Zack Danger’s Blog

I was thinking about this movie recently, and reminiscing about how awesome it is. Thinking back to being a kid and watching it while staying up past my bed time.

Let’s be serious. It’s a movie from 1986 about a 4 foot high duck that is transported to our world and befriends a hot lady rocker chick who is played by Lea Thompson (Who I might add did all of the singing for her character’s band sequences). And if that wasn’t enough, it also stars Tim Robbins and Jeffrey Jones! Oh, and did I mention it was produced by GEORGE FUCKING LUCAS? HOLY SHIT!!!

When I found out that Hulu.com has it for the watching, I lost my shit.

Imagine what fantastic references and jokes I will appreciate now that I’m older!

I should probably confess something at this point. One of the main reasons I was so excited to see the movie again is because I have foggy memoreis of the sex scene between Howard and Lea Thompson.

Let me reiterate that… that’s a DUCK FUCKING AN 80’s ROCKER PLAYED BY LEA MOTHER FUCKING THOMPSON.

HOLY SHIT DICKS! THIS IS AWESOME.

I started the movie, dimmed the lights, and sat back ready for a magical thrill ride.

Except there was no magical thrill ride.

The movie sucks.

The corny one-liners are so bad, they aren’t corny anymore, just sad. Not once was I moved to actually laugh. It felt as if the jokes were written for 5th graders but the movie itself was geared towards adults.

And the acting… the acting is somewhere between a low budget B movie and community theater. The only decent performance was Jeffrey Jones. Probably because he seemed to be the only one not taking his role seriously.

Oh, and the movie is schizophrenic… This monstrosity is only slightly easier to follow than Dude, Where’s My Car?

Here’s my synopsis:

The movie starts off with Howard being teleported from his duck planet to Earth. Poor guy is just sitting in a recliner looking at “PlayDuck” when he gets tractor-beamed through the walls of his building into a worm hole in space.

He lands outside of a club in Cleveland OH where he meets Beverly Switzler (Lea Thompson) playing guitar and fronting her band “Cherry Bombs.” The two befriend each other when Howard saves Beverly from some horny punk rockers and he beats up the band’s manager.

Beverly invites Howard to sleep on her windowsill that night, and after the duck falls asleep the bitch rummages through his wallet.

Her super duper detective skills lead her (and us) to this. Now that’s character development you just don’t see nowadays.

 

The next day Howard goes to a temp agency to get a job. He tries to bite the ass of the big black woman working there. Howard ends up working in a brothel or something washing towels. Howard quits after throwing his boss into a mud bath.

After a long tough day, Howard climbs into bed with Beverly back at her place (more on this later). For some reason her apartment door was left open and her band’s bassist’s boyfriend named Phil Blumburtt (Tim Robbins), along with Dr. Walter Jenning (Jeffrey Jones) and some other guy let themselves in to kidnap Howard. They work for a super special secret science company and want to test Howard and exploit him. 

Except they don’t kidnap him. At some point, not sure when, they all become friends, and the Doctor is working to get Howard home. Turns out that a giant laser beam that the doctor shot into space sucked Howard out of his living room towards Earth. They all break into the lab where the Doctor works so they can fire up the laser and beam Howard back. 

When they get to the lab, the police are there to arrest everyone (except the doctor) for breaking in.

 

One cool thing, the Police Lieutenant is played by the same actor (Paul Guilfoyle) that plays “Captain Jim Brass” on CBS’s hit television series, “CSI.”

With some quick work by Howard and Beverly, they manage to steal a cop’s gun and get away. (The cop is distracted when he sees a cigar left out on a desk, and Howard tackles him into a trash can)

Unfortunately while this is happening, the laser explodes and Dr Jenning is injured. Well, he’s not “injured” as much as the Dark Overlord of the Universe gets transported back to Earth, and decides to slowly take over the Doctor’s body.

While Howard Beverly and the Doctor are fleeing the laser factory, they almost get into dozens of car accidents in a wood paneled jeep Cherokee. They decide to rest at a truck stop which advertises BBQ Sushi or some shit. While waiting for their food a couple truckers come over to hit on Beverly. Something happens and the locals end up dragging Howard to the kitchen so they can cook and eat him.

Doctor Jenning looses his shit (now totally possessed by the Dark Overlord) and he shoots lighting out of his fingers…. Making everyone in the restaurant flee or die and blows out the diner’s florescent lighting.

The Doctor kidnaps Beverly and steals a tractor trailer cab to get away. Howard meets back up with Phil Blumburtt because the police, after arresting him at the laser place, decide to take him along to the diner. Howard breaks him out of hte police car and the two steal an Ultra Light (a small airplane with no fuselage and wings made out of garbage bags) and use it try to rescue Beverly.

(I should mention that the movie wins me over a little by using the Wilhelm Scream twice during the diner and ultra light scenes… so that’s cool I guess)

Meanwhile the possessed Doctor heads for a nuclear power plant where he pretends to be a federal regulator.

Here he enters the reactor and feeds of the energy or something. After this, the good doctor has a shoot out / finger lightning battle with Sheriff Deputies with shotguns that were conducting an “emissions check road block.”

Finally all the characters find their way back to the giant laser… which now appears to be completely undamaged. The Doctor ties Beverly to the base of the laser for some reason. He spends all of his time trying to start the laser so he can bring more Dark Overlords to earth. She spends all of her time screaming about something.

With Howard’s help, Phil Blumburtt gets a Disintegration Gun out of storage that no one was using.

More time is wasted when Howard sees a switch on the Disintegration Gun’s electric cart. He asks “what does this do” while flipping it… we are then treated to an excruciatingly long sequence where the cart drives around on its own running into things.

Somewhere in the middle of all this, this happens;

This whole time the Doctor is raging pretty hard because he can’t start the laser while the duck is being a bitch and bothering him.

Finally Howard manages to shoot Dr. Jenning with the Disintegration Gun and he explodes. Except he doesn’t explode… he’s fine. The doctor gets back up and proclaims that he is no longer possessed, but that the Dark Overlord has left his body and is now loose in the room somewhere.

This is extra special because earlier in the film the Dark Overlord states: 

Cue a fantastic stop motion demon thing sequence. This really caught my attention because it reminded me of Ghost Busters… it also caught my attention because earlier a movie the Dark Overlord stated that he can not survive on Earth without a host body… yet this fucking happens. I chose to spend the next 5min thinking about how awesome Ghost Busters is.

To remind us that things are dire, throughout the entire scene a female computer voice is counting down the time until the rest of the Dark Overlords arrive on the laser beam.

After some fancy special effects, Howard manages to kill the Dark Overlord with the disintegrator. The doctors yells for Howard to destroy the laser too, but Beverly points out that if Howard does that (which he needs to do to save Earth) he will not be able to go back to his home planet. 

Howard does the heroic thing and blows the laser machine up with the disintegration gun while giving some cheesy line about saying good bye to his duck world.

 

The movie then disregards any aftermath from what just happened, and cuts to the future (or possibly an alternative reality) where we see Cherry Bomb performing in front of thousands of screaming fans. While Beverly Switzler sings a song about “Howard the Duck,” we see Howard in the wings in a nice 80’s suit. Howard has become the band’s manager, while Phil Blumburtt appears to be their stage manager.

There is some mixup when Howard attempts to untie a rope of stage and as a result, Howard ends up playing an impromptu guitar solo.

Credits.

Now, you may be wondering why I omitted the part where they have sex. Was it because it was too graphic to write about? Was it because it was too awesome and the mere act of trying to put it into words would make my head explode?

It’s neither of those.

The reason I didn’t mention it is because IT NEVER FUCKING HAPPENS!!!

In the beginning of the movie when Howard climbs into bed with high libidoed Beverly Switzler, he starts to come on to her. I don’t blame him, Lea Thompson is literally wearing next to nothing in the scene. But when Beverly says okay to hot LEA THOMPSON ON DUCK SEX…. Howard looses his erection and tries to back out like a coward. Beverly wants him though… and there is no stopping her… she makes her move…

AND THEN THOSE ASS HATS PHIL BLUMBURTT, DR. WALTER JENNING AND THAT OTHER GUY BARGE RIGHT IN!

WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS?!

THE TWO OF THEM NEVER ENGAGE IN SEXUAL CONGRESS!!!!!11!!!1!1!!ELEVEN!!!

It appears that when I was younger I must have fabricated this memory of actual awesome Lea Thompson intercourse with a duck to drown out the complete suckage that is the rest of the movie.

Fuck you George Lucas. You owe me.

Okay… well, aside from my mistaken memory, maybe the movie is pretty awesome.

The local supermarket offered up these gems lastnight:

Delicious Cow Eggs.

This is just fantastic:

Rare Exports

I’m bored… so here’s a scene featuring Alec Baldwin from the movie Malice.

Humor is a fickle thing. Something that one person finds hilarious could be a total bomb with someone else. Even the same joke may illicit opposite responses depending on the time or place they are told.

The best jokes are the off-color ones or the jokes that make you groan. These are the best that comedy has to offer because although they may not make you laugh hard, they at least push the envelope a little. The best jokes are the ones that make you feel a little uncomfortable, or the kind that you know will piss off a subset of the population. They push the edge of comedy to new and exciting places. Without this type of humor, comedy would be stale, and our society would never evolve. (See also: “The Aristocrats“)

Then there are the terrible jokes. They usually take one of two forms. They could be the same rehashed lines written for sitcoms on the ABC Family Channel, or the ones being told by Jay Leno. The ones based around the ideas that we’ve all been told are funny. Things like how husbands never put the toilet seat down, or how  Paris Hilton is a whore. Or they could be the lame jokes your Grandfather or coworker tells you. Jokes like “seven, eight, nine” are not funny unless you yourself are actually seven, eight, or nine. Adding insult to injury, the assholes that tell these jokes will often be unable to deliver it without laughing themselves, and may even reach out and put their hand on your shoulder, as to brace you for the unforgiving punch line. 

These “jokes” are perfect for people who enjoy watching Puppy Bowl, have decorative flags hanging outside their house, or who’s Secret Santa Christmas Party at their place of employment is the most exciting thing to happen to them all year.

Imagine my horror when I found out the pinnacle of mediocre taste, Reader’s Digest, decided to offer a $3,000 prize for the “funniest” joke.

Just so you know what we’re dealing with, here is a sample of the type of cartoons they run:

Blech.

The winner of the Funniest Joke contest, Ron Mlodzik (a retired High School teacher), called Reader’s Digest’s hotline and submitted this doozy:

“A guy is walking down a dark street, when he hears something behind him. He looks behind him and sees a casket, and it’s going, ‘dum … dum … dum … dum … ’ and it’s followin’ him. So he gets frightened and goes faster, and the casket goes faster — ‘dum, dum, dum, dum, dum … ’ So he starts to trot and runs into his apartment building and the casket crashes through the door and comes at him faster, up the stairs — ‘dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum, dum!’ He slams the door, and it crashes through his apartment door, so he runs into his bathroom and he slams the door and he hears, ‘dum … dum … dum … dum … ’ and he knows it’s going to crash through the door … then it crashes through the door, and he grabs the only thing he can. He grabs a bottle of cough syrup and he throws it at the casket … and it stops the coffin!”

You get that?

That’s the funniest joke… and it earned him $3,000 dollars.

He even said in an interview:

“I told my kids the joke, they all thought it was the dumbest joke around,” he said, still laughing. “But I did it with a lot of sound effects.”

No Ron, the fact that you “did it with a lot of sound effects” does not help to negate the fact that your kids thought it was the “dumbest joke around.” Nor does it change the fact that I think it’s the dumbest joke around.

Andy Simmons, the Editor of the “Joke” Department at Reader’s Digest, shared this tidbit:

“Being in the humor department, we hear these jokes all the time, I’ve heard them all a thousand times. I even heard his joke before, but it’s the way he delivered it. Most people have that fast patter: ‘A guy walks into a bar … ’ but he had this nice, slow delivery.”

The only saving grace when it comes to terrible jokes is that they are often delivered quickly… I can’t even imagine having to sit through Ron drawing out his blue ribbon winner.

I suppose I should be understanding of the fact that not all people like the same things. Some people just prefer to have an occasional smirk interject their daily worry about table runners and neighborhood association meetings.

But you know what? Fuck ‘em. Comedy is an inherently subjective thing… but sometimes people’s subjectiveness is just plain wrong.

Part of the reason why this is really getting to me is because this quest for the “Funniest Joke” has already been done… and it produced an equally horrid winner. You can’t search for something that is impossible to find and expect the answer to not be shit.

Professor Richard Wiseman conducted an Internet search/poll/rating thing where he scientifically selected the winner.

The great thing for me is that The History Channel sent Lewis Black to talk with him as part of their History Of The Joke special. (If you get a chance, make it a point to watch this special) And because they sent him, and put it on the Internet, it saves me from having to formulate a strong conclusion for this post. I’ll just leave you with this video:

I liked the show “Alf” a lot when I was a kid. Best part is now that I’m older, I can appreciate how much of a sarcastic asshole that alien actually is.

Better yet, you can watch episodes on Hulu.com

(And if you don’t know what Hulu is, you best be checking that out as well.)

Some of you will surely feel old after watching this Atari Tribute video from YouTube.

(If you like the soundtrack, check out my 8-bit music post.)

And I forgot to mention… The Blip Festival is going on right now in NYC… Good times if you can make it!

My landlord recently upgraded her toilet and apparently they were having a two-for-one sale. There wasn’t anything particularly wrong with my old one… but who doesn’t like a new toilet?!

The new one is pretty sweet… all white and high-speed. The thing is so powerful it could probably flush a puppy or small potted plant. The only problem is that the drain on the new one is a few inches farther towards the rear than the last one.

Having the drain slightly off results in the back of the toilet actually falling a few inches away from the wall.

Okay, so a slight esthetic problem. I actually have no problem with this. It would be cool if it was against the wall, but what does it really matter? Hell, I even figure I could hide back their if I were was ever to be the victim of a home invasion or something…

Yeah, that little gap doesn’t bother me one iota, except that my bathroom is already so small, those few inches effectivly effectively put the toilet in the middle of my bathroom.

No really, there is no room in there.

Truth be told, I find the whole situation quite amussing amusing. I especially enjoy hearing my house guests discuss how they have to contort themselves to fit on the toilet.

Here are some things I’ve noticed the past few weeks:

Halloween costumes are getting less and less creative:

And in some cases, just plain lazy:

This is just so awesome on so many levels:

And while you’re in Spencer’s, make sure to pick up this awesome lamp… at HALF OFF!!!

Now, am I the only person that had no idea Slash was black? (Not being racist… I honestly had no idea)

And while we are flipping through magazines, here’s a gem from Cosmo:

Here’s an armed stand-off with a raccoon:

I would have figured someone would have noticed the similarity between their image of ice cubes and a few rolls of frozen toilet paper:

And finally, I was trying to think of a word I could use ” ‘gravy ” at the end of. My dear friend Joanna pointed out that the phrase “Man Gravy” could be shorterent with “Ma’Gravy” if need be. Thank you Stop & Shop!

It was a slightly blurry night… as are most of the pictures. My dear friend Josh did a wonderful job capturing some of the Booth vs. Lincoln fun.

Firstly, for historical reference:

Thanks to everyone who was able to make it out!

Here’s a pro tip: Begin planning your costume now for next year now.