To many people who were children in the late 1980s, if you say to them “DuckTales,” they will go, “Woo hoo.”
Former Orange County resident Matt Youngberg certainly knows that.
“It’s definitely a thing with my generation of people,” he said of the Disney cartoon’s catchy jingle. “If you say DuckTales, they would go ‘woo hoo.”
Youngberg, 40, who grew up in Yorba Linda and attended Troy High School in Fullerton, is now helping introduce a new generation to the “woo hoo.”
He is the executive producer for a reboot of the animated series for the Disney XD Channel – a “dream project.”
Always artistic, Youngberg said he would draw the characters of Donald Duck and his three nephews, Huey, Dewey and Louie, while watching the show. He also used to ride his bike down to buy comics at a local comic book shop in Yorba Linda. It was while he was attending Troy High that he realized animation could be a career choice.
“As I got older, I really got into Japanese animation, anime,” he said. “Anime has things that are unique over western animation.”
After high school graduation, he applied to the California Institute of the Arts, the school founded by Walt Disney.
“I tried two times and finally got in,” he said.
While at CalArts, Youngberg also started working professionally, doing storyboards his first summer for the animated series “Batman Beyond.” After graduating he became a storyboard artist for “Teen Titans,” eventually moving up to the position of director – for which he received two Annie Award nominations from the International Animated Film Society.
He went on to serve as a supervising producer on “Ben 10: Omniverse;” as a supervising director of “Transformers: Animated;” and worked on other animated television series. Then he got the call from Disney.
“People like myself grew up loving the show,” he said, “so I leaped at the chance.”
Youngberg said the reboot won’t pick up where the original show left off. It will have many of the same characters, including Scrooge McDuck, Donald Duck (who he said will be in this version a lot more) and the triplets, Huey, Dewey and Louie. The triplets will each have a distinct personality quirk, according to Youngberg, while Donald will still have his temper tantrums, but “that’s his super power against bad guys.”
One of the overarching themes of the show will be family.
“Discovering who your family is will be coming into the series,” said Youngberg. “As a teenager, I remember going on a walk with my mom and realized she wasn’t just a mom, but she was a person too.”
There will also be some new characters, including Mark Beaks, who will represent new money made from technology, while Scrooge McDuck represents old money.
But no matter the character or adventure the ducks go on, what’s important to Youngberg is that they tell a story.
“What I always loved about art is storytelling,” he said, “and animation lets you do all of that.”
