Why are the Disney Afternoon shows pretty much ignored?

[Burst]

On the heels of falling again for that (rather cruel) Darkwing Duck April Fools joke, I once again wonder why Disney seems to try to downplay/ignore the Disney Afternoon properties as much as possible.

It doesn't make any sense, especially since I want to say the Disney Afternoon played a huge role in the late 80s/early 90s revitalization of Disney as a brand and a company, and you'd be hard-pressed to find anyone of a certain generation that doesn't have fond memories of at least one of the shows, whether it's Ducktales, Talespin, Darkwing Duck, Gargoyles, you name it.

I get that it probably doesn't fit in their vision of what Disney 'should be', but considering that they own Star Wars and Marvel now plus how long they tried to move away from the "Disney is just fairy tales and princesses" image, I still don't get why they're collectively ignored.

Pretty much both of the attempts to revive Gargoyles and Darkwing Duck via comics were pretty much passive-aggressively killed by raising the licensing fees past what the publishers could afford, and honestly the only project tangentially related to any of the Disney Afternoon shows that's come to pass was Ducktales Remastered.

There's clearly a market for it and it's been long enough now that it doesn't even necessarily have to be nostalgia-based, but that window's going to close soon and waiting out that nostalgia period may very well be what they're trying to do.

I mean, nobody's going to be banging down the doors demanding a revival of Bonkers or Marsupilami, but even some acknowledgement of the role and influence these shows played would be nice. Darkwing and the Rescue Rangers had freakin' walk-around characters at Disney World, for crying out loud.

[Clash, Never a Meter Maid]

Given Disney's many many divisions, and the sheer scale of many of its projects and acquisitions (to say nothing of Pixar, and the Marvel and Lucas subsets, ABC, and a number of successful Disney channel franchises over the years), the fact that someone wasn't busy enough that they couldn't arrange for Darkwing and Rescue Rangers to get limited comic series is remarkable in itself to me.

As successful as the Disney Afternoon shows were, they're still roughly a full generation removed from who Disney typically targets. Like it or not, and you could debate as to how successful they are at it, but they're a company that puts forth an effort to "live in the now".

I love Darkwing Duck to death, and he's got a big following, I'd love to see a new TV series with him. But if I'm a Disney bigwig weighing that between Frozen, the Avengers, Pirates of the Caribbean and Star Wars as far as what property I'm going to promote next, it's not a tough decision for me.

[Malcolm]

Disney seems to have a "newer is better" mentality these days.

[Burst]

Jan 22, 2016 16:22:01 GMT -5 Clash, Never a Meter Maid said:

Given Disney's many many divisions, and the sheer scale of many of its projects and acquisitions (to say nothing of Pixar, and the Marvel and Lucas subsets, ABC, and a number of successful Disney channel franchises over the years), the fact that someone wasn't busy enough that they couldn't arrange for Darkwing and Rescue Rangers to get limited comic series is remarkable in itself to me.

Yeah, that's really kind of the point that I don't get. Disney is such a huge company that even if the main face isn't one that's heavily reliant on nostalgia versus a lot of other companies, you'd think there'd be at least a side imprint or something to throw nostalgia fans a bone, or at least allow for projects like the comics to occur with bare supervision.

I wonder how much it would be for someone like Greg Weisman to buy back the rights to Gargoyles, but I have a feeling if he tried, they'd probably jack the price up.

[edgestar]

I still love the Rescue Rangers

[dav]

Aren't the Rescue Rangers getting a new movie soon?

[thirteen3]

Something something Michael Eisner maybe?

[ToyfareMark]

These shows aren't on anymore, and their target audience is grown up.

[RadcapRadsley]

Probably most people who grew up watching those shows are in their 30's which is kind of a tricky age to market things other then auto insurance and mortgages.

[Capt Lunatic]

Jan 22, 2016 17:57:54 GMT -5 ToyfareMark said:

These shows aren't on anymore, and their target audience is grown up.

Jan 22, 2016 18:10:29 GMT -5 RadcapRadsley said:

Probably most people who grew up watching those shows are in their 30's which is kind of a tricky age to market things other then auto insurance and mortgages.

Have to echo these comments as they are right on the money.

[Burst]

Yeah, that hasn't seemed to stop shows like Ninja Turtles and Transformers from continuing on. Or hell, even MLP. To very briefly use MLP as an example, that was definitely a franchise everyone considered dead and buried to all but the hardcore collectors until Friendship is Magic came along. Sure, Hasbro's definitely been much more willing to go to the nostalgia well than create original properties, but that's kind of their thing, really.

I guess my point was, saying "That was because the show was 20-30 years ago" is kind of a cop-out.

[Malcolm]

Jan 22, 2016 19:29:00 GMT -5 Burst said:

Yeah, that hasn't seemed to stop shows like Ninja Turtles and Transformers from continuing on. Or hell, even MLP. To very briefly use MLP as an example, that was definitely a franchise everyone considered dead and buried to all but the hardcore collectors until Friendship is Magic came along. Sure, Hasbro's definitely been much more willing to go to the nostalgia well than create original properties, but that's kind of their thing, really.

I guess my point was, saying "That was because the show was 20-30 years ago" is kind of a cop-out.

They're doing a Ducktales reboot so that's a start.

I wish Disney would reboot Disney Afternoon on the Disney Channel like CN did for Toonami.

[tms]

What's especially infuriating is how they released the majority of episodes -- 2/3rds or so -- of many series on DVD, then flaked out and didn't finish the job.

Look at Goof Troop. Around 2006, as Duck Tales and Rescue Rangers were getting 20-30 episodes released on DVD sets, Goof Troop received a "Volume 1" DVD with a whopping 3 episodes.

Nothing at all followed until about 2 years ago. Suddenly there was a new Volume 1 and a Volume 2 set, which collectively contained 2/3rds of the entire series. Why wasn't Volume 3 released, especially considering Volumes 1 and 2 were released simultaneously?

It's a huge pet peeve.

[Vampiro138]

...bring back Disney Lunch Box!! complete with shilling mother gooses rock n' rhyme every commercial break showing the 3 blind mice number.

only thing from that time i have on dvd are the awesome stop motion Paddington Bear they showed on lunch box, i dont think they ever released Spot or the Curious George stuff on dvd.

[ToyfareMark]

Jan 22, 2016 19:29:00 GMT -5 Burst said:

Yeah, that hasn't seemed to stop shows like Ninja Turtles and Transformers from continuing on. Or hell, even MLP. To very briefly use MLP as an example, that was definitely a franchise everyone considered dead and buried to all but the hardcore collectors until Friendship is Magic came along. Sure, Hasbro's definitely been much more willing to go to the nostalgia well than create original properties, but that's kind of their thing, really.

I guess my point was, saying "That was because the show was 20-30 years ago" is kind of a cop-out.

Yeah but those shows have seen constant reboots at different times to target new generations of viewers. I mean how many different Ninja Turtles series' have their been? They could do that for the Disney Afternoon shows, and I wouldn't any sort of problem with it.

[SHAKEMASTER TV9 is Don Knotts]

TMNT, Transformers and MLP are different from Disney Afternoon because they are cartoons whose purpose is to sell toys. The toys are as memorable as the shows and that's why they never stopped adapting it for the TV medium. My Little Pony wasn't in the US in the late 90s, but they were still produced for Europe. Disney Afternoon weren't created to sell toys, sure there were toys(I had a Thunderquack) and other merchandise, but they wasn't the point of the Ducktales, Rescue Rangers or Darkwing Duck. In fact, there weren't even that many. Darkwing Duck had only one wave of toys, the second was cancelled. These shows were supposed to sell the show, first-run syndication, to TV stations around the country to air. The more stations bought the Disney Afternoon package, the more money Disney made.

So Disney starts making toys, big deal. It's not that simple. Playmates (TMNT) and Hasbro (Transformers and MLP) have a model of how they've released there franchise waves that goes almost 30 years. Disney is basically starting from scratch on nostalgia franchises who have no history as merchandise sellers. The remastered Ducktales game and the reaction to it was probably what prompted Disney XD to revive the series, that there is a market out there for it, that the 30s might not be the only audience.

[A Platypus Rave]

I believe Darkwing Duck is getting a comic book series and Ducktales is getting rebooted.

[Red Impact]

Jan 22, 2016 22:23:22 GMT -5 SHAKEMASTER TV9 is Don Knotts said:

TMNT, Transformers and MLP are different from Disney Afternoon because they are cartoons whose purpose is to sell toys. The toys are as memorable as the shows and that's why they never stopped adapting it for the TV medium. My Little Pony wasn't in the US in the late 90s, but they were still produced for Europe. Disney Afternoon weren't created to sell toys, sure there were toys(I had a Thunderquack) and other merchandise, but they wasn't the point of the Ducktales, Rescue Rangers or Darkwing Duck. In fact, there weren't even that many. Darkwing Duck had only one wave of toys, the second was cancelled. These shows were supposed to sell the show, first-run syndication, to TV stations around the country to air. The more stations bought the Disney Afternoon package, the more money Disney made.

So Disney starts making toys, big deal. It's not that simple. Playmates (TMNT) and Hasbro (Transformers and MLP) have a model of how they've released there franchise waves that goes almost 30 years. Disney is basically starting from scratch on nostalgia franchises who have no history as merchandise sellers. The remastered Ducktales game and the reaction to it was probably what prompted Disney XD to revive the series, that there is a market out there for it, that the 30s might not be the only audience.

Yeah, I'll echo this.

Hasbro makes transformers shows every 3-4 years so they can sell Transformers toys, TMNT Toys, MLP Toys, GI Toys, so on and so forth. Disney made these hows seemingly with the main purpose being to sell Disney the brand, with those shows being more an afterthought. They didn't care that much if you bought a Goliath toy, they wanted you to buy The Lion King 2 on VHS and DVD, and they feel like they can do that just fine whether they use cheap live-action sitcoms or animated shows because the eyes are mostly what's important.

[RadcapRadsley]

Jan 22, 2016 19:29:00 GMT -5 Burst said:

Yeah, that hasn't seemed to stop shows like Ninja Turtles and Transformers from continuing on. Or hell, even MLP. To very briefly use MLP as an example, that was definitely a franchise everyone considered dead and buried to all but the hardcore collectors until Friendship is Magic came along. Sure, Hasbro's definitely been much more willing to go to the nostalgia well than create original properties, but that's kind of their thing, really.

I guess my point was, saying "That was because the show was 20-30 years ago" is kind of a cop-out.

Ninja Turtles though is something that been rebooted on tv many times over so there are probably 38 ,28 and 18 year olds who grew up with it in some forms. And Transformers is giant robots fighting I am sure something like that would have blown up even without an 80s series as source material. And Frienship is Magic is actually a kind of weird case in addition to the little kids who love MLP most Bronies were probably not alive or super young and have no memory of the original. It was hardly nostalgia that made it some kind of Phenomenom.


With all those Disney shows from the late 80-mid 90's there is a narrow age niche of people who grew up with each specific show. If they thought they could milk these things with popular reboots they would try and milk em for every dollar.

[The Spelunker!]

Jan 22, 2016 19:40:09 GMT -5 tms said:

What's especially infuriating is how they released the majority of episodes -- 2/3rds or so -- of many series on DVD, then flaked out and didn't finish the job.

Look at Goof Troop. Around 2006, as Duck Tales and Rescue Rangers were getting 20-30 episodes released on DVD sets, Goof Troop received a "Volume 1" DVD with a whopping 3 episodes.

Nothing at all followed until about 2 years ago. Suddenly there was a new Volume 1 and a Volume 2 set, which collectively contained 2/3rds of the entire series. Why wasn't Volume 3 released, especially considering Volumes 1 and 2 were released simultaneously?

It's a huge pet peeve.

A lot of companies don't understand DVD home release at all. When I worked at Walmart I used to have to spend at least 20 minutes a day explaining why a random show wasn't on DVD yet, or hadn't been published in 8 years to people all the time.