A-woo-woo
Unpacking the lyrics to a masterpiece: the 'DuckTales' theme song
A few tunes pursue me like the demon from “It Follows.” They won’t leave my head. At any given moment, when none of you are listening, I am whistling/humming/bleating one of these:
“Carry On My Wayward Son” by Kansas
“All For You” by Janet Jackson
The theme from “The Bridge on the River Kwai”
The horn line from the “Robin Hood : Prince of Thieves” overture that start at 1:08 (I played French horn in my middle school band)
“March of the Belgian Paratroopers” (see above)
The theme song from “Green Acres” (specifically the Eva Gabor part)
Inexplicably, the Mexican Hat Dance
Really, though, my mind is a basic cable box. Modern pop music was off-limits growing up. My CD wallet bulged with TV show theme song compilations.
Those ditties really stuck with me. They’re short, so I’d listen on repeat. I know the themes to shows I have never watched, like “Angie” and “Hardcastle and McCormick.” All are but whispers in the wind compared to a song I heard every afternoon on TV.
The “DuckTales” theme song has gone quadruple platinum in my head.
Its catchiness is self-evident. I want to jump into its gold coin-filled pool do some laps through the lyrics. Let’s do a duck dive.
Consider the first stanza:
“Life is like a hurricane/ Here in Duckburg/ Race cars, lasers, aeroplanes/ It's a duck-blur.”
Already, there’s so much to exegete from the words of the prophet Mark Mueller. (That’s the guy who wrote the “DuckTales” theme song; we should name a few schools after him.) From jump, we learn that Uncle Scrooge, Huey, Dewey, and Louie live in a town called Duckburg. That’s like if New York City was named Humanville. We can tell it’s a happening place (they have a race track and an airport), though somewhat dangerous (lasers).
Don’t fall for the easy trap and fixate on rhyming “burg” with “blur.” I am more fascinated with the songwriter’s impulse to complete his meter by adding “duck” in front of a random word. What distinguishes a duck-blur from a regular blur? Meditate upon it through prayer and fasting.
Then, the pre-chorus sets the narrative scope of “DuckTales” to bone-chilling effect:
“Might solve a mystery/ Or rewrite history”
My sweet ducks, these are not comparable actions. Cartoon animals have solved mysteries for decades. But rewriting history — are we to understand that three bird-children possess not only possess a means of time travel, but also the ability to alter events that have already transpired?1 Upsetting. The hand of god is feathered and white.
The chorus distracts us from this existential horror:
“‘DuckTales,’ a-woo-woo/ Every day they're out there making/ ‘DuckTales,’ a-woo-woo/ Tales of derring-do bad and good/ luck tales, a-woo-woo”
The Genius transcription writes the iconic vocalization as “oooh ooooh,” but that’s fucking dumb. I have ears.2 According to a Vanity Fair history of the song — amazing idea, bereft that I didn’t think of it first — songwriter Mueller says it’s “a-woo-hoo.” I hear it as “a-woo-woo.” The customer is always right.
Also, note the lyric “tales of derring-do bad and good luck tales.” Wordplayed into utter nonsense. Love it.
The second verse follows:
“When it seems they're heading for the/ Final curtain/ Cool deduction never fails/ That's for certain/ The worst of messes/ Become successes”
No one ever remembers that verse ’cause it kind of sucks, unless you choose to believe “deduction” is a duck pun.
Moving on. We get the chorus again before launching into the hardest bridge of all time:
“D-d-d-danger! Watch behind you/ There's a stranger out to find you/ What to do? Just grab on to some ‘DuckTales’”
Excusez-moi? There’s a stranger out to find me? A child? Truly, a ghoulish idea to “Inception” into the minds of cartoon-loving youth. I’m also obsessed with the explicit promise that only watching more “DuckTales” can save you from certain death.
I have to mention that the singer, Jeff Pescetto, puts an unconscionable degree of soul into this part. The stutter on the D in “danger” is slick as hell. The way he sings “stranger” and “find you” — more sauce than a bottle of Cholula.
We repeat the chorus and bridge and chorus again, before the outro:
“Not pony tales or cotton tales, no/ ‘DuckTales’ (a-woo woo)”
The cherry on top of hurricanes, lasers, omnipotent waterfowl, and pursuit by a faceless threat. You won’t soon forget what this is about, not if Disney has anything to say about it. Horses? Rabbits? Don’t piss me off! This is a duck function!
I do recommend reading that Vanity Fair story. Darryn King wrote it as the 2017 reboot of “DuckTales” debuted. (I’ve never watched that, but I’ve heard it’s good.3) The article goes into the origins, musicology, and enduring power of the theme song. This tidbit is fun:
“‘DuckTales’ aired in more than 100 countries in 25 different languages. It was the first American cartoon broadcast in the former Soviet Union after the Cold War; in Hungary, those born in the early-to-mid 80s are known as ‘the DuckTales generation’ (Kacsamesék generáció).”
King also writes that my beloved “a-woo-woo” changes from culture to culture: “It’s more of an ‘oh-oh!’ in Finnish; the Norwegians go for ‘ah-ha!’; the Polish offer a frisky ‘yoo-oo!’” Perhaps globalism was a mistake.
Parting thought for discussion: Launchpad McQuack is hot. Bye!
One rad thing
Katharine Hepburn leads a boy to strange places. Last week, I watched “The Lion in Winter” for the first time as an adult. Hot damn, that’s a movie. It’s dark as all get out. In director Anthony Harvey’s 1968 medieval drama, the brood of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine gather for Christmas, betrayal, and perversion.
What really stood out to me on this viewing: the dialogue. It’s “Succession” for plague rats. These unbathed royals are jockeying for power while dropping 1183’s hottest bitch tracks. Eleanor of Aquitaine gaslighted and gatekept so Shiv Roy could girlboss!
Here are a few of my favorite Hepburn quotes from the film, courtesy of writer James Goldman. Important to note that she delivers all her dialogue like Eartha Kitt:
“Of course he has a knife, he always has a knife, we all have knives! It's 1183 and we're barbarians!”
“In a world where carpenters get resurrected, anything is possible.”
“I could peel you like a pear and God himself would call it justice.”
“I dressed my maids as Amazons and rode bare-breasted halfway to Damascus. Louis had a seizure and I damn near died of windburn. But the troops were dazzled.”
“There'll be pork in the treetops come morning.”
“I'd hang you from the nipples, but you'd shock the children.”
“Henry was eighteen when we met, and I was queen of France. He came down from the North to Paris with a mind like Aristotle's and a form like mortal sin. We shattered the Commandments on the spot.”
“The Lion in Winter” is streaming on Kanopy and available to rent wherever you rent things.
Outbox
For Backstage magazine, I interviewed Christian Wallace about “Landman.” He’s the co-creator and executive producer of the Paramount+ series, which is based on “Boomtown,” the podcast that he reported and hosted for Texas Monthly. Wallace is a West Texas native and spent time working in the oil fields, so he knows his derricks from his drums. Read the interview here.
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My very smart friend Veena Harbaugh started a Substack called Buds! You should read her first post, which uses the Bob Dylan biopic “A Complete Unknown” as a springboard to talking about change and growth.
P.S.
Due to popular demand (two of you suggested it), I’ve created The Official Turning Out Playlist on Spotify. It’ll be regularly updated (just nod and keep your mouth shut) with songs featured in the newsletter. And because this Substack is just as much about movies, here’s The Official Turning Out Watchlist on Letterboxd.
In fact, it only took “DuckTales” until Episode 12 to have those birds meddle with time travel, in the episode “Master of the Djinni.”
Shockingly, so do ducks, according to ducks.org. Everyone say thank you to ducks dot org.
The reboot kept the theme song but tweaked a couple lyrics and rerecorded it with a different singer. I prefer the original song, but the animation in the new intro rules.