17 interesting facts about the cult animated series “Black Cloak” that many did not know (19 photos + 2 videos)

As a child, such animated series as “DuckTales”, “Chip 'n' Dale Rescue Rangers”, “Gummi Bears” and other Disney projects were dearly loved by us children of the 90s. The main problem was that these same animated series were shown only once a week on Sundays.





Black Cloak - splash screen

1. The author of the animated series "Black Cape" is Disney artist, producer and screenwriter Ted Stones. The idea to create an animated series about a superhero duck came to his mind thanks to two episodes of the animated series "DuckTales", namely "Agent Two Zero" and "The Masked Drake". In the first of them, Zigzag temporarily became an agent of the DRU, and in the other, Scrooge himself was a masked hero.



That is why it was decided to make a superhero movie in the DuckTales universe.

Ted Stones himself said that he based his character on such superheroes as Batman, the Green Hornet, the Shadow and of course James Bond. But if the author initially wanted to make his character a more serious hero, then he nevertheless decided to go towards humor, showing how funny and sometimes clumsy this character can be.

2. But despite the fact that the concept of the character was already ready, Ted Stones could not find a suitable name for him. So he decided to entrust this matter to his employees, promising $500 to the one who comes up with the most suitable name for the duck superhero.





In the end, Stones liked the "Darkwing" version the most, which reminded him of the nickname of one of Batman's friends - "Nightwing". That's why he decided to take this name for his hero, adding the word Duck at the end to indicate that it was a duck. Actually, if we translate the combination Darkwing Duck literally, we get “Dark-winged duck”. But in fact, our localizers did their best by choosing the nickname “Black Cloak.”

In ordinary life, the Black Cloak’s name is Quack Lapchaty, or rather Drake Mallard, which translates as Drake Mallard.



3. The famous voice actor Jim Cummings was responsible for the voice acting of the main character in the original, who gave his voice to a huge number of cartoon characters, and not only Disney ones.

So, for example, such characters as Scar ("The Lion King"), Triton ("The Little Mermaid"), Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Shredder from "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles", Catdog, Kaa ("The Jungle Book"), etc. speak in his voice. d.



Jim is a master of improvisation, so he made up many of the phrases in "Black Cape" on the fly. Even the main character's opening speech ("I am the horror that flies on the wings of the night..."), which changed from episode to episode, was always pure improvisation by the actor. Even in the script it was written something like, “It doesn’t matter what is written here. Jim will still come up with something funny.”

4. It is not clear why, but the creators made the numbering of the episodes, which does not correspond to the chronology. So, for example, already in the 20th episode (“Ducks of Justice”) we are shown a group of villains (Megavolt, Bushroot, Quaga and Liquigad) led by Antiplasch. But at the same time, Antiplasch and Likvigad themselves were not shown to us before.



The same goes for the superhero league, which includes Neptunia, Stigmata and Supercrack.

5. Since the series was created within the framework of the DuckTales universe, it is not surprising that there are many references to this project. The most important reference is the character Zigzag, who, although he looks a little different, is still the same Zigzag.



Other references include Gizmoduck the Duckbot (Super Quack), a mention of Duckburg, and cameo appearances by some of the DuckTales villains.

Because of this, there has been a lot of debate among fans about whether Black Cape is a spin-off of DuckTales or not. The fact is that both animated series play on different time periods, but the same characters are found here, such as Zigzag, Gizmo the Duckrobot (Super Quack), Magica and one of the Gavs brothers.



Ted Stones himself said that Black Cloak is an independent project, and the actions of these animated series take place in different universes.

6. In 1992 and 1993, the animated series "Black Cape" was nominated for an Emmy Award in the category "Best Animated Program." But, unfortunately, the cartoon never became a laureate of this award.

In 1992, this prize was taken by the animated series "Rugrats", and in 1993 - by "Tiny toon adventures".

7. The first season of the animated series included 65 episodes, like other animated series. At the time, this was the minimum broadcast requirement, as the series had to be broadcast for 13 weeks, including daily weekday broadcasts.



After that, two more seasons were filmed, although each of them included only 13 episodes.

8. Director of the SHUSHU organization Edgar Kluver (In the original Gander Hooter) - this is a reference to the name of the first director of the FBI - John Edgar Hoover.

According to the initial sketches, Kluver looked different and always walked with his eyes closed, but in the end the creators decided that the eyes of the director of SHUSHU would be open.



However, in the "Heavy Mental" series, Kluver constantly walks with his eyes closed. The thing is that the animation of this series was carried out by the Australian division of Disney. Apparently, they received other sketches, which is why they depicted Klüver with his eyes closed.

By the way, in the episode "Duck Two Zero" of the animated series "DuckTales", which became the starting point for the creation of "Black Cape", the director of the DRU (Duckburg Intelligence Agency) is named J. Gander Hoover, which is again a reference to the first director of the FBI.



9. Despite the fact that the animated series “Black Cloak” was released in 1991-1992, and despite the fact that in the same 1991 Disney animated series began to be broadcast, this project appeared on our television screens only in 1993.

10. As in the case of "DuckTales", the names of many episodes are references to famous films and other works, but in our localization this was missed.

For example, the “Beauty and Beet” series refers us to the cartoon “Beauty and the Beast”, and the “The Incredible Bulk” series refers us to “The Incredible Hulk”.



11. In general, the localization of names for dubbing deserves a separate article, but still I will give a couple of examples of character names that have lost their meaning due to dubbing. There are quite a few such omissions, so I will give just a couple of examples:

One of the villains is called Taras Bulba, but here we are not talking about a well-known literary hero. The fact is that in the original his name is Taurus Bullba. Translated from English, Taurus means Taurus, and Bull means Bull.



The other villain is called Bushroot. Actually, in the original it is also “Bushroot”, but there is one nuance. Translated from English, Bush is a bush, and Root is a root.



The water dog in our translation is called Liquigad, although in the original his name is “Liquidator”. Two words are played on here, namely Liquidator, which translates as (surprise) “Liquidator”, and also the word “Liquid”, which translates as “Liquid”.



But I really liked that Zigzag in our localization calls the main character an emergency (short for black cloak). After all, for us this abbreviation means the phrase “Emergency”.

12. The opening song was written by Steve Nelson and Thomas Sharp.



13. For some time there were rumors about a reboot of the animated series, but it never came to that.

But in 1993, comics about the Black Cloak were published, which are the official continuation of the animated series.



14. The first villain Black Cloak met was Megavolt. In one of the episodes (“Hot Homecoming”) it is shown that they were classmates, and it was during graduation that Megavolt gained his superpowers, after which he began to terrorize his classmates. This episode, by the way, is a reference to Stephen King's novel Carrie.



15. Many of the heroes and villains are essentially parodies of superheroes and villains from DC and Marvel comics:

Black Cloak - Shadow (in Owl), Batman and the Green Hornet;

Megavolt - Electro (Spider-Man);

Quaga - Joker (Batman);

Liquidgad - Hydro-Man (Spider-Man);

Bushroot - Poison Ivy (Batman);

Supercrack (Gizmoduck) - Iron Man;

Antiplasch - Reverse Flash.

Justice Ducks - Justice League (DC);

SHUSHU - SHIELD (Marvel).

16. Blackcoat, like many other Disney characters, appeared in the reboot of the animated series "DuckTales" (2017). But there he turned out to be an actor who plays the role of the Black Cloak.



17. Based on the animated series “Black Cloak,” a game of the same name was released on the Dendy (NES) console, which we (Children of the 90s) were literally in love with.