Friendship Hates Magic is the 8th episode of DuckTales 2017’s Season 2, a television cartoon episode. It features the show's version of Webby Vanderquack, as well as Lena De Spell, Emily Quackfaster, Launchpad McQuack, Duckworth, and, in their debuts, Violet Sabrewing, several Tulpas and Ralph. Sirius Axeldent makes a cameo appearance; the demon Rakshassah, Scrooge McDuck and “the boys” (Huey, Dewey and Louie Duck) are mentioned, as is, of course, Magica De Spell. The show's version of Paddywhack makes his debut, alongside a mention of Quackerjack.
Description[]
Webby Vanderquack's new friend, the mysterious Violet Sabrewing, has a sleepover with Webby, despite the insistence of Lena De Spell (still watching over Webby as an invisible, powerless ghost from the Shadow Realm) that Violet seems to have ulterior motives! Despite her attempts not to let this sleepover party end in supernatural disaster like all her previous ones, Webby is soon convinced by Violet to carry out a dangerous Demogorgan ritual in order to open a gateway to the Shadow Realm and save Lena!
References[]
- Emily Quackfaster (referred to by Webby Vanderquack as “Mrs” instead of “Miss” for unknown reasons) is working a second job at the Duckburg Public Library to pay for a retirement in Barbados.
- Books in the Duckburg Public Library concerning the Shadow Realm include B. A. Beagle's The Myth of the Shadow Realm as well as the Ancient-Syriac-written Spirits of the Shadow Realm.
- In her spy days, Bentina Beakley spent an apparently-dreamy summer undercover in Paraguay, which she describes as the only time of her life when she wasn't herself.
- Among various mystical artifacts, Webby has a crate of Magic Rocks in her room.
- Webby mentions the demon Rakshassah, who she knows has one crooked fang due to a poker brawl.
- Beakley reads the novel The Scarlet Pimperbill, which Launchpad McQuack thinks resembles Darkwing Duck.
- Tulpas are magical entities born from strong emotions, who can physically manifest in the Shadow Realm.
Continuity[]
- According to Frank Angones and the Suspenders of Disbelief ([1]), the episode is actually set after Episode 14 of Season 2, Raiders of the Doomsday Vault (2019), for all that it was billed and released as Episode 8 of the season. This was reflected by the American airing order.
- Lena De Spell is still trapped in the Shadow Realm following the events of The Shadow War (2018), with Webby working to bring her back from it. Magica's Amulet, after being cracked by Donald Duck in the same episode, has found its way to the Duckburg beach and into the hands of Violet Sabrewing.
- Bentina Beakley mentions that Webby's previous attempts to have friends over for the night have gone awry; she refers to the “money shark incident”, from JAW$ (2018), and the “vicious unicorn battle in the Other Bin”, from The Other Bin of Scrooge McDuck (2018).
- After being mentioned in The Golden Lagoon of White Agony Plains (2018) and mentioned as the home of a school of magic studied by Magica De Spell in The Shadow War (2018), Demogorgana is once again mentioned; this time, one learns that it is the origin of a runic alphabet, which Violet wants to use to open a gateway into the Shadow Realm.
- As always when it is referenced, considerable metafictional fun is had with the existence of an-universe Darkwing Duck TV series to match the real-life Darkwing Duck animated series, and of its apparent status as the 2017 Continuum's equivalent of the real-life Adam West Batman TV series in all its unrepentant campiness. Most notably:
- The new version of villain Paddywhack glimpsed in the show is redesigned to match the redesign of Pennywise the Clown in the 2017 reboot of the horror story IT, as the original Paddywhack was a parody of the original Pennywise.
- Launchpad McQuack has written a fan script of a Darkwing Duck finale, to fill the hole left by the show's cancellation; the script in question is shown to be a “self-insert” story where Launchpad has inserted himself as “Darkwing's best friend, a pilot named Launchpad”. This is, of course, a reference to the fact that in the original Darkwing Duck series, the Prime Universe version of Launchpad McQuack is in fact the Prime Universe Darkwing Duck's sidekick.
- The book The Scarlet Pimperbill is a parody of The Scarlet Pimpernel, and Launchpad notes a clear similarity between the book's protagonist and Darkwing. This appears to be an allusion to The Scarlet Pumpernickel, a well-known cartoon which also parodied The Scarlet Pimpernel by replacing the hero with a large-billed anthropomorphic duck — namely, Daffy Duck. The relevance of this is that Daffy Duck has often been noted as a clear inspiration for the character of Darkwing Duck.
- The serious-sounding description Launchpad makes of Darkwing Duck’s premise is at odds with the improbable lore of the series and the pulpy tone of its plots — a common criticism of the Batman franchise (of which Darkwing Duck as a whole, whether classic of 2017, can be read as a parody), and, in particular, of its 1960's incarnation which the DuckTales 2017 version of Darkwing Duck most closely parodies.
- Bentina Beakley first displayed a penchant for amateur filmmaking in the comic story The Monsters Are Due at McDuck Manor! (2018).
- Webby would later cite her granny's take on Darkwing Duck as one of her favorite disguises out of all those she encountered in the course of her adventures with Scrooge, in Webby's Favorite Disguises (2019).
Behind the scenes[]
Friendship Hates Magic was released on April the 28th, 2019 in the Netherlands. Its release in the United States of America was, however, delayed until the 15th of May; there, no episode aired on the 28th of April, and the episode following Whatever Happened to Della Duck? was instead Treasure of the Found Lamp.
Movie Posters[]
