Disney+ is here, and like any highly scrutinized tech product it launched with its share of problems. From major outages, reportedly due to high demand and last-minute sign-ups, to the controversy over cropping out sight gags on The Simpsons, there are definitely bugs.
With such a wealth of content, it’s unreasonable to expect all of it to be well organized out of the gate. But it’s not unreasonable to expect it to get better over time.
One thing that stood out for fans of the old Disney Afternoon cartoons — DuckTales, Darkwing Duck, TaleSpin and the like — is a lack of those series’ original premieres, which usually spanned multiple episodes. However, a closer look finds that they are, in fact, there, at least in the case of DuckTales, TaleSpin, Chip ‘n Dale: Rescule Rangers and Darkwing Duck. The problem is they are not in their proper position at the beginning of the first season, but rather buried deeper in those seasons. Also, they tend to be listed by their original, individual episode titles — “Don’t Give Up the Ship,” rather than “Treasure of the Golden Suns” (Part One), in the case of the original DuckTales.
However, this is nothing new. When the original Disney Afternoon DuckTales first came to DVD, the “Golden Suns” storyline that comprised the pilot didn’t appear in the first volume of releases. Collectors had to wait for the second volume to get access to them. The same happened with Chip ‘n Dale, Darkwing Duck and TaleSpin on DVD — and they, too, bury their first episodes deeper in their Disney+ library.
Update: Except for two missing episodes, the original Ducktales seems to be all in a row now …
Whether or not this eventually gets fixed, there is a silver lining: Even though Disney+ cartoons are jumbled, the DuckTales collection there, at least, is more complete than it’s ever been anywhere else. That’s because the final “volume” of latter episodes never made it to DVD, unless you joined the special Disney Movie Club — but, they’re there now in Disney+ for all its many new subscribers to enjoy at last.
The new 2017 DuckTales also seems to be having order issues, according to its head producer — who proposes one possible course of action:
Still working to try to fix the #DuckTales 2017 air order on @disneyplus. Keep spreading the correct order and writing in to @DisneyPlusHelp to let them know that you'd rather not watch the Season 2 finale before the Season 2 premiere.
— Frank Angones (@FrankAngones) November 14, 2019
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