Duck Tales is basically an attempt at doing Carl Barks era adventure style minus Donald, but Scrooge being made more heroic/sympathetic (he's pretty much a lovable jerk at best in the old stories). I think Disney really wanted to tell the Donald stories Europe loved to Americans.

The persistence of Carl Barks and Don Rosa style stories here is surprising even to me. My son, born 2005, seems to know every single Barks story by heart - and I can't say I pushed it that hard.