I grew up a Disney Afternoon kid. I grew up with afternoons filled Gummi Bears, Rescue Rangers, TaleSpin, Darkwing Duck, and, of course, DuckTales. I didn’t realize exactly how much real estate they took up in my childhood until a deluge of memories came to me while watching the recent DuckTales reboot (which recently ended).

I still remember getting crazy excited about the voice acting line up four years ago.

When the pilot came out, we bought the show on Amazon (being cable cutters), and I watched the episodes with one eye trained on the screen and one eye on my (at the time) young daughter, hopeful that she would enjoy it. And she did!

We both enjoyed the last four years together, watching a phenomenally well-crafted show. The pilot still stands as an achievement that delivered a lot of fun worldbuilding with some promises. While trying to rush Donald Duck (voiced by Tony Anselmo, the current official Donald Duck voice actor) off the houseboat he shares with them, the triplets, Huey (Danny Pudi), Dewey (Ben Schwartz), and Louie (Bobby Moynihan) casually toss around that the city of Duckburg shares a world with Cape Suzette (the city from TaleSpin), St. Canard (Darkwing Duck), and Spoonerville (Goof Troop).

And boy howdy, did the show deliver in building on an “expanded universe.” Over the course of three seasons, they had direct references either by “cameo” character or concepts from Darkwing Duck, TaleSpin, Rescue Rangers, Quack Pack, Goof Troop, Bonkers, Gummi Bears, The Three Caballeros, and even Gargoyles!

While the references made the show delightful to watch (and rewatch ad nauseum to catch even more references), it consistently built an interesting world that felt very cohesive with itself. It’s a vast world that only Scrooge McDuck (voiced by David Tenant) could possibly discover every inch of.

Each season did a phenomenal job of presenting its own major villain, crank the tension to a nail-biting level in the season finale, and have all the pieces come together… even more so in the series finale.

The final season is now on Disney+, and the daughter have already binged it over a weekend. We’ll probably do it again.

This was the promotional poster used to advertise the final season. I totally need a copy for my office.

What caught me off guard, especially while watching the final season, was how effortlessly the show built a rich, expanded world that had room for as many Disney properties as the creators could cram in, but it never felt crowded.

The show also had a ridiculous amounts of Easter eggs scattered throughout, most of which I probably haven’t caught. My favorite was when my video game music ear caught that the background music on a scene introducing something on the moon was indeed the Moon music from the NES DuckTales video game.

But you don’t need to catch those references to have an amazing time watching the show. My daughter has no way to catch any of them, but she still joyfully watched every episode. The new DuckTales is one of those phenomenal shows that has the remarkable trait of being layered entertainment: kids can enjoy it without catching the elements pitched to adults.

So if you’re in the need for three seasons of high-quality content you can watch with the whole family, DuckTales is a real treat filled with action, adventure, and great humor.