Warning: The following contains SPOILERS for the DuckTales season 3 episode "Let's Get Dangerous."
With "Let's Get Dangerous," DuckTales has fully introduced Darkwing Duck into the reality of the 2017 reboot along with a massive number of Easter eggs. While most of these pay homage to the original Darkwing Duck series and its two-part pilot episode, there are also a number of nods to the original DuckTales and the superheroes Darkwing Duck most often parodied.
The revamped Darkwing Duck first appeared in the DuckTales season 1 episode "Beware the B.U.D.D.Y. System!" which established that Darkwing Duck was a fictional television superhero and that Scrooge McDuck's pilot, Launchpad McQuack, was a huge fan of the show. The season 2 episode "The Duck Knight Returns!" found Scrooge producing a new, dark revamp of the old show, starring an actor named Drake Mallard, who was also a huge fan of the original Darkwing. The film was cancelled after the original Darkwing actor, Jim Starling, went crazy and tried to destroy McDuck Studios after learning his most famous role had been recast. The fight with Starling inspired Drake Mallard, who decided to become Darkwing Duck in earnest, helping defend Earth during an alien invasion in DuckTales' season 2 finale.
"Let's Get Dangerous" reveals how far Drake has progressed in establishing himself as the foremost (and so far only) costumed hero in Duckburg's sister city of St. Canard. It also establishes his partnerships with Launchpad McQuack and Gosalyn Waddlemeyer, a spirited tomboy in need of a hero's help. Here's a rundown of every Easter egg hidden in the DuckTales Darkwing Duck special.
Taurus Bulba
"Let's Get Dangerous" and the original Darkwing Duck pilot, "Darkly Dawns The Duck," share the same chief villain: Taurus Bulba. The original Bulba was a legendary crime-boss, comparable to Marvel Comics' Kingpin, Wilson Fisk, who continued to run his criminal empire from his prison cell. In the DuckTales reboot reality, Bulba was a famous scientist who oversaw Scrooge McDuck's scientific research facility in St. Canard. Bulba was also the first person in St. Canard to publicly recognize Darkwing for his work protecting the city, making the fame-minded vigilante reluctant to investigate Bulba's corruption at first.
The Audubon Bay Bridge
As in the original series, Darkwing operates out of Darkwing Tower; one of the four support towers holding up the Audubon Bay Bridge. "Let's Get Dangerous" confirms that St. Canard is located on the other side of Audubon Bay across from Duckburg, with the two cities being connected by the Audubon Bay Bridge. Both the bridge and bay are named after John James Audubon: a 19th century naturalist famed for his studies of American birds.
The Ratcatcher
In the original Darkwing Duck series, Darkwing patrolled St. Canard on a custom motorcycle he dubbed the Ratcatcher. The reboot version of Darkwing also has a custom motorcycle, but he doesn't refer to it by a special name. Both motorcycles are sculpted to be the same shape as Darkwing's distinctive head; a parody of the many Batman vehicles designed to resemble his Bat-Symbol.
Darkwing Tower
Darkwing Tower is clearly modeled on Batman's Bat-Cave. At one point we see that Drake Mallard has special racks holding variant costumes, including a cold-weather super-suit and a SCUBA cape and cowl for underwater crime-fighting. There's also a display case holding a poster for the cancelled Darkwing Duck movie from the DuckTales season 2 episode "The Duck Knight Returns!" and the Darkwing Duck lunchbox Drake Mallard had as a kid.
Darkwing Duck's Gear (& Gizmoduck)
The original Darkwing Duck series never explained just how Drake Mallard was able to afford the extravagant lifestyle of a full-time superhero beyond one mention of him being on the payroll of the spy organization SHUSH. "Let's Get Dangerous" reveals that all of Darkwing's gear was built by his friend Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera. Ironically, Fenton is also the superhero Gizmoduck, but Drake is totally ignorant of that fact, and (as in the original cartoon) Darkwing Duck has a deep-seated loathing of Gizmoduck, who gets far more attention and good press than he does.
WANDA
Darkwing Tower also has its own answer to the Bat-Computer: an artificial intelligence named WANDA who scans the city for crime and helps Darkwing with analyzing whatever clues he needs help interpreting. Here, Darkwing seems to be parodying Iron Man and his digital assistants JARVIS and FRIDAY, though WANDA is a good deal more sarcastic thank Tony Stark's AI friends. WANDA is voiced by Jameela Jamil, who is most famous for playing Tahani Al-Jamil on The Good Place. However, she also voices the character of Gandra Dee, a scientist and FOWL agent whom Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera developed a crush on before learning of her treacherous nature. This may not be a coincidence, given who created WANDA.
The Ramrod
The MacGuffin at the center of the original Darkwing Duck pilot was a device called the Waddlemeyer Ramrod: a high-tech anti-gravity ray that Taurus Bulb wanted to weaponize so that he could steal whole buildings or levitate all the valuables out of a bank. The MacGuffin of "Let's Get Dangerous" is also called the Ramrod, but it's an entirely different kind of dangerous device. Built at Scrooge McDuck's research lab in St. Canard, Taurus Bulba claimed the Ramrod could create virtually anything out of nothing. In truth, the Ramrod had the power to open portals between dimensions, pulling people or things from one reality into the world of DuckTales or banishing people and objects from its reality into another world.
Zan Owlson's New Job
Season 2 of DuckTales introduced Zan Owlson; a brilliant businesswoman who took over Glomgold Industries after Flintheart Glomgold mysteriously disappeared during the events of the season 1 finale. Owlson remained with the company through most of season 2, attempting to balance out Glomgold's obsession with destroying Scrooge McDuck. She briefly wound up working for Louie Duck after he won control of Glomgold Industries as part of a scam, but ultimately quit to seek work outside the private sector. "Let's Get Dangerous" revealed that Owlson became Mayor of St. Canard, as she presented Darkwing Duck with the key to the city after Taurus Bulba hyped Darkwing's defense of his lab.
Dr. Thaddeus Waddlemeyer
The grandfather of Gosalyn Waddlemeyer, Dr. Thaddeus Waddlemeyer was another employee of Scrooge McDuck and, according to Taurus Bulba, his best friend. There is photographic evidence this was true at one time, as Darkwing discovered a photo of Dr. Waddlemeyer with Bulba and Gosalyn in happier days while searching Bulba's files. In the original Darkwing Duck pilot, Bulba sought Gosalyn after apparently killing Dr. Waddlemeyer, thinking the girl knew the arming code for the Ramrod. In the reboot, Gosalyn told Darkwing that her grandfather disappeared after going to confront Bulba over the instability of the Ramrod and her fears that Bulba used the Ramrod to send her grandfather into another dimension to hide the dangers of their pet project. There's another nod to the classic series in the photo, as Gosalyn is wearing the purple sports jersey that was her trademark garment in the original Darkwing Duck cartoons.
Quiverwing Quack
One flashback scene shows that Gosalyn is something of an inventor herself, building a small crossbow out of odds and ends in her grandfather's lab while he was working. She put this weapon to use throughout "Let's Get Dangerous," showing that she's also a fantastic archer. This could be foreshadowing Gosalyn adopting a Green Arrow or Huntress inspired vigilante identity of her own. There is a precedent for this, as Gosalyn adopted a number of superhero identities in the original Darkwing Duck series, including an archery-themed hero called Quiverwing Quack.
Solego's Circuit
Recognizing the symbol on the key used to start the Ramrod, Huey Duck eventually identified it as a design called Solego's Circuit, which is detailed as one of the Missing Mysteries of Isabella Finch. According to Huey, Solego was an infamous madman who theorized that every work of fiction described an alternate universe and that it was possible to open doorways between those dimensions. While Solego never appeared in the original Darkwing Duck cartoon, he was the chief villain of a crossover comic published in Disney Adventures Magazine, teaming the heroes of DuckTales, Darkwing Duck, Chip N' Dale Rescue Rangers, TaleSpin and Goof Troop in a story spanning hundreds of years. This Solego was an immortal sorcerer, whom Darkwing Duck recaptured after Solego was freed from his eternal prison.
The Fearsome Four
When Scrooge and his nephews discovered the truth behind the Ramrod, Bubla summoned some villainous help from a dimension where the villains of the old Darkwing Duck show in DuckTales' reality were quite real. Enter the Fearsome Four: mad toymaker Quakerjack, the electric-powered Megavolt, the fluid felon Liquidator and the plant-controlling Bushroot. All four of these villains were numbered among Darkwing's greatest and most frequent adversaries in the original Darkwing Duck series, though they were usually led into battle by Darkwing's evil twin Negaduck and were collectively known as the Fearsome Five.
The Classic Darkwing Duck Title Card
The Ramrod interface in "Let's Get Dangerous" had a screen which identified the various realities to which it could open portals. The screen also allowed the Ramrod's operator to observe those other dimensions once a portal had been opened. The image that comes up when Taurus Bulba summons the Fearsome Four will be instantly recognizable to fans of the original Darkwing Duck as a mock-up of the title card at the end of the show's opening theme song.
The Original Darkwing Duck Theme Song
Speaking of the original Darkwing Duck theme song, it is sung at two different points in "Let's Get Dangerous." Dewey Duck sang the opening bars as he was introducing "that daring duck of mystery, that champion of right," after Darkwing agreed to be interviewed for Dewey's talk show/podcast, Dewey Dew-Night. Later in the episode, as Darkwing, Launchpad and Gosalyn were investigating an abandoned toy factory they suspected Quackerjack was using as a hideout, Launchpad and Darkwing nerded out and began singing the theme song together as they recalled how many episodes of the old Darkwing Duck show showed Darkwing sneaking into an old factory.
Darkwing Duck's Multiple Catch-Phrases
Superheroes are famed for having memorable catch-phrases and Darkwing Duck is no exception. In fact, he has several of them. As the Fearsome Four rampaged around St. Canard, the police found themselves overwhelmed and reinforcements from Duckburg were unable to cross the Audubon Bay Bridge thanks to Bushroot's plants. This led Mayor Owlson to reach out to Darkwing Duck in a televised address, saying "if I understand one of Darkwing Duck's multiple catch-phrases correctly, 'when there's trouble, you call DW.'" This is one of Darkwing's catch-phrases in the original Darkwing Duck cartoon, second only to "Let's get dangerous," which is the title of this episode. Gosalyn also utters her catch-phrase from the classic series early on in the episode, describing Darkwing Tower as "keen gear."
A Bonkers Cameo
As the heroes appraised the damage dealt to St. Canard, they observed security camera footage of the Fearsome Four in action. Each video showed the same hapless police officer falling prey to the villains' attempts to spread chaos around the city. Fans of the classic Disney Afternoon line-up will recognize this unfortunate cop as Bonkers D. Bobcat: the star of the short-lived series Bonkers, which centered around a once-popular cartoon star who sought employment in the Toon Division of the Hollywood Police Department.
Bulba V. FOWL: Dawn Of Injustice
In the second half of the episode, Bulba was confronted by Bradford Buzzard, one of the leaders of FOWL, and revealed to be a FOWL agent who was meant to be studying Solego's Circuit in order to stop it from being used. Bulba had other plans, however, declaring that he was starting a new company called Bulba Supervillain Solutions that would operate openly in defiance of FOWL's secrecy. In the original Darkwing Duck series, FOWL and Bulba had a similar conflict, with the sinister organization transforming Bulba into a nearly invincible cyborg they dubbed the Steerminator. Bulba was far from grateful, however, and destroyed the FOWL facility which resurrected him, before going to seek revenge on Darkwing Duck alone.
Mr. Banana Brain
As they were exploring Quackerjack's hideout, Gosalyn discovered a doll of man with a banana for a head. She then offered it to Darkwing, sarcastically saying she didn't want to chance him slipping on it. Fans of the original Darkwing Duck will recognize the doll as Mr. Banana Brain: Quackerjack's best-friend and sidekick, whom Quackerjack talked to as if he were a real person, like the Batman villain Ventriloquist and his alter ego, Scarface.
"A Sea Monster Ate My Ice Cream!"
While Bradford Buzzard and Huey, Dewey and Louie were imprisoned inside Bulba's lab, there was no sign of Scrooge as the Fearsome Four took over St. Canard. Eventually Scrooge's fate was revealed by the Ramrod monitor, which showed Scrooge in another dimension in the middle of a tantrum, as he repeatedly shouted the phrase "A sea monster ate my ice cream!" This is a reference to a scene from the original DuckTales episode "A Whale of a Bad Time," which became an infamous meme due to the utter randomness of the phrase and the sheer insanity of the usually cool-headed Scrooge losing control over something so ludicrous. (To add some context, the ice cream ship the sea monster ate was transporting half of Scrooge's fortune incognito, rather than ice cream.)
Jambalaya Jake and The Bugmaster
When Darkwing was captured by the Fearsome Four, Launchpad had a surprisingly brilliant idea for how to rescue him. Drawing upon his encyclopedic knowledge of the old Darkwing Duck show in his reality, Launchpad disguised himself and Gosalyn as C-list supervillains Jambalaya Jake and The Bugmaster and convinced Quackerjack that they had "come to help take out our nemesis," gaining them entry into Bulba's lab. In the original Darkwing Duck series, the Cajun stereotype Jambalaya Jake was the villain of the two least popular Darkwing Duck episodes ever. Bugmaster was the alter ego of Bianca Beakley, a reporter who developed her own insect-themed supervillain identity as a ratings stunt after her week-long profile of Darkwing Duck failed to attract any viewers, due to all of St. Canard's supervillains being out of town attending a supervillain convention in Florida that week.
Launchpad Borrows A Classic Spider-Man Line
As Launchpad and Gosalyn got ready to go into action, Gosalyn suddenly froze up, saying she couldn't do this because real life wasn't like some silly superhero show. Surprisingly, the usually out-to-lunch Launchpad agreed, saying that Darkwing knew that better than anyone, but he still tried to do what he could, despite the odds, and got back up whenever he was knocked down. "Anyone can do the right thing when it's easy," Launchpad advised, "But it's what you do when things are hard that makes you a hero." While it's not quite the "With great power..." speech Spider-Man is most famous for, it's a neat paraphrase of a line from Amazing Spider-Man #33, which is widely considered to be one of the defining moments of the character from the original Amazing Spider-Man run by creators Steve Ditko and Stan Lee.
"Well, Technically Bushroot Isn't Really A Villain, Per Se..."
When Launchpad and a freed Darkwing set off to face the Fearsome Four, Gosalyn asked how an actor and a pilot could possibly stand up to four supervillains with actual superpowers. In unison, both heroes replied that Bushroot wasn't really a villain, strictly speaking. This technicality was a nod to the original series, where Bushroot was a mild-mannered botanist who transformed himself into a plant/duck hybrid in order to test his theories that animals could develop the ability to photosynthesize, solving world hunger. Describing himself as "really not sinister, just misunderstood," Bushroot considered himself a pacifist and most of his "crimes" were committed to protect nature from harm. In this, he could be compared to the DC Comics anti-heroes Swamp Thing and Poison Ivy. Unfortunately, despite whatever good intentions Bushroot had, he was also weak-willed and easily pressured into joining the Fearsome Four, though he occasionally worked with Darkwing Duck to fight more dangerous threats.
The fight which followed showcased Darkwing and Launchpad's knowledge of their enemies, being well-familiar with the Fearsome Four's tactics after years of watching the old Darkwing Duck show. As they made use of time-honored superhero fighting techniques (like throwing the electricity-empowered Megavolt into the water-based Liquidator to short-out both villains) the two called out episode numbers and titles, discussing what episodes the battle reminded them of as they fought. The two episodes mentioned, episode 3, "Beauty and the Beet" and episode 21, "Just Us Justice Ducks," correspond perfectly with the actual episode titles and numbers of the original Darkwing Duck series, save that episode 21's full and proper title was "Just Us Justice Ducks: Part 2."
The Fluppy Dogs
As Gosalyn used the Ramrod scanner to try and find the world Taurus Bulba had sent her grandfather to, she came across a listing for a world apparently populated by talking dogs with pastel-colored fur. These creatures are Fluppies and they were the stars of a Disney animated special called Fluppy Dogs, which aired on ABC on Thanksgiving 1986. Fluppy Dogs was created as a tie-in to the plush toy line of the same name and centered upon the Fluppies, who traveled between dimensions and came to Earth using a crystal key. While not one of the worst animated movies ever made by Disney, the special was a ratings flop and passed over for development into an animated series.
A FOWL Brand
As Bradford Buzzard made his escape with Black Heron, he expressed his annoyance that she came to extract him in a helicopter with a FOWL logo painted on the side, again insisting that their organization was not meant to act like a bunch of cartoon supervillains. While this neatly exposed the sinister nature of the board of directors of McDuck Enterprises, it was also a fun acknowledgement of how branding seems to be oddly important to covert organizations in most superhero series. For instance, many criticized Agents of SHIELD for how the allegedly covert organization SHIELD seemed to have an endless supply of vehicles covered with the SHIELD logo.
Gizmoduck "Saves The Day"
Gizmoduck spent most of the second-half of the special trying (and failing) to saw through the plant tendrils Bushroot used to block the bridge into St. Canard. Like the heads of the hydra, whenever one was cut down, two more grew to replace it. He finally succeeded after Darkwing and his allies banished the Fearsome Four to another dimension, breaking Bushroot's control of the plants. This led the police in attendance to declare that Gizmoduck had just saved St. Canard, continuing the running gag from the original Darkwing Duck series that Darkwing couldn't get any respect in his own town and that the only time he was ever acknowledged by the police was when he had been framed for a crime by a supervillain.
Launchpad McQuack: Master Of Time Management
For years fans of DuckTales and Darkwing Duck wondered how Launchpad McQuack was able to balance his jobs as both Scrooge McDuck's personal pilot and Darkwing Duck's sidekick, and if DuckTales and Darkwing Duck were set in the same reality. Darkwing Duck creator Tad Stones contended that the shows were set in different realities, despite characters from DuckTales appearing in Darkwing Duck and the 2010 Darkwing Duck comic published by Boom! Studios suggesting both shows shared a continuity. "Let's Get Dangerous" simplified this considerably, with Launchpad deciding that he can work for Scrooge during the day, come to St. Canard to help Darkwing at night and sleep on the drives between. While this may seem inadvisable, it could be argued that Launchpad can't possibly be a worse driver asleep than he is awake and has generally been shown to be a fantastic pilot in every regard — except landing.