteen. Webby realizes that he looks more like a monkey
and a gorilla and wonders how he got so big. The monkey takes Webby
again and goes to show her.
As they enter an area with large vegetation and insects
the Beagle Boys also show up and start to chase after the monkey to
capture it. Webby gets tossed into the growth water pond that the
monkey was showing her and starts to grow in size getting so big her
head hits a branch well above her in a tree. She stomps over back to
Uncle Scrooge as they all notice how big she has gotten. She tells them
it was something in the water but doesn't know where it was. Scrooge
realizes they have to get her back to normal somehow. They fly her home
attaching huge balloons to her back as she hangs out the back of the
plane via some ropes.
Back at Scrooge mansion a doctor starts to examine
her. The doctor says she is in good shape besides the fact that
she is really big. He knows of one way to shrink her. He found a
formula from a witch doctor who could shrink heads. He doesn't have the
formula anymore though. Luckily for him the boys find it in their
Junior Woodchuck Guidebook. He starts to work on it while a whole day
passes. At night Webby is jumping rope shaking the whole mansion apart
while the boys couldn't play with her as she is too big to do anything
with. She decides to get some sleep as Scrooge tells her it will be
fixed in the morning. She watches TV in a make shift house made out of
a tent for her to use. She is watching a monster movie worried of the
poor little monster being attacked. A commercial breaks in showing
Barker's circus and the captured long tailed gorilla being displayed
there. Webby stomps off to save him.
The doctor calls Scrooge saying that the formula is
almost ready but he needs fur from a long tailed monkey. The boys run
in telling that Webby is gone. Webby arrives at the circus and rescues
the monkey from its holding cage while the Beagle Boys run in to stop
her. The long tailed monkey runs out scared and heads into downtown
Duckburg. Webby follows him seeing him on a billboard with a banana on
it trying to eat it. Webby is noticed by everyone suddenly as they all
start to scream. Scrooge and the boys show up to find Webby atop the
building holding the monkey in her hand trying to escape from everyone.
Scrooge quickly gets the doctor and flies into a helicopter to get the
formula up to Webby. The Beagle Boys and Barker are already up there in
planes trying to capture the monkey again. Scrooge grabs some fur
strands from the monkey as the doctor puts it into the formula ready to
use it on Webby. Webby hits the Beagle Boys chasing Scrooge and send
their planes crashing into the river below. The top of the building
Webby stands upon is starting to give way. The doctor uses the formula
on Webby and the monkey as they fall and both shrink back as they near
the ground only to be caught by the boys standing below.
The monkey is sent back to Africa via a transport truck
to the airport and the boys promise never to let Webby out of their
sights again as they run off to play.
REVIEW OF
EPISODE: There are some great Disney Afternoon macro moments,
some really bad ones and then there is this one. As middle of the road
as you can get. Not the best or even greatest you will see by Disney
but far from the worst they have done either. Very generic type
of a
Disney story. They have done this theme before. The littlest
character is ignored and not noticed and winds up being the one turned
giant. They like it at first then wind up hating it. In the end
everyone appreciates said character more as everyone is back to normal
and everyone the wiser. Lather, rinse, repeat.
Far from the most original situation. Not only have
they used themes they used many times before and after but also even
copy the King Kong situation in a very awkward way. It just seemed
thrusted in to the end of the episode using the sight gag of
Webby holding the monkey in her hand rather then the usual other way
around. The fact that the Beagle Boys were using the bi-planes as well
to attack her seemed a little of a forced situation to me.
The episode had to stretch a lot of things here that seemed very out of
character. All of the sudden Webby was not noticed by anyone. Since
when? If anything she is always around when they need her or not there
if she isn't. I don't remember them ever treating her like this until
this situation that lead to the events that unfolded.
The absence of her grandma Mrs. Beakley and Launchpad
in this episode were also strange absences. You would think her grandma
would be concerned as to what happened to her grand-daughter as well as
Launchpad being the one to fly Scrooge all over the place. But for some
reason both characters were not to be seen. They even had Scrooge
flying the helicopter at the end claiming that he usually doesn't fly
his own coptors.
A real problem for me was the whole way the growth
enducing water pond was handled. You would think that there would be a
lot more giant creatures looming about this jungle then just some
monkey and a few insects and some plants. It just seemed very
unrealistic in the way this was all portrayed. If anything the whole
area should have been booming with giant creatures of sorts as they one
way or another got effected by the water that they probably have
interacted with in one form or another. Why did the monkey only grow to
about 10 or so feet while Webby grew to 50 feet? Again the whole method
of the waters powers didn't make much sense or continuity. Not to
mention that the real prize to be found in that jungle wasn't the
monkey but the water itself. You have a pond that can enduce growth in
living creatures and you just want some 10 foot monkey for a drive
through safari? They quickly skirt past the issue of the pond when
Webby is asked where the water is, she quickly just replies she forgot
and the situation is ended there as now they focus on how to get Webby
back to normal. How could there not have been other giant creatures
looming about? It just didn't make any sense to me. How could an
outsider like Webby be the only one affected like this in all the time
that water must have been there? It all just seemed handled
poorly. To me there should have been another method to have gotten the
monkey big, as well as Webby, then what the writers came up with as
they
truly didn't think the whole situation through logically to make this
work as well as it could have.
Webby as a giant was a little bit on the annoying side.
They gave her a deep manly type voice now to give the image of being
big. And she seemed more obsessed with saving the monkey that she
called "Mr. Fuzzy" for some reason, then anything else. She does have a
rampage in the city type moment but it is truly harmless with her
stomping about searching for the monkey and leading her to climb up a
tall building (that I don't remember ever being in Duckburg prior to
this episode) to hold it leading to the before mentioned King Kong
situation. Also what was weird was people suddenly showing up in the
middle of the night to scream a la a Godzilla movie. The streets were
empty but then suddenly you see a mother and her son out there, one
calling her Duckzilla. And others screaming and running? Where did all
these people come from? Yeah I know if you see something stomping by
you will go out and check but she was just standing there staring at
the monkey and building and suddenly she is surrounded by a mob of
people and the cops. Why is a mother out shopping with her son so late
at night? Randomly put in terrified mob in a only moments before empty
city block was poorly done.
There were to many bad jokes as well that filled this
episode. Scrooge and Webby almost repeat the same line about "growing
up too fast.." at different points. And when one of the nephews answers
after being asked "Where would a 50 foot girl go in the middle of the
night?" with a dead pan "Anywhere she wants" reply. You can almost hear
a drum roll to accompany the joke that was paused after. As if the
whole audience watching this was going to laugh hysterically. It was
full of many jokes and one liners like that by all the characters. I
mean I'm all for macro themed jokes but this episode was just getting a
bit on the silly side with the one liners that were flying by us.
Would have been nice if more was accomplished with the giant Webby. She
just seemed to be the butt of jokes the whole time and when she enters
the city it just ends as lamely as it started. Writing was the real
weakness of this episode. It was a nice situation and idea but executed
poorly.
Definitely check it out though if you want something
new and different. They do have a growth scene that is OK for what it
is. It ends suddenly with her head hitting a branch and all so not the
best. And they have many moments with her as a giant interacting with
her surroundings. Besides that though there isn't much substance here.
It was a fun idea that just seemed rushed and not done to the same
superiority that earlier episodes had been done with. Still fun but
definitely not the best from Disney when it comes to macro moments and
not the best period over all. Just an average you take from it what you
get type of deal.
MEMORABLE QUOTES AND MOMENTS IN EPISODE:
(Bubba sniffs the ground to find the three
hiders in a tree)
Huey: "Either Bubba is part bloodhound, or we gotta take more baths!"
****************
(Webby is told she can't go on a trip to Africa due to being too
small)
Webby: "Oooooo! I hate being little!"
*****************
Webby: "Unca Scrooge. I saw a dragon fly as big as a dragon!"FINAL NOTES:
*This episode was part of the third season of DuckTales and part of the Disney Afternoon block of cartoons in syndication in the late 80's and early 90's. This would be the last macro moment of the series and one of the only ones dealing with a growth moment in the entire series. Technically Huey, Duey and Luey grow also in the episode with the Golden Goose in the next season but they were gold statues at the time when they are made bigger and not living at the time. Every other macro moment in the series, besides this one with Webby, would be dealing with creatures already large in size naturally.
Factual -- If the water made Webby 50 feet
instantly just by sitting in it for a few moments, then the long tailed
monkey should have also been at least 50 feet in size if not taller
then that due to having lived there longer and also been affected by
the waters and his regular size not being that much smaller then hers.
No explanation for why he only grew a tiny bit while Webby grew a lot
from the same waters is ever given.
Factual -- It
doesn't make sense that sitting in some growth water would cause
anything she is wearing to grow in size too. If she sat in it with
her rear only getting that part wet then only something that the
water absorbed into , assumingly her body, should have grown from the
effects of it as nothing else ever touched the water as she started to
grow above the pond.
Continuity
-- The news paper article Scrooge is reading to the boys is about
the long tailed gorilla being sighted and Scrooge telling them that he
will go and find it and is already packing to leave. In the next scene
Barker reads the newspaper that already tells of Scrooge going after
the ape. It is highly unlikely that a trip Scrooge just planned on the
same day would already be in the paper. If anything it should have been
the same story of the ape being spotted in the jungle.
+ :Webby is big
for most of the episode and there are some good moments of her in the
city and as a giantess. Growth moment shown in entirety and interesting
moments with her dealing with her new size.
- :Story is weak and unoriginal at points. Seems to lose focus as the episode gets towards the end. Some bad one liners and use of puns when referencing Webby's new height. More creatures should have been big as well as the monkey should have been larger then he was.
