Double-O Ducks, a James Bond spoof for Duck Tales became Darkwing Duck. © Disney.

Now back to the Rescue Rangers. At that time I pitched three new characters for Duck Tales. I drew some pictures and I said, “Here's Space Duck, an alien duck; here's Bubba Duck, a caveman duck, and here's his personality. You know the big hit of last summer, Robocop? Kids, nobody knows the real hero is — Roboduck!” He eventually became Gizmoduck.

It was an old-fashioned, “Here's one picture, I'm going to tell you a little bit about him, do you like him or not?” A great character should really be that strong: You look at him, hear a few things about him, and say, “Yes, I want to see more of him.”

I tell you that for a reason. When they looked at the Rescue Rangers, it was a team of animals, Gadget was already in it, there was a chameleon, Monterey Jack was in it but he was named something else. The lead character was Kit Colby, a mouse who was an Indiana Jones type of guy, complete with the leather jacket and the fluffy collar. They went, “We love the idea of the show, but your main character doesn't have it.” I said “Is it because they're not familiar, you're just seeing them for the first time?” “No, we got Bubba Duck and this Robo Duck, I understand his personality.” Jeffrey said, “Guys, it's just not a home run yet.”

The meeting went on a little longer and we're saying Duck Tales is a big success, what other Disney characters can we work with? You don't want to do Mickey or Goofy, but there's Pluto and all that. Finally, I said, “There's Chip and Dale.” Eisner said, “Great — put those guys in that show,” and Jeffrey says “home run.” That's why Chip and Dale's Rescue Rangers got done. When people pretend Michael has not a creative bone in his body, I'm sorry, I saw plenty of it. I haven't talked to him in 10 years or something, but back then he recognized that's the puzzle piece this thing needed, and then it moved forward like gangbusters.

It changed our development, because now instead of one hero you have this dynamic, which was well established and gave us lots of stories about how they interacted with other characters.

So now Chip is wearing Kit Colby's jacket, plus we gave him a little Indiana Jones hat. And Dale, the goofier one — I don't think we related it to Magnum, P.I. at the time, but we gave him a Hawaiian shirt.

There was no Disney Afternoon yet, it was just Duck Tales. Then they said let's team it up with Rescue Rangers. The Disney Afternoon was created the following year when TaleSpin was created. I remember that show got a big launch because the Afternoon got a huge launch, but there's a slight difference between saying “Here's a brand new show, look how incredible this show is,” versus “Here's a new destination for you to tune into — and part of that is this new show.” I remember the guys who were doing TaleSpin were a little frustrated. Obviously it paid off for them, but still it wasn't the same kind of focus on their show.

JS: It was also like Rescue Rangers in that you're taking established characters and putting them into a new premise. Were they intending to use the Jungle Book characters from the start?

TS: You're always developing shows, and many of them don't see the light of day. They had developed a show called B Players. It was all the sidekicks from all the Disney features working on the back lot, or being out of work. In some ways it was like the later feature Cats Don't Dance: here's the actors, they've got their one part. Baloo did okay, he pops up here and there, but it was like how they get by, what are they trying to do. The show didn't go but it re-familiarized everybody with some of those characters.

JS: The concept turned up again in House of Mouse.

TS: There wasn't a direct line there but very much that kind of feel. It was the work on B Players that put it in Magon and his peoples' heads to start with Baloo and Louie.

Anyway, I'm winding up Rescue Rangers, and now I've become kind of the creative executive developing shows. I would give notes on other shows, but I didn't give notes on TaleSpin, I actually had nothing to do with the series; it was more “We need you to develop shows to go onto next.”