Mighty Ducks Animated Series: One-year wonder or one-year blunder?

It was as if Disney knew its Duck bubble was set to burst.

Precisely three months after premiering its two-part pilot, “The First Face-off,” the Mighty Ducks Animated Series presented “The Final Face Off.”

Curiously, five more episodes had their original airdate afterward. But on the morning of Dec. 7, 1996, ABC viewers saw the Ducks dispatch their dinosaur-like antagonists to the ocean floor.

Such was the outcome of another aptly named episode. In turn, it was the implicit ending to a struggle that consumed the better part of a 26-chapter season that spanned Sept. 7, 1996 through Jan. 10, 1997. The ending went from implicit to confirmed when the show was absent from the next season’s lineup.

The cartoon offshoot of The Mighty Ducks coincided with the second sequel to its namesake live-action film. Meanwhile, the real-life, four-year-old Anaheim franchise was building relevance, as 1996-97 culminated in its first Stanley Cup playoff.

But the cross-promotion was as good as over. The extraterrestrial pucksters — whose leader was named after Anaheim mascot Wild Wing — would only live on through short-lived reruns on Disney cable networks and merchandising. That included direct-to-video movie sales and toys, some of which were courtesy of a McDonald’s promotion circa February 1997.

Such was the end of Disney’s late-century cartoon canard craze that started with DuckTales and continued via Quack Pack and Darkwing Duck. Incidentally, the characters in those series have recently resurfaced in TV or comic-book form.

But as a testament to Disney’s 2006 withdrawal from NHL ownership — and to hockey’s lack of adhesive on the American conscience — Wild Wing and company are the odd Ducks out. No reboot is in sight for the Puckworldians.

Odds are that was less than what the NHL was looking to get out of it. When the series was still in production, league marketing executive Rick Dudley told the Los Angeles Times, “Part of our marketing effort has been to avoid generalization that hockey is a cold-weathered, Canadian or northeastern sport. I think if (the cartoon series) helps people identify hockey with playing it under palm trees, that’s a tremendous asset for us.”

Well, Anaheim’s Honda Center (nee Pond) is still flanked by palm trees, and Wild Wing is still the mascot. So no harm, no foul (or fowl), even though the excitement for the show had a shorter lifespan than FoxTrax.

Come what may, you cannot say the effort was lacking. The Mighty Ducks Animated Series had a host of household names in its credits, including that of the NHL itself. And it tried many elements that worked for shows of its ilk to attract young hockey and non-hockey enthusiasts alike.

Like Superman, these Ducks came to Earth in the wake of their home planet’s destruction. Like Batman, they operated in a technologically advanced facility under their residence (namely the Pond). And like the cartoon caricatures of Wayne Gretzky, Bo Jackson and Michael Jordan in ProStars, they were based on a real-life sports entity.

But as silly as it sometimes was in its own right, Mighty Ducks was much more dignified than ProStars. It is therefore little wonder it mustered twice as many episodes. Even less so when you realize that its voice cast was its strongest suit.

Ian Ziering of Beverly Hills, 90210 and Brad Garrett of Everybody Loves Raymond were two of the Ducks. Their clueless, business-obsessed, comic-relief manager was played by Jim Belushi, who later returned to ABC for his own primetime sitcom.

Concomitant with his fourth season as the star of NYPD Blue, Dennis Franz expanded his ABC presence and police portrayal proficiency as Captain Klegghorn. After a protracted stretch of classic cop-vigilante friction, the Ducks enlighten Klegghorn to the existence and threats of Dragaunus, voiced by Tim Curry.

If the targeted age group for ABC Saturday Morning knew better, they would have rolled their eyes at yet another British-sounding bad guy. Fortunately, most did not know better.

Then again, only parents and other older viewers who happened into the living room could have fully appreciated the cultural references. Several episode titles were puns on classic or then-recent action movies, and the plots acted accordingly. Just to name one, “Duck Hard,” which teamed with “The First Face-Off” to comprise the direct-to-video movie, was a nod to Die Hard.

In addition, Dragaunus’ slender, slow-witted henchman, Chameleon, had a way of transforming into anyone from Groucho Marx to Arnold Schwarzenegger. What child growing up in the ’90s wouldn’t have needed an elder to explain the humor in those parodies?

When the main villain pack was not percolating problems, the show shook things up with one-off antagonists. One was a German hunter voiced by David Hyde Pierce, then in his fourth season on Frasier.

Two contemporary sports figures also agreed to give the program a boost in credibility (or try to), something ProStars could not claim in its college football season-length run in 1991. Then-Mighty Ducks of Anaheim netminder Guy Hebert played himself in one scene. Seasoned sportscaster Roy Firestone was the unnamed play-by-play announcer for every game scene.

According to the Internet Movie Database, there was even one holdover from the namesake 1992 movie. J.D. Daniels, who played Peter Mark, voiced a duckling version of Garrett’s character, Grin, in the episode “Power Play.”

Like any power play, be it two or five minutes, the Mighty Ducks Animated Series had only so much time to capitalize. And it played under a complicated system given the designated demographic.

Sure, there was some cringe-worthy condescension. (It still boggles the mind that Firestone really had to say, in the series’ opening scene, “You know, not only are these ducks mighty, they’re really ducks!”) But this was also a well-cultured program that prepared its main audience for a lifetime of now-I-get-it moments.

At worst, this show got a few good looks during a two-minute player advantage. At best, it struck the net for one shining moment during a five-minute, all-you-can-score buffet.

Ducks 1, ProStars 0. So there’s that.