How the Rescue Rangers came to be in today’s episode of #DuckTales A thread.
It’s pretty well known at this point that at the start of the show, we were told Mickey was pretty much off limits. He’s a big icon and mascot that requires all kinds of approvals. Lesser known is the OTHER property we were told was off limits: the Rescue Rangers. #DuckTales
For the past couple years, various departments at Disney have been kicking around a big RR project, most recently that feature idea from Lonely Island announced in development a while ago. Bigger projects were in play that would restrict our ability to use them. #DuckTales
This was way back at the beginning, when we proposed them as underground resistance fighters that tagged their logo wherever they helped, like Zorro. They became a white whale for us, but we figured “Oh well. Just not gonna happen, so guess.” #DuckTales
Until S3 when we started breaking the story for “Double 0”. We needed a lab animal for Heron to test her Intelli-Ray on. Someone brought up the idea that maybe it was Gadget. The room went silent, followed by hushed whispers: “No, we couldn’t. It’s not allowed!” #DuckTales
We decided to focus on just one. And we only ever referred to her as “Intelligent Rodent” in script and design because if anyone noticed, the idea would be shot down for sure. It was a cameo in one shot. #DuckTales
But of course we couldn’t help ourselves. We kept finding opportunities for her to actually get involved in the story. At this point if we’d been stopped, there would have been a random smart mouse getting A LOT of airtime for some reason. #DuckTales
It became a game of chicken: how far could we push this before we got caught & (rightfully) stopped? I was shocked when I saw the first boards and suddenly ALL OF THE RESCUE RANGERS were suddenly in it. @theironwrist’s response: “If we’re gonna do it, we gotta DO IT.” #DuckTales
Thankfully, when our show execs caught on, they saw how cool it could be and, much like “Mikey Melon” before them, conveniently looked the other way. #DuckTales
I think we were also saved a bit by the fact that we were playing by “Rescue Ranger Show Rules,” where humans (or in our case, ducks) couldn’t understand them and just heard squeaks. #DuckTales
At some point, I think everybody just got on board with it, and we had proven ourselves a bit. So we got away with turning a small Easter Egg featuring a character we were NEVER allowed to use into an extended cameo featuring everybody AND the theme song. #DuckTales
I’m really thankful that Disney let us get away with it. And I love the idea that the versions of all the versions of the Heritage characters in our world have some connection to Scrooge & co. #DuckTales
We started the show with the idea that Scrooge was the worlds greatest adventurer who has had run ins with all the other great adventurers in the world. Of course that should naturally make include the Rangers, Darkwing, the Gummis, and more. #DuckTales
