So, I think I am willing to accept it now. We may not get a new episode of Disney XD’s new DuckTales show until April. I’ve held out hope that we would see an announcement about the show would returning in March, but I feel like that is unlikely.

Based on this blog’s traffic and searches on social media a lot of DT2017 fans want to know why the show is still on hiatus. We’ve discussed some speculations, but unfortunately no one from Disney Animation has been able to provide us with answers. Frank Angones, Co-Producer of DT2017, has said multiple times on social media that the wait has a few reasons and that they are reasons fans will be excited about.

Frank and the crew of DT2017 do not influence when the show will air, and they are not allowed to tell us when we should expect to see it on our TVs. But we believe their comments on social media along with this past weekend’s revelation that DT2017 toys are planned for this summer may provide us with some clues as to why DT2017 has been on a break for so long. We were recording our latest episode of our podcast, DuckTalks, when it dawned on me.

Merchandising. That’s right, we are waiting on the merch! We’ve been very surprised by the lack of DT2017 merchandise up to this point. We expected some DuckTales goodies under our Christmas trees, but they never showed. The reveal of DT2017 merch at the New York Toy Fair has provided us another clue to the greatest mystery of DuckTales 2017 season one so far.

This past weekend we were very surprised to learn of DuckTales 2017 toys at the New York Toy Fair from attendees’ tweets. We later learned that a company named PhatMojo had been licensed to produce character plushes, vinyl figures, playsets, and toy kits for DT2017. PhatMojo’s website says to expect the toys in Target stores by Summer of 2018.

To date there have been 9 episodes of DT2017 (this includes the premiere “Woo-oo!” as a single episode). We know there will be 21 episodes and one more 44 minute episodes for the first season of the show. So if DT2017 begins airing again the first Saturday of April and airs each week without any more breaks the season finale would air on June 29th. If you are Disney and plan on having merchandise hitting shelves in the summer… it might not be a great idea to have the show end a week into summer.

Would Disney XD hold off airing episodes of DuckTales 2017 just for the toys PhatMojo will be releasing this summer? Possibly, but we know from reports before the show premiered this past September that Disney was preparing to release a tsunami of DuckTales Merchandise for the show. We should expect everything from snack cake wrappers to beach towels for summer.

Disney is a careful company, we learned this during the Disney Infinity days. They didn’t initially produce Frozen figures for the game because they wanted to see how the movie did first. Everyone felt like it was a missed opportunity when there wasn’t a tie-in to the movie, but Disney doesn’t take those kind of chances. They believed in DT2017 enough to order a second season of the show before we ever saw it, but the merch had to wait for them to be sure.

Here is the positive side of this news. We are obviously getting a ton of DT2017 Merch coming. The show is already getting promos in the Disney Stores, and we’ve heard a rumor that the Ducks will have a prominent place in some of the parks real soon. DuckTales 2017 is, and will be a success. And the wait for Season Two may be shorter than this hiatus. We just have to be patient, but once this train gets moving again… I expect a wild adventure.

And we are going to be there every step of the way. If you haven’t subscribed to our podcast now would be a good time to follow this link and subscribe through your favorite pod catcher.

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