DuckTales: Volume 3 follows the same patterning as the previous two. The three-disc set contains 24 episodes. The first and most of the second disc contain stand-alone episodes that share no real relationship to each other beyond characters. Each episode usually involves Scrooge and his nephews going on an adventure to find some treasure or one of the show's reoccurring villains, the Beagle Boys or Magica DeSpell, hatching a hair-brained scheme to steal from Scrooge. The featured episodes aren't as good as the first two volumes, though a bad episode of DuckTales is like a bad steak at a five-star restaurant, it is still better than 90% of the steaks at other restaurants. Still, the set does include a few gems, such as "Duck to the Future," where Magica succeeds in stealing Scrooge's lucky dime and sends him into the future. Other characters, like Launchpad and Gyro, appear and usually have a hand in causing more problems for Scrooge. There's even a rare appearance by none other than Donald Duck.
The absolute best reason to pick up the set are the two five-part mini-series which, if memory serves me correctly, were both shown as primetime movies during the show's run. The first, "Super DuckTales," marks the first appearance of one my personal favorites, GizmoDuck. Scrooge hires accountant Fenton Crackshell to keep track of his money only to have Fenton duped by the Beagle Boys. In an effort to make things right, Fenton borrows a robot suit from Gyro and becomes GizmoDuck.
The second mini-series is "Time is Money" and introduces another of the series' recurring characters, Bubba the Cave Duck. Scrooge's rival, Flintheart Glomgold, tricks Scrooge into buying a worthless island. However, the joke is on Glomgold when Scrooge discovers a diamond mine on the island. Not one to let Scrooge get ahead, Glomgold hires the Beagle Boys to sabotage the island. Scrooge learns of the plan and uses Gyro's time-machine, the Millennium Shortcut, to go back three days in time. As with all of Gyro's experiments, the Shortcut takes Scrooge back to 1,000,000 B.C. where he meets Bubba, who stows away on Scrooge's return trip, leading to a fish... errr, duck out of water tale.
If you bought the first two volumes, or are in the market for a quality kid's DVD, you should buy DuckTales: Volume 3. This is especially true if you have kids, considering the low-quality of most current cartoons not involving Batman or the Justice League. Better yet, the shows are so entertaining that you might find yourself asking to watch just one more episode.
