Howard the Duck

THE STORY: No matter how many times Daffy Duck may lose to Bugs Bunny or Donald Duck may be frustrated by Mickey Mouse, there's no other duck that's been put down as much as Howard. Well, the problem you see is that there are really two Howard the Ducks. There's the original Howard the Duck, created by Steve Gerber and then there's the rather silly Howard the Duck that Marvel Comics created out of the original.

I was really too young to fully "get it" when Howard the Duck made his first appearances in the seventies. The character created by Gerber starred in some interesting, satirical and nonsensical adventures published by Marvel Comics. For those of you who don't know, Howard is a talking duck. In his comic book he is trapped on Earth by some kind of mysterious circumstance. He sports a blue jacket, a red spotted tie and a hat and is constantly smoking cigars and speaking his mind. His adventures involved all kinds of weird characters and he was joined on them by his human girlfriend, Beverly. I've only read maybe one or two Howard comic books and I wish I had read more of them.

According to Steve Gerber, Marvel Comics had the rights to his character and thus they made some changes to the initial character. As Gerber never defined where Howard cane from, Marvel had some crazy explanation that a cosmic phenomena somehow sent him to Earth from his home planet...a planet that is just like Earth only its populated by anthropomorphic ducks. Marvel also had Howard meeting various other characters like Spider-Man in stories (Picture Marvel Team Up magazine- "The amazing Spider-Man and Howard the Duck!") that were, well, silly. Mr. Gerber also grew disenchanted by the way Marvel was capitalizing off of its characters by doing crossover after crossover. (You might for instance by a Spider-Man comic book and at the end of the book it'll tell you to buy Iron Man comics to see the rest of the story, and after you read Iron Man the story doesn't end you have to buy X-men, etc.) I got sick of that too, and that's why I all but stopped collecting comics. Its no wonder that Gerber jumped ship, went through legal battles and finally decided that Howard the Duck was a lost cause. Being a comic book fan and an amateur cartoonist I'm pretty upset that big business has once again wrested control of a character from its creator and basically doomed the character to extinction. Remember the wonderful comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes? While you may still see it in reprints, Bill Watterson quit when King Features Syndicate pressured him into commercializing it. Watterson could have made more money than most of will ever see if he let them bastardize his creation (Calvin and Hobbes coffe mugs, T-shirts, TV specials, etc). Instead he chose to fight the machine. The man did it for art not money. I really respect him for that. (Though I personally would have taken the money.) Gerber has a website about his ordeal and I've provided a link here to it, Dead Duck Waddling.

Back to the movie....and its different in ways from Gerber's idea of Howard the Duck and the way Marvel portrayed him.

With very little preamble we see Howard on his home planet relaxing in his apartment. This is where they lay on the duck jokes, really thick. Howard reads "Playduck" magazine, and any other "duck thing you can think of. Suddenly he's blasted out of the room and across outer space...seemingly for no reason...and he lands in Cleveland, Ohio on that big blue Marble, earth! Howard of course has no idea how he got here and being a duck, he's chased around by people. (a lot of punk rockers just outside the club he lands next to) After hiding in a trash can for awhile Howard emerges to help Beverly, leader of an all girl band called Cherry Bomb. Beverly is being accosted by some thugs and Howard uses "Quack-fu" to defeat them. (I'm not even going to comment on how NOT funny that is)

Grateful, Beverly takes Howard home with her and tries to help him figure out how he got to earth.  She takes Howard to see Phil, a bumbling lab assistant at some high tech lab. Phil has no idea really, since he's an idiot. Angry at the way everyone stares at him and treats him (he's a three foot tall talking Duck for Christ sake!) Howard goes off on his own. Well, this is only so we can have more "duck comedy" as he looks for a job, but eventually seeks Beverly out again. He finds that Cherry Bomb's manager is ripping the band off and once again using his "Quack fu" he forcefully makes the guy let the band out of their contract and gets their pay for them. He goes to stay with Beverly again, leading to what might have been one of the craziest sex scenes ever filmed. (Beverly comes on to him as they lay in bed)

Phil, some other guy and Dr. Jenning pay a visit to Howard and Beverly. Phil has told Dr. Jenning about Howard and they realize what's happened. Dr. Jenning, Phil's boss, has invented a laser spectroscope. They were using it to scan some kind of nebula in space but it went whacko and accidentally created a doorway from Howard's world to this one. Howard got sucked into it.  Jenning tells Howard they may be able to reverse the effect and send him home, but they have to do it tonight while the planets are in alignment. Jenning rushes back to the lab to prepare, and Beverly, Howard and the others follow soon after. When they arrive at the lab, they see some kind of accident has occurred with the laser thingie. The police arrive and of course, mistreat and arrest Howard, for being a duck. Beverly intervenes and frees him and they flee. They run into Dr. Jennings who didn't die in the accident. But Jennings tells them something happened to him. Something used the spectroscope to travel to earth and now its inside of him and taking him over.

The something is a "Dark Overlord of the Universe." Whatever. The Dark Overlord turns Jennings into a powerful crazy guy and after yet another comedy scene at a Cajun Sushi diner, he knocks Howard out and takes Beverly with him. His goal is to get to the lab and use the spectroscope to bring more Dark Overlords to Earth and destroy it. Beverly is strapped to the machine, but Howard and Phil arrive at the lab to save her. Using an experimental ray gun, Howard blasts the creature out of Jenning's body. The Dark Overlord isn't dead though and the timer on the Spectroscope is counting down to zero. When it reaches zero the other Dark Overlords will arrive on earth. Instead of doing anything original, Howard uses the same weapon to destroy the Overlord that's already on Earth. Then, he destroys the spectroscope just as there's only (TA DA) one second left, stopping the invasion. This of course means Howard can't return to his world.

The last scene shows Howard has taken the job as Cherry Bomb's manager. They're at a big concert singing their new hit single "Howard the Duck", and Howard joins them on stage playing an axe. Its as goofy as it sounds.

There a lot of problems with this movie. The Howard the duck from the comics was a witty, satirical character that had strange adventures with even stranger foes (the Kidney Lady, Dr. Bong, Status Quo) This movie wasn't witty....the jokes all boiled down to "Hey! He's a duck! Get it!?". The duck suit was too obviously a short guy in a duck suit....and the scenes went on far too long. Actually that's because of the "He's a duck! Get it!?" mentality. Man, there's only one or two times that's going to funny...and even then it ain't that funny. In watching this I wished that the writers had stuck with the way the comic was written originally. Howard is a Duck, we never find out where he came from and he's an individual in a world that views him as different, a world that his very presence satirizes. With no space monsters! Now that might have been a good movie! (I said "might") Bad movie lovers will probably want to check this out since it was universally hated when it was released in 1986. If you like bad movies this one will provide a few laughs, just not the ones it wanted to.

Beverly was actress Lea Thompson. She's Caroline in the sitcom Caroline in the City. I also think she's one good looking babe. Phil was Tim Robbins. Dr. Jennings was Jeffrey Jones. Ronnette, a band member was actress Liz Sagal. She was in a TV show called "Double Trouble" with her twin sister and she was also in the hilariously bad "Skinheads"....a movie that suprisingly makes Howard the Duck look like Casablanca. I have no idea who the hell played Howard.

Best Lines: "I bite your face and you're a dead man! Space Rabies!"-Howard threatens the band's manager with a bluff about a disease that doesn't exist.

"You think I might find happiness in the animal kingdom, duckie?"- Beverly comes on to Howard.

1.) I'm not saying I could have done better, but the duck suit is really obviously a duck suit. Especially if you look at Howard's butt...you can see that they packed a bunch of newspaper or something in the ass area to make it look like he has a duck butt. If this movie was made today I suppose they could have used CGI effects or something. But a different script surely would have helped.

2.) A lot of people just take Howard's appearance for granted. They're just like "Oh, look a talking duck. Well, what're you gonna do?" If I saw a talking Duck I don't know what I'd do, but I know that taking him to NASA or the Smithsonian would be my list of things to probably do. I can hardly believe that the cops would have orders to "shoot to kill" Howard when they search for him. A talking, intelligent extra-terrestrial duck has gotta be worth more alive!

3.) Why did the police arrest Phil? He didn't do anything wrong. I guess that was needed to get him into the plot so he could help Howard save Beverly.

NUDITY AND SEX: Beverly and Howard are in bed together, but nothing happens....too bad, because I cried foul when Howard stopped Beverly from removing her top. One of the best scenes in this movie is the sight of Lea Thompson in her underwear! She is simply luscious! Rowr!

HUH?: Okay, Howard doesn't move too fast and the Dark Overlord can throw energy bolts. How can this creature lose to Howard in their final showdown? The Overlord lets Howard retrieve the ray gun to destroy him! Come on! He hits Phil and Beverly and they move a lot faster than Howard!

Why did they back out of the weird ass love affair with Beverly and Howard? I'm not saying I wanted to see Lea Thompson in some crazy- ass sex scene with a duck but she if Howard and Beverly are supposed to be a couple they don't seem like it. She says once that Howard is her boyfriend....she could at least kiss him!

THE TALLY: This is one of those so bad its good movies. My wife gave this to me for Christmas knowing my love for cheesey movies. If you can find a copy at your local video stores check it out. Its not a completely awful movie and its one of the flicks that most people will remember as a big flop from the 80's. But you know what? Its worth watching to the end to see Lea Thompson dressed in a Bangles/ Vixen crossover rock and roll suit jamming on stage with a duck. I personally laughed my ass off. (More so after reading the credits...Lea Thompson and the other girls actually performed those songs including "Howard the Duck" themselves! Well, if the credits are to be believed.)