DuckTales the Movie: Treasure of the Lost Lamp is an animated feature film based on the animated series DuckTales. It was released by The Walt Disney Company in 1990. Although it was a theatrically released animated film, it is not part of the Walt Disney Animated Classics as it was produced by DisneyToon Studios.
Premise
In this film, Scrooge McDuck, Huey, Dewey, and Louie, Webby Vanderquack and Launchpad McQuack search for the treasure of Collie Baba and his forty thieves. They find a magic lamp and a genie (voiced by Rip Taylor) that can grant them all kinds of wishes. Unfortunately, Merlock the Magician (voiced by Christopher Lloyd) wants that lamp, and he and his sidekick, Dijon the Thief, would do anything to get their hands on it.
It is interesting to note that a preceding episode of DuckTales, Master of the Djinni, featured a race to collect a magic lamp. However, the lamp and genie featured in the episode appear to have no connection to the one in this movie.
Production
Animator Larry Ruppel, shared his experience during the film's production: "I was the sole American working at the Paris studio during this production, the other creative artists hailing mostly from France, Denmark, Australia and Italy. I'd like to add that this little movie ended up being quite important because of the many notable animation professionals who got their start on this project. Besides myself (I've animated numerous Disney projects, also Classic Warner Brothers shorts), there are, among others, Dreamworks animators Sylvain Deboissy and Nicholas Marlet, French animation director Pierre Lyphoudt, and ILM's James Baker and Daniel Jeannette. For all the Europeans working on this Disney feature, it was a dream come true, and because most of us were working on a feature for the first time in our lives, in a way it was our Snow White. As the only American on staff, there were many occasions when I had to explain to supervisors or other animators the exact meaning of some American slang phrases used in the dialogue of the script."
Voice cast
Release
The film was not a financial success theatrically, having to face competition from other larger-scale summer family releases like Problem Child (which is probably what caused the proposed Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers film to be shelved and the Goof Troop film A Goofy Movie to not bear the Goof Troop name or have any similarities to Goof Troop) and caused all planned DuckTales films to be shelved as well (there were plans for there to be several DuckTales movies following this film). Critics in the USA generally considered the film an Indiana Jones rip-off and a betrayal to Carl Barks's Uncle Scrooge comic books which DuckTales was based on.[citation needed] Overseas, however, critics were generally kinder to the film.[citation needed] The film retains a fan following today.[citation needed] The more successful animated film, Aladdin, released by Disney almost two years later also shares many elements with this film.
On January 16, 2006, the region 1 DVD of DuckTales the Movie was released as an exclusive to the Disney Movie Club and the Disney Movie Rewards Program. Disney has not announced any plans for a region 1 wide release of the DVD yet. However, Disney has given the DVD wide release in Europe and other parts of the world. The DVD release is in widescreen presentation in region 1 and other countries.
Disney MovieToons label
The short-lived MovieToon label, which was introduced with the DuckTales movie, was intended as being specifically for producing new movies for old established Disney characters. However, in the end they only produced one more major movie which became A Goofy Movie, though a feature-length Mickey Mouse movie was in the works for a while before the label was altogether dropped. Other films made by the television animation division, such as Doug's 1st Movie were released without the MovieToons label.
When the Walt Disney Television Animation unit basically became the only place where "toon" (hand-drawn) animation was being done at Disney, the unit took on the name. While many of the executives of the MovieToon division crossed over from MovieToon to DisneyToon unit (the theatrical unit of the TV animation division), the two names are now not actually linked in anything other than the "Toon" word.
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