Pixelated Sci-Fi Ducks

If you needed a hockey fix right after school in the 1990s, you could come home, hunker down in front of the TV with your homework, and do none of it while taking in the newest episode of the Mighty Ducks! Born from the idea of the expansion team that the Disney Corporation founded in 1993, the futuristic ducks from "Puckworld" found themselves on Earth following a battle which leads them into a portal where they land in Anaheim. If this all sounds a little "whoa" in terms of backstory, this isn't even half of it. Feel free to read all about it on the Mighty Ducks Wikipedia page.

What is known, however, is that Mighty Ducks ran for two seasons and 26 episodes on ABC as ABC is owned by Disney. Mighty Ducks aired on "The Disney Afternoon" of programming, but you could find it on Canadian channels amongst blocks of other cartoons depending on who owned rights to the syndicated cartoon.

Ian Ziering of Beverley Hills, 90210 fame voiced the main protagonist, Wildwing Flashblade. If you're asking, yes, he's named in honour of the Ducks' mascot that you see at hockey games, and Wildwing wears a duck-shaped mask while serving as the goaltender of the Mighty Ducks on the animated show. Like NHL goalies such as Martin Biron and Kevin Weekes, Wildwing wears #00 which is porhibited by the NHL, so that's a cool fact about the character. Another fact: I can assure you, though, that Ian Ziering has not nor will ever serve as the person inside Wildwing at Ducks' games.

Along with Wildwing, the other members of the Mighty Ducks team include left-winger Nosedive Flashblade who is the younger brother of Wildwing, wears #33, and is voiced by Steve Mackall; center Duke L'Orange who is an ex-thief, wears #13, and is voiced by Jeff Bennett; right-winter Mallory McMallard who is a former member of Puckworld's miltary, wears #15, and is voiced by Jennifer Hale; left defender Tanya Vanderflock who is the genius of the group, wears #23, and is voiced by April Winchell; and, right defender Check "Grin" Hardwing who can be described as Zen-like in his demeanor, wears #1, and is voiced by Brad Garrett.

This interdimensional portal stuff means we likely have villains on this show that the protagnonists battle, so let's introduce the ones that will be seen most frequently on the series. The Saurians include Lord Dragaunus who is a dragon-like dinosaur that can breathe fire, is set on world domination, and is voiced by Tim Curry; Siege who looks like an ankylosaurus, builds weapons to use against the Ducks, and is voiced by Clancy Brown; Chameleon who is a chameleon, does terrible celebrity impressions, and is voiced by Frank Welker; and, Wraith who is a warlock-esque dinosaur-ish character, often predicts the Saurians failures, and is voiced by the late Tony Jay.

As an aside, the names that Disney rolled out for this series is rather amazing when one considers all of the projects with which this cast has been involved. Clancy Brown, Tim Curry, Frank Welker, and Tony Jay as the villains alone are some of the best character actors and voice actors in the business alone, so I can only imagine how much money Disney sunk into this series on voice acting alone!

With the Mighty Ducks of Anaheim taking flight in 1993, this series was a direct marketing tool for the hockey team under Disney's umbrella of businesses. In the cartoon series, the Ducks played at "The Pond"; in reality, the arena in Anaheim was known as "The Pond". The Wildwing connection was made above, and the very first team that the animated Mighty Ducks played against was from Maine - an homage to Paul Kariya, the first player the Ducks drafted in the NHL, as he played at the University of Maine. Whether or not it worked is up for debate, but it seems Disney wasn't against product placement in cartoons marketed to kids whatsoever.

Like yesterday with ProStars, Watch Cartoon Online has all 26 episodes of Mighty Ducksn on the site, so I encourage you to check out any and all of the episodes by clicking here. If you're scanning the titles of the episodes, you'll notice a lot of episodes named similar to movies you may know. The cartoon spoofed a lot of famous movies - Jurassic Park, Back to the Future, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome - so brush up on your movie knowledge while watching a few cartoon-ish parodies!

Overall, I wasn't a big fan of Mighty Ducks when it first aired. It was a little too out there for me, and I definitely wasn't a fan of the Mighty Ducks hockey team back then. I have watched a number of episodes since those days of yore, and the storylines haven't gotten much better. I will say that my watching the episodes killed off an afternoon for me as I needed a day to relax, so they entertained me enough for me to accomplish that.

At the end of the day, isn't that what cartoons are meant to be: entertaining for a half-hour or so?

Until next time, keep your sticks on the ice!