Micro Ducks from Outer Space

"Micro Ducks from Outer Space" is the thirty-second episode of DuckTales. It is loosely based on the Uncle Scrooge comic book story of the same name by Carl Barks.

Plot
Gyro Gearloose is working on a satellite dish that will allow him to watch channels from around the globe. As he prepares to make a few more adjustments, he gets shocked and then stumbles backwards down the opening in the roof, getting tangled up in the cord and changing the position of the dish. At this point, Gyro's television starts displaying a most peculiar transmission. A mothership piloted by alien ducks has picked up the signal from the dish. The commander believes there are intelligent beings on Earth, and she believes that Gyro can show the way.

Meanwhile, back on Earth, Scrooge is having great difficulty trying to solve a problem: the farms have produced an excess amount of wheat. The farmer tells Scrooge that all the wheat will be left to rot if it remains unsold. Not wanting all the grain to go to waste, Scrooge has the surplus wheat shipped off to his mansion, where he tries (unsuccessfully) to sell it. Webby and the nephews bring in an ant farm, but Scrooge thinks that anything smaller than a penny isn't even worth two cents, as he sets the farm on his desk. It's at this point that Scrooge receives a phone call from Gyro, who tells him that the alien ducks who contacted him are suffering from a food shortage on their home world. Gyro explains that the aliens want all the wheat he can spare, upon which Scrooge agrees and awaits their arrival. While Scrooge talks to Gyro he unknowingly knocks the ant farm over, spilling the ants all over the chair, and gets a sharp nip in the tail end when he sits down.

The mothership launches a spacecraft down to Earth. Gyro is working with Launchpad to mark the place for the aliens to spot. Launchpad offers to glue on the paper while Gyro practices his welcoming speech. Huey, Dewey and Louie tell their uncle that the aliens are going to land in the backyard and set off to help Gyro keep an eye out for them. Webby, however, is rather upset, as she has found all the ants except one.

While Launchpad is using the glue, a tiny object starts flying around him. Thinking it's some kind of pestering bug, Launchpad swats at it, put ends up falling off the roof and lands in the bushes. The object then flies in through the open window and starts circling around Scrooge. First he tries to swat it, then he tries spraying it, and when it finally lands on his desk, he is about to whack it with a mallet. But Webby enters the room and stops Scrooge before he can do so, and when the nephews examine it more closely, they find out it's the spacecraft sent by the mothership. Since the Micro Ducks are about the size of ants, they use a megaphone in order to make their voices heard. The aliens agree to pay with a bunch of gemstones, but since the gems are merely "bits of dust" on Earth, the Micro Ducks use a Molecular Manipulator, which they use to enlarge the gems to a reasonable size. Afterwards, the Micro Ducks use the Manipulator to shrink the excess wheat for transport back home. The Micro Ducks then head for home, but while scrooge examines the gemstones, he finds that they left the Molecular Manipulator by mistake. He gets the idea to enlarge his first nugget of gold, and uses a pair of tweezers to work the machine. Despite trying to be careful, Scrooge ends up snapping off the lever and ends up shrinking himself and the kids to the Micro Ducks' size.

Since the Manipulator has a broken lever, the nephews are unable to get it to work. When Gyro enters the room, Scrooge and the kids try to get his attention by shouting, but their voices are far to small to be heard. Believing that he missed everything, Gyro decides to head home. Scrooge suggests calling for help, but they are so small, they can't even lift the receiver. Suddenly, Twitchy, the ant that Webby had been searching for, shows up. But returning to their normal size is the top priority, and so they set out to find Gyro. Scrooge and the kids slide down the phone cord and into the carpet, but Duckworth, who is vacuuming, unknowingly sucks up the lot of them. Duckworth then empties the vacuum bag into the trash can, and then the garbage men come along and empty the can into their truck. The truck dries all the way downtown, and when it stops at a red light, Scrooge and the kids escape by drifting away on a dandelion. Shortly after the shrunken ducks land on the curb, a passing street sweeper floods the roads. The ducks scamper away and hitch a ride on a box of matches as the water sweeps the box away. They use the matchbox as a life raft, avoiding obstacles before being swept down a storm drain and into the sewers. The ducks get off the matchbox by a ladder leading up to a manhole cover, but are confronted by a pair of sewer rats. Scrooge strikes a match, lights the whole box, and then sends it toward the rats, who flee in terror.

Video releases
VHS
 * DuckTales: Space Invaders

Laserdisc
 * DuckTales: Raiders of the Lost Harp / Space Invaders

DVD
 * DuckTales: Volume 1