Over the years, Disney has introduced us to a plethora of duck characters. There’s Donald Duck and Uncle Scrooge, characters we’ve known since Disney’s classic days, to Ducky from Toy Story 4, who we just met earlier this year. Drake Mallard, otherwise known by his superhero alias Darkwing Duck, differentiates himself from the rest.
Darkwing Duck follows his escapades as he struggles to save the town of Saint Canard from a slew of villains, all the while engaging in typical cartoon slapstick and delivering several topical puns that can be appreciated over two decades after the show’s initial run. If you have Disney+, you can watch some of DarkwingDuck’s best episodes. Don’t know which ones are the best? That’s what we’re here for.
“Dry Hard” (8.0)
Remember that short-lived, disturbing trend of people going into grocery stores and licking the inside of entire tubs of ice cream or opening drinks and taking a sip before putting them back on the shelves? This episode took it one step further. When someone began to tamper with store beverages during a heatwave, it’s up to Darkwing Duck to put a stop to this supervillain beverage soiler, but after knocking the culprit into a pit of poisoned water, he actually creates “The Liquidator”, an enemy who hardens all of the city’s water. Basically, he’s like Hydro-Man, one of Spiderman’s old enemies.
This episode had it all (singing lobster women included), and viewers watching now will most likely be able to appreciate the fact that our water isn’t yet too hard to drink, although at the rate we’re going, the reality that The Liquidator creates isn’t too far from the one we’re creating for ourselves.
“Night of the Living Spud” (8.0)
When the lonely plant scientist Dr. Bushroot attempts to grow his own wife, he ended up creating a terrifying potato monster that’s been haunting our nightmares for years now. When this potato monster begins to turn ducks into its potato-loving zombies, Darkwing Duck must not only prove that he isn’t the culprit himself, but must also put a stop to the real potato vampire.
Best believe that this episode is filled with way too many potato puns.
“Twin Beaks” (8.0)
Darkwing Duck was known for its parody, often satirizing popular shows and movies of the ’80s and early ’90s. This episode chose to make fun of the show Twin Peaks (which is just as much of a hit then as it was now). After Honker’s parents go missing, Darkwing Duck and the others find themselves traveling to the town of Twin Beaks, where an evil race of space cabbages plans to take over the Earth. Thankfully, Dr. Bushroot’s army of plants and a race of extraterrestrial space cows prove to be the perfect antithesis to these vile vegetables.
Our fascination with sentient plants even during the early ’90s explains just why Plants vs Zombies has garnered so much popularity well into the new millennium.
“Dead Duck” (8.1)
To be a children’s show, Darkwing Duck often got pretty… dark! In “Dead Duck”, Drake Mallard dies after crashing into a brick wall without a helmet during a high-speed chase. Just as we’d expect, Darkwing tries to find a way to return to the living, but with the Grim Reaper on his trail, coming back to life becomes more of a challenge than it already was.
We like to think the purpose of this episode was to start a philosophical dialogue around mortality, but part of us also says that it was merely a ploy to scare children into actually wearing their helmets for a change.
“Life, the Negaverse and Everything” (8.1)
After stumbling upon the Fearsome Five, a team of Darkwing Duck’s most fearsome villains led by Darkwing Duck’s evil counterpart from an alternate reality, Negaduck, Darkwing is sent to the Negaverse, where he struggles to make it back to his world where things make sense.
We get to see opposites of some of our favorite characters, like a cool version of Launchpad, an angelic version of his daughter Gosalyn, and a version of Honker just a few steps short of becoming a mini-Hitler. When Darkwing Duck befriends the Negaverse’s version of the Fearsome Five known as the Friendly Four, his only option is to work together with amiable versions of his most prominent foes to defeat Negaduck and return home.
“It’s a Wonderful Leaf” (8.1)
It seems like Dr. Bushroot appears pretty frequently in some of the top-rated Darkwing Duck episodes, so when you combine Dr. Bushroot and Christmas, it’s no surprise that this episode would be one of the best in the series.
After a terrible Christmas shopping experience, Dr. Bushroot takes control of the city’s Christmas trees in order to spread some holiday malice. It’s up to Darkwing Duck to foil Dr. Bushroot’s plot and bring some holiday cheer back to the people of Saint Canard. If only more people used fake Christmas trees, Dr. Bushroot’s plan would’ve been doomed from the start.
“Jail Bird” (8.1)
For a villain in such a silly kid’s show, Negaduck has surprisingly come close to nearly killing Darkwing Duck several times. After the Fearsome Five steal the Mystic Eye of Quackzalcoatl, a gem capable of stealing others’ abilities, Negaduck combines his brains with the brawns of his often inept comrades to become an unstoppable force after gaining the abilities of the other Fearsome Five members. In cooperating with the Fearsome Five, Darkwing Duck must exploit the weaknesses in their abilities to defeat Negaduck.
Somehow, this episode feels pretty similar to “Life, the Negaverse and Everything”, but since these two have the same rating on IMDb, we’ll let you decide which one is better.
“Steerminator” (8.1)
As the only episode in this list that doesn’t feature a member of the Fearsome Five, this episode was a well-needed change in scenery. “Steerminator” is loosely based off of the popular sci-fi movie The Terminator.
Taurus Bulba, one of Darkwing’s enemies believed to have perished in an earlier episode, is resurrected as a cyborg. After kidnapping Gosalyn in order to enact his plan of revenge against Darkwing, it’s up to our favorite duck hero to save his daughter. Did we mention that Duckwing is in a wheelchair the entire episode? Yeah. We forgot just how awesome he was too.
“Just Us Justice Ducks: Part 2” (8.2)
“Just Us Justice Ducks” was such a significant episode that it took two parts for the story to come to a successful conclusion. After the Fearsome Five takes over the city of Saint Canard, the Justice Ducks, a team consisting of Darkwing Duck, the mecha-suit wearing Gizmoduck, Morgana the duck sorceress, Stegmutt the stegosaurus clutz, and Neptunia the mutated humanoid fish, must come together to put a stop to the Fearsome Five. We don’t have to tell you who ended up winning one of the biggest cartoon slapstick battles in history.
This episode has it all, from fights that break into clouds of opaque smoke, anvils aplenty, and best of all, evil villains being turned into pudding!
“Just Us Justice Ducks: Part 1” (8.3)
In an awkward series of events, the first part of this episode is rated higher than the second (albeit just 0.1 points), which means that this entry will feel slightly out of place given that we practically spoiled this episode in the last entry!
“Just Us Justice Ducks: Part 1” marks the formation of the Fearsome Five, who force Darkwing Duck into a life-threatening predicament as the credits began to roll, which was unexpected of a Disney cartoon at the time. After destroying the National Guard, the Fearsome Five prove just how strong they are, and seeing Darkwing’s skills put to the test against some of his enemies that gave him the biggest headaches throughout the first season is perhaps the main reason for this episode’s superb rating. It was pretty sad to see Darkwing undergo loss after loss, but a guy that self-absorbed deserved to be brought down a few notches.
