Dynamo Duck

Dynamo Duck (French: Saturnin le canard) was the main character in the children's series "The Adventures of Dynamo Duck", which aired on television in the early 1990s.

The origin of the series lies with the French film maker Jean Tourane. During the 1960s, he filmed for a children's television series Saturnin le canard about the duckling Saturnin who had all kinds of adventures. The series was produced using real animals, dressed up with sunglasses, hats, etcetera, inside a miniature world. The series, first produced in 1964 (according to the Internet Movie Database) was shown on French television.

Years later, the footage was bought by the American producer Nathan Sassover. Originally, clips of it were used as bumpers leading into and out of commercials on the Fox Kids network. Later, Sassover had the different pieces of film edited in a new way and hired writers to create new characters and storylines to produce a James Bond-style show in a series of two-minute shorts. Again a small duck was the main character, fighting crimes of the evil Dr. Mortek (a monkey) and other assorted villains. The animals wander around on miniature sets with scale models of trucks and other vehicles. The duck, this time going by the name of "Dynamo Duck", was driving around in a miniature Jaguar.

What makes this series unique prior to the advent of computer animation was the way the mouth movements of the animals, specifically the ducks, with the precise dialog dubbed in gives the appearance of the animals speaking. The principal duckling was voiced-over by Dan Castellaneta, using a terse, clipped style parodying The Untouchables' Robert Stack. The first season aired in 1991 on Fox Kids. The shorts aired once a week during the Fox Kids' Saturday morning line-up in between the half-hour programs. Where it appeared on the schedule wasn't announced and aired at inconsistent times. Even the promo for the series narrated by Dynamo says "Saturday mornings on FOX", but no specific time ever revealed. For fans to follow and collect the series, it was often necessary to record the entire morning line-up so as not to miss it. At the end of every show, Dynamo Duck said "We take care of our animals, and so should you!". The second season of Dynamo Duck is widely regarded as vastly inferior to the first that relied more heavily on reuse of footage, and recycled storylines. Dynamo's voice-over was modified in a manner similar to Don Adams' Get Smart role of Maxwell Smart. There are over 100 shorts in the series.

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