The Duck Who Would Be King is the sixty-seventh episode of DuckTales 1987, as well as the second part of the Time is Money serial.
Synopsis[]
After a crash landing, the Millennium Shortcut's controls are jammed, so Scrooge and Launchpad set out looking for help. What they find is Tupei, "a 14-karat mirage" where a sinister tyrant named Mung Ho is about to execute an innocent girl named Sen-Sen for her beliefs that he is an impostor and that "the Great One" is coming. According to Sen-Sen, the prophecy states "Good will win when iron walks and gates give forth a blizzard and we shall see the Great One ride atop a giant lizard". As the two hide in a giant statue, Launchpad admires Sen-Sen's beauty and he blows their cover by defending her. Mung prepares to execute Scrooge and Launchpad as well, but Bubba arrives riding atop Tootsie. This astounds and nearly convinces the crowd that Bubba is the so-called "Great One". Mung tries to convince Bubba to let him continue with his tasks, but Bubba, because of his affection for "Skooge", puts him in charge instead. In a running gag, all the townsfolk address him as "Skooge" also. ("That's Scrooge!" "Whatever.")
Scrooges tells the citizens to go fetch Bubba's "flying chariot", and that Sen-Sen be set free. As she escorts them to Bubba's new palace, Scrooge tells Sen-Sen that as soon as the Millennium Shortcut returns, they will leave much to the reluctance of Launchpad. Sen-Sen insists that they stay as the she believes the prophecy has not yet been fulfilled. The villagers return with "the flying chariot", and the group realize the bombastium has melted potentially trapping them in time. The nephews suggest they take the liquid bombastium to the snowy mountains in the horizon to re-freeze it.
As Launchpad and the boys set out for the mountains, Scrooge mutters about in boredom until Sen-Sen shows him the treasure room, which resembles Scrooge's Money Bin in Duckburg. Feeling nostalgic, Scrooge swims and burrows around the wealth until Sen-Sen tells him that these are treasures Mung Ho took from the people in the name of the Great One. Scrooge takes Bubba with him to talk with Mung Ho. Scrooge with the approval of the "Great One", calls a trial with Mung Ho as the defendant; the tyrant watches in horror as everything he's taken is ordered by Bubba to be given back to the people. Mung Ho then reminds them that every year at this time the bandits return and now he will no longer be here to defend the city. But as it turns out, the bandits work for Mung Ho and he was paying them in previous years to fake sieges of the city. This time he orders them to "ransack the city and destroy Skooge so that heads will roll in Tupei!"
Scrooge, meanwhile, did not think either he or Bubba can defeat the marauders until he remembers the laser pen in his possession. In the meantime, Launchpad, Huey, Dewey, and Louie head up the snowy mountain. While the boys wait for the bombastium to freeze, Launchpad carves a monument of Sen-Sen in the snow. As he is about to leave, he ends up tipping the duckbill of his monument causing a giant snowball to come rolling down, taking him, the boys, and the refrozen bombastium with it. Back at the palace gates, Scrooge dons ancient armor and proceeds to face off against Mung Ho and his band of marauders. Among the cutthroats was a giant wielding a scimitar that demonstrates his strength by cutting a boulder in half. Scrooge counters the feat and instills fear in the thieves by slicing down nearly everything in sight with his laser. Unfortunately, the laser pen runs out of "ink" and the giant marauder capitalizes on this by knocking Scrooge out and prepares to finish him off with a stomp. But Bubba, club drawn, intervenes to help Scrooge and clobbers the giant down. As Bubba carries Scrooge back through the gates, Mung Ho orders them to be knocked down. Just then, Launchpad, Hewey, Dewey, and Louie come rolling in their giant snowball knocking down the gates and a few cutthroats, fulfilling the "gates give forth a blizzard" prophecy.
Mung Ho whines for his minions to destroy everyone, but Launchpad leads the gang into a secret hatch he had found earlier, hidden in the statue. His operation of the iron statue scares off Mung Ho's army, and eventually Mung Ho himself, completing the prophecy with "the iron walks". Later, as our heroes prepare to leave, Scrooge turns over leadership reigns of Tupei to Sen-Sen, who reminds him that it was Bubba "the Great One" who defeated the giant while Scrooge lay senseless. She also shows Launchpad her way of saying goodbye by planting a big kiss on him. As the travelers depart, the Tupei citizens finally get Scrooge's name right, to which Scrooge replies, "That's Skooge! ...Whatever."
Cast[]
- Terry McGovern as Launchpad McQuack
- Haunani Minn as Sen-Sen
- Russi Taylor as Huey, Dewey, and Louie Duck
- Frank Welker as Bubba Duck and Tootsie
- Alan Young as Scrooge McDuck
- Keone Young as Mung Ho
Video releases[]
DVD
- "DuckTales: Volume 3" (Reg. 1)
- "DuckTales: 3rd Collection" (Reg. 2)
Trivia[]
- The title "The Duck Who Would Be King" is a play on Rudyard Kipling's novel The Man Who Would Be King.
- The 2-hour movie version does not include the sequence where Bubba makes Mung Ho give back everything he took from the people of Tupei.