The Golden Fleecing is the forty-first episode of DuckTales 1987. It is based on the Uncle Scrooge comic book story of the same name by Carl Barks.
Synopsis[]
Visiting his psychiatrist, Ludwig Von Drake (in his only appearance on the series), Launchpad recounts an encounter he had with a band of Harpies while flying through a storm. Ludwig tells him he was only imagining the creatures and tells him to ignore it whenever it comes up again. Telling Scrooge the story as well, Scrooge realizes that the harpies are probably guarding the legendary Golden Fleece and the gang sets off in search of it.
Arriving on the island, they run afoul of the harpies and a dragon. Launchpad is taken in by the harpies thinking he's become a king, but is just being fattened up to be fed to the dragon, though one of the Harpies falls in love with Launchpad and tries to protect him.
Scrooge ends up giving up the Golden Fleece in an aerial chase with the dragon, which lands on his eyes and puts the beast to sleep.
Seeing Ludwig again, Launchpad shows him the lovesick harpy and it gives them both nervous breakdowns.
Cast[]
- Corey Burton as Ludwig Von Drake
- Joan Gerber as Anastasia the Harpy
- Tress MacNeille as Agnes the Harpy
- Terry McGovern as Launchpad McQuack
- Russi Taylor as Huey, Dewey, and Louie Duck
- Alan Young as Scrooge McDuck
Video releases[]
DVD
- "DuckTales: Volume 2" (Reg. 1)
- "DuckTales: 2nd Collection" (Reg. 2)
Trivia[]
- During Launchpad's therapy session, Ludwig references the "Favorite Songs" song from The Sound of Music.
- This was the first episode from Wang Film Productions both to be produced and to air.
- This was also Corey Burton's first performance as Ludwig von Drake.
Differences from the original comic[]
- Besides the obvious "Donald's not in this version."
- In the comic, the Harpies were called Larkies.
- The original story had Scrooge and Donald being kidnapped by the Larkies because their old queen had died, and they needed Scrooge to judge a cooking contest they were having to decide who would be their new queen. One of the Larkies, named Agnes, offered to allow them to escape if Scrooge judged her meal the best - which, to his dismay, was his most hated dish, parsnip pudding.
- In the original comic, the Junior Woodchuck Guidebook actually was able to provide a solution on dealing with the dragon (as opposed to saying that dragons don't exist in this version).
- In the original story, Scrooge actually did get to take the golden fleece home and make the golden coat he'd wanted at the beginning. However, it turned out that the fleecing did not make for good clothing material, as the new coat was too cold for him to comfortably wear.