Rewatching DuckTales! The ladies take center stage (sort of) in episode 79, “The Good Muddahs.”

Here’s what happens: Little Webby is starved for attention, as the boys don’t want to play childish games with her and all the adults are too busy. Scrooge is showing the Sowbuggian royal jewels at his museum, and he’s paranoid the Beagle Boys will try to steal them. The boys are in jail, but we soon learn the Beagle Babes are in town! Fresh out of women’s prison, the babes, Babydoll, Boom-Boom, and Bouffiant, try and fail to steal the jewels, abducting Webby as a spur-of-the-minute backup plan.

Two bumbling rookie cops are assigned to the case, so stupid that Scrooge throws them out of his house. The Beagle Babes have a hard time dealing with Webby, who keeps crying. Each of the babes tries to placate Webby with a bedtime story, only for them all to fall asleep. Webby is about to escape, but stays because she believes no one at the mansion wants her there anymore. Time passes, and Webby and the babes become unlikely pals.

At the mansion, Huey, Dewey, and Louie discover that Bubba the cave duck has bloodhound-like super-smell, and he’s able to track Webby’s scent. The Beagle Babes go on a crime spree to steal toys for Webby. When Webby learns the toys are stolen, she sends the Beagle Babes back to return them. The rookie cops confront the babes at the toy store, while the boys track down Webby at the babes’ hideout.

The boys and Webby concoct a plan where Webby pretends to be a bad girl, corrupted by the Babes’ influence. She goads the Babes into a plot to rip off Scrooge’s money bin, with the boys pretending to be old-timey gangsters. They lead the cops on a chase through the city back to Scrooge’s mansion. Scrooge and Mrs. Beakeley apologize to Webby. Webby wants Scrooge to give the Babes a job instead of sending them back to jail. When the job is at a daycare center, they choose jail instead.

Humbug: My thesis is that the series-long arc of DuckTales is Scrooge learning his family is more important than his money. This episode has mentions of Scrooge’s charity work, including all the money he’s donated to orphanages. Could this be the influence of his relationships from the first episode to now?

Junior woodchucks: Huey, Dewey, and Louie find Webby at the Beagles’ hideout, identifying it as such. So now there’s no reason that the entire family doesn’t already know that this is where the Beagles go when they get out of jail.

Maid and maiden: It’s quite a leap for Webby to feel unnoticed to then jump straight to a life of crime, but her idea of crime is breaking into a toy store to return what was stolen.

Everybody walk the dinosaur: Bubba’s tracking abilities and his superhuman sense of smell gives him something to do in this episode. When disguised as a gangster, Bubba hides his club inside a violin case.

Foul fowls: This is the only appearance of the Beagle Babes. They are cousins, not siblings, to the many Beagle Boys, suggesting that Ma Beagle is their aunt.

Down in Duckburg: Scrooge’s worry room makes a return appearance, and we can see the rut in the floor is not as deep as it was during the SuperDuckTales five-parter.

Reference row: Once again, characters discuss Cinderella as a work of fiction in the DuckTales universe.

Thoughts on this viewing: Another joke-heavy sitcom-y episode. Because this season was 1990-91, I wonder if the producers got a memo to make the show more like The Simpsons. Either that, or maybe kid antics are less expensive than jet-setting adventures. Either way, the episode is amusing but forgettable.

Next: Psychic hotline.

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