Jim Cummings Is Getting Recast as Darkwing Duck

Jim Cummings says Disney is recasting him as Darkwing Duck for the upcoming reboot, and that Launchpad McQuack is getting a new voice actor too. This lands two weeks after Cummings was passed over for Disney Legends at D23, and the Seth Rogen produced revival he recorded a pilot for is moving ahead without him.

I have a hard time squaring this one. Cummings has been Darkwing Duck, Winnie the Pooh, the Cheshire Cat, Shredder, and a few hundred other voices that basically built the 90s for a lot of us, and he recorded the pilot that got this whole revival greenlit in the first place. Now he is out of the lead role, Launchpad is being recast, and he did not sound thrilled about any of it. Pair that with the Disney Legends snub at D23 and the fact that he already got recast on the latest Winnie the Pooh in favor of a kid actor, and it starts to feel less like a scheduling problem and more like a guy being quietly pushed to the side. He is still working. He played Pete again in 2026 and he is running an active podcast. He is willing to do it. I still want the Darkwing series to land because it is a genuinely fun property for kids, but this part of it stinks.

Chapters

• 0:00 The Darkwing Duck Recast News
• 0:12 Launchpad Is Getting Recast Too
• 0:20 What Cummings Actually Said About It
• 0:32 The D23 Disney Legends Snub
• 0:48 Still Working, Still Willing, Still Sidelined
• 1:01 The Pilot, Seth Rogen, and How This Got Greenlit
• 1:18 Why This One Stings

Key Takeaways

• Cummings says he is being replaced as Darkwing Duck and that Launchpad is being recast as well, with Terry McGovern's role going to someone new
• He never addressed whether he might still appear as another character in the series, so a Negaduck return is unconfirmed either way
• His reaction was pointed rather than gracious, which reads differently once you factor in the timing
• The Disney Legends snub at D23 happened roughly two weeks earlier, making this the second public sting in a month
• He is not cut off from Disney. He voiced Pete again in 2026, but he was also already recast on the newest Winnie the Pooh project
• He recorded the pilot that generated the excitement for this revival, which makes the recast harder to explain

Quotes

"I hope they get everything they deserve."

"Jim Cummings is a voice of a generation."

"There's kind of this like mounting thing where it kind of feels like Jim's being shoved out a little bit."

"It's wild to me. It's just completely wild."

"Best of luck, Jim, and I hope that Dark Winged Duck series is successful still, because I think it's a really fun property for kids."

CTA

If you grew up with Darkwing Duck, tell me straight up whether you can accept a new voice in the cape. Share this one with the person you used to quote "let's get dangerous" with. #DarkwingDuck

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Listener Questions

• Is there any recast you actually came around on after hating the announcement?
• If Cummings does not voice Darkwing, should he come back as Negaduck instead, or is that worse?