A Holly Robinson pre-21 Jump Street? Science fiction and enough duck puns to fill a soundstage from top to bottom? Howard the Duck has it all. Howard the Duck seems to be the bastard son of LucasFilm - right from the start a different kind of story. Not for everyone , though well it should be - I mean who can't enjoy campy 80's sci-fi in just the right doses?

Based on Steve Gerber's comic, this commonly misunderstood story is about a humanoid "duck" that was sucked through a wormhole from his egg-shaped home planet to the middle of Cleaveland, Ohio on our Earth.  It's my personal opinion that it had to be a challenge to even attempt to get an audience to buy a concept of a duck in a human-centric world (no surprises it met with dismal box office numbers - as ambitious and creative as it was) . If that wasn't difficult enough- it occurred to me the writers must have had a hell of a time trying to make sense out of how Howard got to our universe and at times make sense out of ludicrous subjects, characters and conflicts that just took a leap of faith and a fruitful imagination. But it still remains one of my favorite Sc-fi stories from the 1980's.

Thomas Dolby's avante-garde score mimics subtley water fowl sounds and sound effects in deciding his melodies.. real genius when you think about it. Jeffrey Jones displayed a range from soft spoken scientist- to conjuring up character driven inter-universe demon possession (but on the lighter side). Tim Robbins blooms from bumbling assistant to full blown adventurous duck side-kick.

In the days pre-CGI for effects they relied on more "practical effects" (sometimes there is irony here) - such as puppets, doubles, stop motion and articulated costumes. In the case of Howard the Duck the actor began as a little kid in the suit to soon realizing that the mannerisms of a full grown man took exactly that -  a big man in a smaller package (Ed Gale) who did such a good job its no wonder how he secured a niche career for himself with future work from Space Balls, Child's Play,and  Bill and Teds Bogus Journey to O brother Where Art Thou, The Polar Express and cult television favorite My name is Earl. At the time he was filling Howard's feathers he was capturing the essence of a "duck" that was also a "man" by selling realism in mannerisms that a child could not - such as a confidant strut, various instrumental articulations and of course the trademark cigar smoking. Four additional animators behind the scenes helped give life to the costume and facial expressions via radio control and various animatronics. I can remember that at the time I saw this for the first time it really made me fall in love with the nitty gritty craft of movie making.

The memorable Dark Overlord from another dimension makes itself visible to the heroes and heroines via a 15 inch very sophisticated, very epic, very articulate armature that is perhaps one of the very last and definitely one of the most impressive since Ray Harryhausen. I would not see stop motion work so well with a story until I witnessed Tim Burtons' wonder that was Beetlejuice 2 years later.

Hope this is eggactly what you are looking for (yeah i just said that)

TJPARSONS