What’s Up With Ducktales’ Weird Jim Cummings Obsession?
Today, many people are going to go to the theater for a new Winnie the Pooh movie, though sadly not in China due to the apparently uncanny resemblance between Pooh and President Xi Jinping. The movie is sweet, enchanting, pleasingly old-fashioned, grating, depressing, or tedious depending on who you ask. But many folks will go because the movie has (A) Winnie the Pooh and (B) Ewan McGregor. While Ewan McGregor is always great, the real draw for me is Jim Cummings’ work as Winnie the Pooh. Cummings took over the role from Sterling Holloway (whom he could masterfully emulate) in the 80’s and played Pooh in most every movie, television show, and video game since. Cummings has also voiced hundreds of animated characters and dozens of video game characters including a Lost Viking, an Evil Snowman, Shredder, and Fallout’s The Master. He was also in the fantastic first five episodes of of the original DuckTales (as Scrooge’s rival El Capitan). He’s one of those voice actors who has done a lot of amazing work, which must be why the new episodes of DuckTales are so weirdly obsessed with him.
Hey El Capitan even appears in the original intro!
I haven’t been a big fan of DuckTales’ new episodes. I love the cast (especially Kate Micucci as Webby, David Tennant’s Scrooge and Keith Ferguson’s Flintheart Glomgold). One of the more unusual elements of the show is the way it integrates DuckTales into the larger world of classic Disney afternoon shows. DuckTales appears to take a place in a universe where Gummi Bears, Talespin, and Darkwing Duck all exist as well. To be clear, the Gummi Bears here appear to be a mystical group who existed in a distant past and Darkwing Duck is just a TV show, but these other worlds have been increasingly mentioned as the series progressed. Now I’m just waiting for the Goof Troop and Rescue Rangers to show up and the entire Disney afternoon family will be reunited.
I’m ready for a dark, gritty, Arkham Asylum-style Darkwing Duck videogame.
It’s here that the show seems to have a weird obsession with Jim Cummings’ work. Last week’s episode finally featured characters from Talespin but focused only on Don Carnage (and his air pirates), who was originally voiced by Cummings. Darkwing Duck has also appeared on Ducktales, though here the character is a fictional superhero on TV show the nephews like and Launchpad loves. Here Darkwing Duck is a character played by “Jim Starling,” which sounds very much like the name of the voice actor who portrayed Darkwing Duck in the original show (and in this episode), Jim Cummings. Even the incorporation of the Gummi Bears, in a strange episode where a spy agency recruits Scrooge to retrieve the formula for Gummi Berry Juice, featured a book with several of the original Gummi Bear characters on it, but one was featured in particular. Which one? Zummi Gummi, voiced by Jim Cummings (yeah, sure, only in the last season, but still!).
Seriously, it’s like a conspiracy to honor Jim Cummings’ work.
Sure, you might argue that Jim Cummings was doing amazing voice work in the 80’s which led him to contribute to so many fun and popular animated series. To me it seems to be something more (and if Monterrey Jack or Fat Cat show up on DuckTales, consider my theory confirmed!). So if you’re one of those moviegoers who winds up seeing Christopher Robin this weekend, just remember that you’re hearing the very best voice work of one of the best voice actors out there. He probably played a role in whatever cartoon you watched growing up (whether it was a Disney show, or Ninja Turtles, or Adventure Time, or Spiderman, or even Miyazaki’s Castle in the Clouds). I think his performance (in the fascinatingly animated bear) is one of the high points of the movie, but you don’t have to take my word for it. Just ask DuckTales.
