Wednesday, June 17, 2020

Darkwing Duck and Captain Carrot & His Amazing Zoo Crew



I watched the pilot episode of Darkwing Duck on Disney+ and got a kick out of it.  I missed the show when it first aired.  It still surprises me that there has never been an animated version of Captain Carrot and His Amazing Zoo Crew.  It seems like the perfect property to make that transition.  I was hoping they would show up on Batman: The Brave and the Bold, but they were sadly a no-show.

25 comments:

  1. Talk about a perfect fit. Beautiful. The one element the Crew was missing was The Detective...enter Darkwing. It's a shame they couldn't have used him during Zero Hour. ..although after Bat-Mite he might not have had that much impact.

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  2. Just had an idea you could enjoy. Captain Atom meets a female herald of Galactus.
    Love is in the Air.

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  3. I LOVE Captain Carrot. Still have all the issues. Even inspired me, as a youth, to create my own comic book of super animals. It might stil be at my parents' house.

    And them not showing up on B&B was a missed opportunity. But that show was so good--my fav animated version of Batman (given that TAS is kind of in a class all its own). I definitely wanted more seasons.

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  4. It would've been more fitting for them to debut on the animated Krypto series.

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  5. Hmmmm!


    Either that tentacle belongs to an actual molluscan version of Will Eisner's "Octopus" (never canonically seen in the original Spirit comic). Or else...

    ...Chthulu's come a-callin'!

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  6. The 'Suicide Squid' for me brings to mind the Despair Squid from Red Dwarf.

    Darkwing Duck also got a reboot in the recent DuckTales reboot series as well, bringing the two series closer together.

    I always thought that the 2003 Teen Titans cartoon would have been a good place for a backdoor Captain Carrot pilot, basing it on the CC iaaue guest starring Beast Boy, but I agree that Batman B&B would also have been a good place for them to appear.

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  7. Excellent dialog balloon! Inspired!

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  8. Love this X-Over, I can see it continuing with the Zoo Crew teaming the Just Us Ducks. LOL

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  9. I actually would love for Captain Carrot and Darkwing Duck to form an ongoing friendship here, World's Finest style (and in fact I've suggested it in the past).

    @Cary: No, the tentacle belongs to the longtime Usenet rec.arts.comics mascot whose name is the story's title. The group's awards were even called the Squiddy Awards from 1991 until its discontinuation in 2004. They also had some custom-printed T-shirts made, though I connected with the group too late to get one.

    Most information about the character has slowly vanished from the Internet over the past decade and a half, but the short version of his (real-world) origin is that someone in the group asked another what he thought about what was happening in the Suicide Squad comic, and the other (who hadn't been following the comic, and for whom English was a second language) asked, "What's happen in Suicide Squid?" Two others immediately jumped in, answering the question as if Suicide Squid was an actual comic, and a legend was born. Any further typos or oddball remarks over the next few years only added to the mythos, as did various fits of personal silliness.

    Michael Surbrook still has a write-up I did for Hero System based on the stuff people had made up. (The drawing on that page is what appeared on the T-shirt; I'm aware of only one other drawing of him existing as a "Black Lantern" gag, though a few artists have taken the same concept for bits that could be deemed close enough.)

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  10. Gah. Am I the only one who remembers the late lamented Suicide Squid of rec.art.comics (Usenet) fame and the Squiddies Awards?

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  11. first, i would like to agree with everyone what a great cover this is.... each day you continue to amaze and amuse us with your awesome artistic endeavors.... Thank You,Ross
    second, i would like to second Bob's idea of a World's Finest pairing of Captain Carrot and Darkwing Duck.... we should check back in on the coupling if you think you can do it, Ross....
    and thirdly, i would like to propose a new family pair a thought of as i was watching the latest Stargirl episode....
    Patrick "Stripsey" Dugan and his brother Timothy "Dum Dum" Dugan.... both of these heroes wear striped shirts and in their original comic book appearances were both red heads.... they must of course be brothers and a cover by you, Ross, could make so....

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  12. @Anon 8:13: I don't know about that, though "Krypto the Superdog" looked a lot like later60s/70s Hanna-barbera cartoons, but I'm waiting for a Captain Carrot/Kamandi cover; the sentient creatures of Kamandi's post-apocalyptic(?) world are anthropomorphic animals, like the sentients of Captain Carrot's home world of Earth-C; also maybe a "squid"-dominated cover could have the likes of Squiddly-Diddly and Squidward Tentacles, though they're octopi, not squids.

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  13. Suicide Squid!

    No, Jay, you're not the only one with fond memories of the typo with a life of its own!

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  14. Anonymous --
    Since Captain Carrot and Kamandi are both DC titles, that matchup doesn't quite find the Lost Issues MO

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  15. But they are in different universes so it could still work.

    What I can't figure out is why Disney hasn't teamed Darkwing with Spider-Ham. Marvel screwed that up during their brief Mighty Mouse run but this pairing is in the extended family.

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  17. I have to agree with Anon813: KRYPTO: TAS would've been a more appropriate place for a TV screen debut (a la "The Flash of Two Worlds"). Or, failing that, a cameo appearance on ROAD ROVERS!

    As for this Usernet mascot? Nope! Sorry; never heard of it. So, if not an anthropomorphic version of the Will Eisner villain, my next guess/preference would've been Squiddly Diddly under the psionic sway of...Shuma-Gorath!

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  18. P.S. @ Jack-El: I vaguely remember making a similar suggestion, some time last year. So, consider me seconding your motion! :-)

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  19. Suicide Squid as a villain?? Say it ain't so!! You mean the usenet group alt.fan.suicide-squid lied to me all these years?

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  20. IIRC, the tentacle is one of the arms of Starro.

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  21. I've always considered Starro to be the DCU manifestation of Shuma-Gorath. Similar to Willow being the DCU version of Mantis.

    ;-)

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  22. @Cary: Though produced by WB, the Road Rovers were as far removed from anything DC as the worlds of Hanna-Barbera. I think it'd be great if DC were to include them in one of their "DC Meets" books, and the Zoo Crew seem like a good batch to connect them with.

    On the other hand, if Ross were willing, I think they could do well teaming up with Krypto or Lockjaw. Or, Alex Summers could join up with them for a tale titled "Cry, Havok, and Let Loose the Dogs!"

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  23. PS: Count me in as supporting a Golden Age pairing of the Dugan Brothers.

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  24. @Bob: on that much, we can agree.

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  25. "Works For me." - Detective Rick Hunter (1983 Fred Dryer).

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