The ‘DuckTales’ Reboot Is Solving A MAJOR Disney Mystery, Possibly Rewriting History

The casting announcements alone set an impossibly high bar for Disney XD’s DuckTales reboot to clear. David Tennant! Bobby Moynihan! Ben Schwartz! Lin-Manuel Miranda! Fortunately for Disney fans (and just humanity in general), the new DuckTales more than lives up to the hype. Heck, it may be so good that it retroactively justifies the entire act of rebooting fictional properties.

The hourlong premiere (appropriately titled “Woo-oo!”) debuted on Disney XD over the weekend, and you can watch it for free right now on YouTube. I cannot recommend watching it enough, even if your childhood memories of Duckburg are just a duck-blur. And be prepared to get hooked, because the episode ends on a reveal that will have you eager for more. It’s also a spoiler, so you might wanna watch the episode before venturing ahead.

Ready?

The episode is a true reboot of the DuckTales franchise, in that it resets all the relationships. In order to make it to a job interview, Donald Duck drops his nephews Huey, Dewey, and Louie off with his uncle Scrooge McDuck. This comes as news to the triplets, as they had no idea they were related to the Scrooge McDuck, the super wealthy adventurer. While wandering through Scrooge’s mansion, they find his museum of past adventures (a.k.a. the garage). There, they see a tattered painting of their Great-Uncle Scrooge and Uncle Donald doing their old swashbuckling thing. The triplets are shocked to learn that Donald was, at one point, cool.

Later, after two major adventures, the triplets return to the mansion. That’s when Dewey (Ben Schwartz) notices something about the painting. He pushes the tattered edge back up into place, tucking it into the frame once more, and sees a character he didn’t see before. With a courageous smile on her face, this mystery lady duck is confidently thrusting a sword at a barrel-chested attacker. Dewey looks at it and utters one word that blows the doors wide open on this whole Duck mythology: “Mom?”

Yeah, you never thought about Huey, Dewey, and Louie’s mom, did you? Even if you did, there were always race cars, lasers, or aeroplanes to distract you from asking too many in-depth questions about the Duck/McDuck family tree. The reboot ain’t messing around, though, and it looks like they’re going to get into who this character–Donald’s sister and Scrooge’s niece–either was or possibly is.

This is a big deal, because details about Donald’s sister have remained surprisingly scarce over the character’s 83-year history. Longtime Disney Duck mastermind cartoonist Carl Barks privately developed Donald and Scrooge’s family tree starting in the 1950s. Other cartoonists, like Don Rosa, published and slightly expanded on Barks’ work in the ’80s and early ’90s. Still, even through all that, the identity of Huey, Dewey, and Louie’s parents remained a mystery.

The triplets debuted in a Donald Duck comic strip by Ted Osborne and Al Taliaferro on October 17, 1937 (it was adapted into an animated short titled “Donald’s Nephews” in April 1938). The only reference to Donald’s sister in that strip and short? A postcard letting Donald know that her kids were on the way. Her name? Dumbella.

“Dumbella” is a weird name, one that didn’t totally stick around. Barks changed her name to Thelma when he came up with his family tree in the ’50s, and Don Rosa later added the nickname Della. Of course, neither creator made her a major player in any of their stories. Nowadays, this character is usually referred to as Della by fans, even though she’s really only appeared once: in a cartoon posted to the Netherlands’ official Donald Duck Facebook page.

Yep! Didn’t see that one coming, did you?

The strip was uploaded in 2014 to celebrate Donald’s 80th anniversary. The caption reads:

I often get questions about the mother of Kwik, Kwek and Kwak. That’s my sister Dumbella Duck… In this you can get to know her better. It is often thought that she brought the nephews to me and did not care about them, but that’s just something else …

In the strip, Della drops off the triplets (Kwik, Kwek, and Kwak!) with Donald–oh, and Donald didn’t even know Della had kids. The reason? Della’s gotta go to space! In the final two panels, Della says “I miss them already, my darling” and that she’s “flying until the tank is half empty, then I return to Earth again.” So Della left her kids behind to go on an outer-space adventure, one she apparently never returned from. That’s… actually really dark.

Whether or not the DuckTales reboot will go that route is unknown. That painting positions Della as a swashbuckler in the same vein as Scrooge and Donald. Hopefully she’ll become a part of the new show, especially since there are so few female classic Disney cartoon characters (Daisy Duck, Minnie Mouse… that’s it?). Give us more Della/Thelma/Dumbella Duck!

Oh, and because you’re now definitely wondering this, the identity of Huey, Dewey, and Louie’s father has never been revealed. Could that be next?!

Where to watch DuckTales