Howard the Duck (1986)

Every once in a while, you’ll be reading something and think to yourself that you would love to see it represented in a movie or a television show.  Sometimes your thoughts are right and the adaptation makes for a fascinating watch.  Other times, your thoughts were so far off base that you are left scratching your head and regretting your previous opinion.  Why would a film or television adaptation have ever been a good idea?

That is probably what the producers of Howard the Duck had in mind.  They read some of the comics (enough to know that there is a duck named Howard, at least) and thought that a fish out of water story about the title character coming to Earth would be an interesting one.  What they got as a product was a movie that did not know if it wanted to be a children’s adventure or an adult themed action movie.  I’ve seen some insane movies over the past year and a half, but this one is near the top.  I’m going to highlight some of the crazier things.

1.            The opening scene is by far one of the strangest in the movie.  On Howard’s home planet, we are introduced to many of the similarities between them and America.  There are popular movies retitled with duck puns.  The ducks look like small humans, wear clothes, and speak English.  All of this seems like childish visual humor.  That is, until we see Howard reading a magazine filled with naked ducks, akin to Playboy (I say that because I cannot remember the pun title).  Then Howard gets sucked through space to Earth, but not before crashing through a female duck’s washroom where she is naked and taking a bath.  We see duck boobs that look like human boobs on a duck.  The opening scene has already made the movie seem nuts, and there’s still much more to come.

2.            The scene in which we are introduced to Jeffrey Jones’ character might be one of the most disturbing scenes I’ve ever seen on film.  The introduction itself isn’t the disturbing thing.  The acting isn’t disturbing.  What is disturbing is that the introduction happens while Lea Thompson’s character attempts to seduce Howard.  Her character is a human.  Howard is a duck.  A human attempts to have sex with a duck in this movie.  Why?

3.            Here’s another scene showing that there was no grasp on whether or not Howard the Duck was for children or adults.  While in a restaurant, Howard ends up in a fight.  His weapons of choice during the scuffle are pies made of cream.  He throws them at the faces of his enemies.  That is something the children would love.  But Howard soon gets overpowered and the people he is fighting put him on a chopping block in the kitchen, grab knives, and try to cut him up and eat him.  That’s a little too far for children.  It’s a way to scare them and induce nightmares.

4.            Almost immediately after the scene with the pies, there is a chase scene.  It involves the police attempting to capture Howard and Tim Robbins’ character.  Howard and Tim try to get away on a flying bicycle.  This isn’t an alien magic bike like in E.T.  Oh no.  This is a bicycle with wings.  It’s not supposed to be fantastical.  It’s supposed to be realistic and funny.  It ends up just being ridiculous.

5.            Let me list off a bunch of other moments now.  Lea Thompson finds an unwrapped duck condom in Howard’s wallet and says “Oh Ducky.”  I was more like “Ew yucky.”  It was unwrapped.  Bleh.  Howard knows the martial art of “quack fu.”  That’s another one of those puns that make the movie sound like a kids’ movie sometimes.  Did I mention that when Howard arrives in Cleveland, where the movie is set, he overhears that it is duck hunting season?  Yeah, they hunt ducks in Cleveland.  And finally, the movie ends with Lea Thompson performing a song about Howard the Duck to a stadium full of cheering people.  I don’t have anything else to say about that.

There is so much crazy packed into the 110 minutes that Howard the Duck runs.  It’s a wonder that nobody stopped the movie during production because of all of this loony stuff.  Nobody realized how bonkers it was to show duck breasts as if they were human breasts.  No one thought that it was weird to feature potential beastiality (sorry, I mean interspecies erotica) in the movie.  These seemed like reasonable things to show in a movie that children would so clearly want to see.  That is unbelievable to me.

I hadn’t seen Howard the Duck in years.  I had forgotten all of these things.  I’m sitting here writing this in disbelief.  How did this even happen?  I have no idea.  Why couldn’t they stick with the adult or child themes without going back and forth between them, never finding a balance?  I don’t know.  What I do know is that this is a terrible, terrible movie that everyone needs to experience.  If you haven’t seen it, go find it.  It’s a quintessential bad movie.

Now for some notes:

• There is a second post this week.  It is both a retrospective for the entire Sunday “Bad” Movies series thus far, then it looks at the past twenty-five weeks a little bit, it has some updated statistics, and it gives hints at what the future has in store for this blog.
• There are a lot of nominations and wins at the Razzies for Howard the Duck.  The movie was nominated for Worst Picture of the Decade in 1990.  The year it came out, it won Worst Picture, Worst Screenplay, Worst New Star, Worst Visual Effects, and Tim Robbins won Worst Supporting Actor.  It was also nominated for Worst Director and Worst Original Song.
• Ed Gale was one of the people that played Howard throughout the movie.  He was also in Tiptoes and Chopper Chicks in Zombietown.
• Speaking of Tiptoes, Debbie Lee Carrington appeared in both that and Howard the Duck.
• Miguel Sandoval was in Howard the Duck.  He could previously be seen in Ballistic: Ecksvs. Sever.
• Sheldon Feldner was an actor who appeared in Howard the Duck as well as Monster in the Closet.
• Howard the Duck was suggested by @TheChewDefense.
• If you would like to suggest a movie to be watched for a future installment of the Sunday “Bad” Movies, feel free to tell me what it is.  Comments or Twitter are both ways to tell me.