When Donald Duck decides to join the US Navy, he enlists his uncle Scrooge McDuck to look after his nephews, Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

Although reluctant to do so due to their hyperactivity, along with his continual pursuit of increasing his wealth and maintaining harsh business ethics, he eventually warms up to them upon seeing how smart and resourceful they are and takes them into his manor as well as several adventures.

The show introduced new characters to the Duck universe; while some were minor including the nanny Mrs. Beakley, whom Scrooge hires to babysit the nephews; Mrs. Beakley's granddaughter Webby; Scrooge's pilot Launchpad McQuack; Doofus Drake, an admirer of Launchpad and a close friend of the nephews; and the McDuck Manor butler, Duckworth.

The second season later introduced three new additional characters as part of the show's stories: "caveduck" Bubba Duck and his pet triceratops Tootsie; and Fenton Crackshell, Scrooge's personal accountant who secretly works as a superhero named Gizmoduck.

The animated series also featured a list of minor villains, most of whom sought to either claim Scrooge's wealth or beat him to treasure.

DuckTales is well noted for its many references to popular culture, including Shakespeare, Jack the Ripper, Greek mythology, Ancient Egypt, James Bond, Indiana Jones, and Sherlock Holmes.

[7] Although the Japanese provided them with more available artists for the cartoon, this also increased production costs, due to the currency exchange rates between the yen and the dollar, though Disney intended to invest heavily in its DuckTales's production, with plans to recuperate its money by having it syndicated via its syndication unit, Buena Vista Television, with a 2.5/3.5 syndicator/station ad split.

[7] The cartoon premiered worldwide between 18 and 20 September 1987 (the time and date varying between markets), with a television movie special entitled "The Treasure of the Golden Suns", which was later split up into a five-part serial in future reruns.

The show proved an immense success for Disney, who decided to commission other cartoons with a similar level of quality, which included Chip 'n Dale: Rescue Rangers, Darkwing Duck, and TaleSpin.

[22] Despite the set being similar to the North American version, the DVD contained only 20 episodes, while having 5 language tracks: English, French, German, Spanish and Italian.

Unlike the first release, these 3-disc sets include a Fastplay mode, and only four language tracks: English, Dutch, German and French, but subtitles have not been added.

A shorter version of the opening theme was used in The Disney Afternoon lineup with the line, "Everyday they're out there making Duck Tales, woo-ooh", taken out.

The full version contains a second verse, and it includes a guitar solo, which is performed with a wah-wah pedal to make it sound like duck-like noises.

According to an interview conducted with Jeff Pescetto in 2009, he was originally approached by Mark Mueller to cut a demo version of the theme song for Disney's approval.

Although they were impressed with Pescetto's demo, Disney had decided at first to hire pop group The Jets to perform the theme song for broadcast.

The Jets, meanwhile, later performed a full-length version of the Rescue Rangers theme song in a music video aired on The Disney Channel in 1989.

Maximilian Leunig of Collider wrote, "This classic series brought along characters that hadn't been in much media apart from comic books, notably written by Carl Barks and Don Rosa.

Among these were famous villains like Magica De Spell, the Beagle Boys, and Flintheart Glumgold, to allies like Gyro Gearloose and Glittering Goldie.

Of course, the show also created beloved partners like Launchpad McQuack, Gizmoduck, and Webby, who all brought fun and adventure to this Disney classic.

"[29] Emily Ashby of Common Sense Media rated the show a 4 out of 5 stars, stating, "DuckTales was a huge hit with fans during its four-year run in the '80s and continues to entertain today with quality stories, wild adventures, and classic Disney characters such as Scrooge McDuck and the dynamic trio of Huey, Dewey, and Louie.

Because the stories often are set in far-flung places such as Greece, Antarctica, and the Klondike, kids are introduced to basic concepts of geography and diverse world cultures.

Disney made the smart move of taking classic characters like Scrooge McDuck and Baloo from The Jungle Book and giving them a late '80s reboot.

The film follows Scrooge McDuck and his nephews as they try to defeat the evil warlock Merlock from taking over the legendary magic lamp.

DuckTales: Remastered, an HD remake of Capcom's original game, developed by WayForward Technologies, was released by Disney Interactive for PlayStation Network, Nintendo eShop and Steam on August 13, 2013.

[citation needed] Scrooge McDuck, Launchpad McQuack, Webby Vanderquack, Magica De Spell, and Gizmoduck appeared in Disney Emoji Blitz.

Scrooge McDuck, Huey, Dewey, Louie, and Webby appear as playable characters as part of a DuckTales collection in the video game Disney Magic Kingdoms, along with The Money Bin and The Golden Condor as attractions.

On August 29, 2007, Gemstone released a trade paperback of Scrooge's Quest and on October 7, 2008, it was followed by The Gold Odyssey; together they collect the majority of the Disney Comics run.

The series was written by Warren Spector (author of the Epic Mickey videogame) with art by Leonel Castellani and Jose Massaroli.

Featured together with Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers in a Sunday morning program titled Walt Disney Presents, the show premiered in the former Soviet Union in 1991, the first American cartoon shown in the region after the Cold War.

However, the show's theme song (written by Mark Mueller and originally sung by Jeff Pescetto) remained in English for several episodes.