Seeking to create a cartoon with high quality animation, in comparison with other 1980s cartoons which had much lower budgets, the animation was handled by Wang Film Productions (some 1987 and 1989–1990 episodes only), Cuckoo's Nest Studio, TMS Entertainment (season 1 only), and Burbank Films (1 episode only) having previously been used on two other Disney cartoons in 1985 – "The Wuzzles" and "Disney's Adventures of the Gummi Bears" – both of which had demonstrated better quality cartoons on TV than in previous years. Although the Japanese provided them with more available artists for the cartoon, this also increased production costs, due to the currency exchange rates between the yen and the dollar, though Disney intended to invest heavily in its "DuckTales"s production, with plans to recuperate its money by having it syndicated via its syndication unit, Buena Vista Television, with a 2.5/3.5 syndicator/station ad split. While this was a concept that worked well with live-action TV reruns, it had only ever been used with inexpensive cartoon series in the past that either recycled theatrical shorts from decades past or only featured limited, low-budget animation, and thus had never been attempted with a high quality animated series, with the heavy investment considered a risky move. The cartoon premiered worldwide between 18–20 September 1987 (the time and date varying between markets), with a television movie special entitled ""The Treasure of the Golden Suns"", which was later split up into a five-part serial in future reruns. The first season, aired between 1987–88, consisted of 65 episodes, the "magic number" requirement needed for a show to have weekday syndication (five days a week for thirteen weeks). Disney then commissioned three more seasons – the second season (aired between 1988–89) consisted of two television specials entitled "Time Is Money" and "Super DuckTales", with future reruns splitting them into two five-part serials; the third season (aired between 1989–90) consisted of 18 episodes, with it forming an hour-long syndicated block alongside ""; and the fourth season (aired during late 1990) consisted of seven episodes (including three unaired episodes meant for the previous season), which was used to form a two-hour-long syndicated block called "The Disney Afternoon", consisting of "DuckTales" and three other half-hour cartoons. The cartoon continued running within "The Disney Afternoon" until 1992.