¶ Challenges of Howard the Duck Movie
Part 2 of our Howard the Duck episode . In part 1 we talked about the origins of our suit-wearing duck and the events leading up to his movie . In part 2 , here we're gonna pick back up , talking about the production of this train wreck of a movie and how Howard's comic career fared afterwards .
Three months until shooting , that dynamic duo went to work and , uh , what they did was actually pretty impressive , you got to admit , for what they pulled out .
In fact , howard the Duck was the first freestanding animatronic puppet ever , meaning it didn't have guide wires or a base holding it up , and this was something the ET puppet couldn't even do at that time . Yeah , apparently ET . For a scene , he either had to have guide wires holding him up or like a base holding him in place .
For the puppet , however , one problem was durability was an issue , because I had to make him so fast , as the puppet was prone to fabric rips and tears . In fact , the very first scene where they had the animatronic head talk , it immediately ripped open the mouth and they had to like , go and damage control and repair the whole head .
In fact , this actually happened enough that by the end of the shooting , the head had been repaired so many times that it didn't really look the same , in fact , that some of the damage repairs were so intense that by the end of shooting they actually had to go back and reshoot some scenes because the puppet looked so different from its original incantation .
Oh for real , yeah , yep , a lot of ripped fabric .
So what we're seeing is like on screen . We end up seeing the final result , not necessarily like how it originally started .
Yeah , pretty much , yeah , and there's also a bunch of uh . They've made multiple puppets for different scenes so apparently if you're very observant , you can actually tell the difference in like bill sizes between certain puppets and certain scenes , because they were basically in a hurry and they couldn't make sure every puppet is exactly the same .
Whatever , get it out , go , go , go . Yeah . Basically we have three months , let's do this . They're shooting in five minutes . Get out of there . Yeah , that's probably about what it was .
To be honest , another problem they had with the animatronics was a sheer amount of wires running to Howard because , if you don't know this , when you run a lot of wires alongside together for long distances , you get something called crosstalk and that can cause interference because you know mixed signals go between the wires .
So sometimes Howard wasn't exactly doing what he was supposed to and it was also causing interference with some cameras and audio equipment and made it very difficult to shoot some of the close-up expressions sometimes because the face would just do weird stuff . Yeah , I was not aware of that . Yeah , crosstalk , yeah , it's called crosstalk wires .
It'll also happen , and sometimes you can get with spark plug wires in old cars if you run them too long . That's where I originally learned about .
Is that true for ?
you know , phone lines too . Or it depends on how well they're shielded , because you can , like , shield them with rubber coating and that helps , okay , yeah , that also depends on how much power is running through them too . To be honest , it's a lot of different varieties .
But also , I saw the cable lines that they're running for Howard and we're talking , you know it was , you know , a six inch bundle of just micro cables running across the floor . Oh , there you go , yeah . Yeah , it kind of looked like they're building a space shuttle at times , with all the wires running around everywhere .
In the end , this impressive but flawed suit wound up costing them two million dollars , which actually was not the most expensive part of the show . By by a launch shot . Really , universe of folks are head in the writing room and it has a couple more demands to go with their previous ones .
First , they need a huge final battle against a big monster , just like in Ghostbusters , because they want to be this next , this to be the next Ghostbusters . So they're like , hey , we want our own version of the Staypuff man in this . Their next demand we want a car chase scene in the movie . Why ?
Because car chase scenes were just the thing you did back then , whether they're good or bad , every movie seemed to want to just jam in a car chase , sometimes a car driving on two wheels , usually going over a jump , driving through a pile of garbage , you know , the routine Freeze frame is in the air . Yeah , yeah , exactly .
Well , never knew how we got in this position . So yeah , and honestly , some , most of the time , car chases aren't that great . I will admit , the Blues Brothers had pretty fun car chase where the cops kept trying to jump the gap and eventually it was just car after car after car going off the cliff .
That's pretty funny . Yeah , that was a pretty good one so for the big budget wasn't the one that ended off like in the movie . There was like a just a literal giant pile of cars .
Yeah , I believe there was For the big budget monster fight . At the end of the studio wanted they decided to go full stop motion Something near and dear to my heart here , because I like stop motion . It's fun . Even modern day stop motion is really cool . You just can't get the same effects from a hand drawn or computer animation .
In my mind , yeah , I really dig well done , hell , even even a poorly done , as long as it's like it stays in its lane , you know .
Yeah , exactly yeah that's jakey , 12 frames per second stop motion kind of looks cool in its own way .
you got it yeah if that's your style and that's what you're going with and the whole thing is like that , then it's good .
but if that's like you're trying to integrate it into like , oh no , this is real life , yeah no , that doesn't worry this monster , though , yeah but I even like , look the little stop motion where it's just like almost a frame every second that people do , you know . It's just like a little teddy bear going around cooking in a kitchen or something like that .
It's like , hey , that takes effort , time and thought and meat . So for the stop motion they went with Phil tippet of industrial light and magic . His very first stop motion project was for the time of that pretty cool looking and imagine it imaginative space chest scene from Star Wars . Remember that little holographic like four-tier chest thing that they had .
Yeah , that was one of the first things he ever did . He also went on to do the tauntons , the rain core , a ton of other stuff . He is basically a stop motion legend . If it was a stop motion in the 80s , there's pretty good chance he had a hand in it .
Phil tippet was also the man who , when he was working on Jurassic Park , he was a guy that Steven Spielberg famously turned to him when he saw the CGI graphics and said you're out of a job , which tippet replied don't you mean , I'm extinct . The exchange actually made it into the Jurassic Park movie , but didn't they have him .
they kept him on as like , the more they call him A special effects .
Supervisor for Jurassic Park special effects .
He was like a dinosaur advisor or something like that . Yeah , I thought it was something like that , or like dinosaur or whatever .
Yeah , and also you know I mean it's not like he was completely out of the job , he still worked after Jurassic .
Park . Oh yeah , I mean look , just cuz I think he you know that's a good quip is a great line . I mean don't you mean extinct , that really is a great line . However , like obviously not everything's gonna jump .
Just like you know , going to video games , you know when Nintendo or the NES or the Super Nintendo and then the 16 bit and then it went to the PS , you know there's like a now , like full 3D visual worlds , you know it's like there's still room for the 2D sprite . Yeah , 16 bit like there's , you know , plenty of room for those . So yeah , he's .
I'm sure you're right . He didn't turn it , he didn't go outside like someone you know .
The little boy crying shot him in the head because , yeah , yeah and honestly I would say that , much like the 2D 8-bit games of our youth , stop motion is probably more popular now than it was in the late 90s because you know Studio Like and all them guys doing their own little projects .
Mm-hmm .
Yeah , kind of have us a little bit of a resurgence . And also Phil Tippett after Howard the Duck he went on to do Ed 209 , the bugs from Starship Troopers and a bunch of dinosaurs on Jurassic Park , like we mentioned . Also , he just released a movie a couple years ago on a shutter called Mad God that I want to see .
It looks very bizarre and weird Further chase scene . They decided to do a scene where Howard would be pursued by the police while piloting an ultra light aircraft . This scene would be shot in Petoma , california , the same town as George Lucas film American graffiti .
So you know , maybe this is part of like a Lucas cinematic universe , especially since they have a Raiders of the Lost Ark joke in Howard the Duck . So hey , maybe .
Oh yeah , the dude .
Yeah , it was one of those posters is like in Duck World there's Indiana Jones . As this tradition , chase scenes are very expensive to do and this mind-numbing 20 minute-ish scene was the most expensive part of the movie , due to all the stunt drivers and reshoots and vehicle wrecks and the fact that you basically have to shut down an entire town to do this .
And pointless .
Yes , and also a universe of kind of sprung this on them a little bit later than they should have . So in a panic they had to hire an entire third crew to shoot this scene yeah , to shoot the scene . They occurred . Director Joe Johnson , who also worked with George Lucas , doing stuff in the Star Wars movies and the first India and Jones movies .
Most notably , this guy was known for designing Boba Fett's looks in the Star Wars series and he also played bit parts as Death Star Trooper in the original Star Wars and Captain Sean Valdez in Empire Strikes Back . After this you'd go on to direct Honey , I Shrunk the Kids , the Rocketeer , and he's also the dude who designed the Iron Giant .
So for the soundtrack part of the movie , there's actually some interesting characters here too . First , the actual like orchestral score was done by John Barry , who is famous for doing the mini James Bond movies at this point , and he was actually did a ton of soundtracks right up until Howard , and he didn't do anything after Howard the Duck .
I looked into it and know this movie did not kill him , but I guess he just retired shortly thereafter . I'm done , I'm done . My name is attached to this movie . I must vanish now .
So there is a band called Cherry Bomb in it that Leah Thompson , the actress , headed , and they wanted the band to look legit , act legit and actually be able to play instruments and perform a little bit . So they hired a rock and roll crew to train them on how to perform . And this is actually an interesting all-star crew as well .
First was Thomas Dolby , who wrote most of the songs in the movie and is considered one of the godfathers of 80s synth . He most famously a song for his is Blinded Me with Science , she blinded me with science . That one , yeah . But he's done a ton of other stuff . Yeah , if you look him up , his like production thing is just miles and miles long .
He also makes a cameo in the movie as a beret wearing bartender who helps Howard win a fight . Next up is Allie Willis , a name you won't know , but she wrote some huge hits like September by Earth , wind and Fire . He also wrote for Gladys Knight , the Pips , cindy Lauper , etc . Etc .
And she even wrote the Friends theme song , which she calls the whitest song she ever wrote . And she'll be correct , she would be correct . That is one of the whitest songs ever written , I believe . Finally was the incomparable George Clinton of Parliament Funkadelic fame one of the biggest influences on funk music ever .
And these three would get together and would write the very tepid title song , howard the Duck , performed by the fictitious band Cherry Bomb .
Not a great song , but apparently it worked because for most of my life after seeing that movie , you know , at the age of 10 or whatever One of the main things I remember from that was that song Howard the Duck Do , do , do , do , do , do ,
¶ The Making of Howard the Duck
do . Yeah , it only shows up at the end . It's not good . And then you pull out a guitar and play it , just like from back to the future . It's dumb . That seems cheap as a whole movie . It does , it really does . It was just like really do we need to end this with a musical number ? That's probably a universal thing as well .
So , with the effects crew together , next up was casting the actors for the role . For the role of Howard the Duck himself , they initially wanted 12 year old dwarf actor Jordan Prentice to play the role . He later went on to play the giant bag of weed in Harold and Kumar Go to White Castle . Yeah , there you go . What do you know ? You were well .
Well , he actually did a bunch of other stuff too , but that was the most notable one that I pulled off . He's in a bunch of other like little comedy bits , here and there doing this and that , so he's still acting pretty regularly . Good for him .
However , he wound up not doing the lion's share of the acting bits because , apparently because he was a little kid with a little dwarf bladder , he had to pee a lot and they had to pull him in and out of costume , and every time they had to pull him in and out of the costume it took about an hour to get you in the costume an hour to get you out .
So that took a long time . Child Labor Laws said he could only work eight hours a day and you know when you're taking a kid in and out of Sioux Law because he's got to pee , that takes an extra time .
That'd be a fair rating .
Yeah , and also too , apparently , that suit . This probably didn't help him have to pee a lot too . Apparently that suit was super hot on the outside , basically like a sauna and a mask , because his animatronic had so many motors and servos in there .
The head would heat up so much that he would actually get burns on his face and , yeah , that that was not good .
In fact they actually had to take like hair dryers and put them on like just the cool setting and just between tastes , just like jam that in the mouth of the duck , and just turn it on and just blow all the heat out they could in between tastes , because it was so god awful hot and miserable inside that suit .
Meanwhile his mom's on the side like as a sheen going come on , honey .
Yeah , you can do it , it'll be fine , all right , put the down payment on that car , hun yeah .
You can't quit Like can you hold it for longer ? Yeah , they're gonna fire you , yeah .
I didn't blow that producer for nothing , son Right . Do you realize how ?
much do you realize so much weight I've gained from blowing on his guys ?
My body's not made for this much protein . Because of all these issues , they eventually let Howard stuntman Ed Gale do most of the work . This was Ed's first role in Hollywood , but not his last . After Howard , mel Brooks cast him as Dink in Spaceball , stating anyone good enough to work on Howard the Duck is good enough to work with me .
He then also went on to play Chucky in the first two child's play movies . So that's pretty cool , yeah , and he's done a bunch of other stuff since then too . And they did still keep using Jordan Prentice .
They alternated between the 12-year-old and the adult , which kind of caused some problems in some scenes , because adults and children have different ideas on things . So a good example is when you tell hey , howard , go saunter up to Leia Thompson . A 12-year-old and a 30-year-old are gonna saunter extremely differently .
Yeah , that kind of yeah , little things like that made it very noticeable for editors to have to work around . Another thing that made a movie kind of a pain in the ass . So , yeah , and also between those two people being in the suit and everybody working the animatronic head I believe it was nine people were involved at working with Howard during the shoot .
So very busy times for Howard . Now on to the main actors . It should be noted that every person who got hired for this really , really was all in on it . They're like , hey , this is gonna be George Lucas , they're gonna make several of these movies , it's gonna be a franchise , just like Indiana Jones and Star Wars . This is our gravy train .
We are set for life . Woo-hoo , one , two and three , here we come , which you know . You can't really blame them because you know , kind of what everybody was thinking at that time .
There had to be signs . There had to be signs . You can't make a movie .
Well , also , we're talking before the movie was actually like put out kind of thing Well still like making a movie .
You can't make a movie . You're an actor saying certain lines and there was a single moment you're like whew , oh man .
By the time the movie was about to release they had kind of changed their tone a little bit . But remember , we're still at the point where they're like , hey , you want to work on a George Lucas movie About a duck , and there's just like sure , how are ?
The duck movie by George Lucas that seems like a movie that people have talked about for decades with fondness and revelry . Well , they're kind of half right on that . People did talk about it First off was actually fan of the comic book Leah Thompson for the main role opposite Howard .
She was hot off the success of Back to the Future in a big name at the time . But also competing for that role was Tori Amos , belinda Carlyle and Cindy Loper , because it was , you know , a musical role . So they were trying to get a bunch of musicians in there too .
To give her a leg up , leah went to a thrift store and decided to put together a rock and roll punk outfit by herself and show up for her audition and that she said she managed to cobble together a look that she said was a cross of Madonna and Cindy Loper , and the producers loved that look so much that they gave her the role .
I kind of like the fact she was auditioning against Cindy Loper and she apparently outdressed Cindy Loper . It's the same , look I mean okay , I would say , Madonna is a sluttier version of Cindy .
Loper , I'll grant you that I was about to say that I would take a step back in Madonna being more slutty , but not by a lot yeah . I don't know I'm . Maybe my memory is changing . I don't remember a huge difference between , like I guess to me , loper's more colorful .
Yeah yeah . Cindy Loper's more colorful , like I don't know punky broostery looking , whereas Madonna is more like leather and whippy sort of .
Okay , I would check my statement . Yeah , I think you're right . I just I don't know . In my mind's eye they're basically the same , and I was working with the old Evita came out . I just went . That's dumb , I don't want to watch it .
That's where they sang a lot .
Yeah , and I mean what's funny is like , okay , I don't know exactly what the movie's about , but I do know this the money they were like using in that like historically Argentina , how they handled that money is Jewish gold , like all these Nazis stole like all these gold fillings and like the watches , and they took all these Jewish gold .
They ran away to Argentina . So it's Nazi , jew blood gold and they're like we don't cry for me , argentina , but never mind .
Don't look behind the curtain , yep , you do not want to see how this sausage is made .
You will not like it . And if you do like it , I don't know you .
It's being about pulling back the curtain seeing how sausage is made . Back to Howard the Duck's production . Back to Howard the Duck Yep . Tim Robbins was cast as the janitor science assistant that helps out Howard . He was more or less an unknown actor at this point , but did manage to beat out Jay Leno for the role .
Apparently , at this point he was only really known for a couple of roles . He was in St Elsewhere as a domestic terrorist and he was in a little bit part and toy soldiers and the show Hill Street Blues . One thing he's famous for , though he helped found the actor's gang , a theater crew out of Southern California that eventually gave us Tenacious D .
Oh , did he ? Yeah , so hey , without him , maybe no Tenacious D and the world would be a worse place . The man who played the bad guy in this movie and also in real life was Jeffrey Jones . He was cast in this movie because people were very impressed with his job in Amadeus a few years prior .
He was also the bad guy in Ferris Bueller and Beetlejuice and pretty much a ton of other movies in the 80s and 90s .
Yeah , he was one of those guys where it's like oh hey , that guy , you know , he's like , oh he's , he also plays the bad guy .
As soon as you saw my camera too , you're like he's going to be the bad guy .
Yeah , well , always he was . And Mama Dad Saves the World , which is also a terrible movie . He played the dad . He was the good guy in that one . Oh , was he ? Okay , yeah , he was a good guy in that one . I think it's the last thing I really saw him in before I saw his mug shot because he had a bunch of , you know , kidney porn .
Yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , yeah , he was . He was a good guy in that . The bad guy in that movie was um SNL .
The liar , dana Carvey .
No , no , no , no . He's like yeah , that's the ticket , John Lovett .
Yes , john Lovett's the bad guy . I'm John Lovett , it stinks . Now onto the casting of the Voice of Howard the Duck , and this bit is kind of fun . First of all , here's a list of people who claimed to have auditioned and failed . Because I don't know .
I feel like in some interviews I was watching , there's times where they just like to say that they auditioned for Howard the Duck is to , you know , continue a joke that they're having an interview or this or that . But apparently people who auditioned for the role was Jeff Goldblum , martin Short , jay Litto and John Cusack .
And as there actually some legendary voice actors actually tried out for it too , from back in the day they were quite legendary yet , but they would be Rob Paulson and Townsend Coleman . You might know Rob Paulson from Arthur from the tick , yaakov Warner , pinky auto vine , scratch and sniff from Animaniacs and Raphael from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles .
So on that note , we could have had Yaakov Warner doing Howard the duck . So that been great . Yeah , townsend Coleman he was known for doing the tick . Michelangelo , shredder and splinter from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Seven ups mascot spot , among a billion other things . So we could add Michelangelo . Is Howard the duck or splinters ?
Howard the duck or shredder . That would be kind of cool too .
You know there was a whole yeah , I heard about the slight off-topic thing . Think about Michelangelo . Remember that you watched the original team in team movie . I saw the TMS , me just total movie from like the first one .
Yeah .
Okay . So the first one . They had a whole stick thing where Splinter was kidnapped and you know Raphael went on this slide raw . I'm so mad . He went , goes , ask kick them , blah , blah , blah . That's supposed to Michelangelo . They was supposed to be a .
It was supposed to be a character turn for Michelangelo because he's all like the happy , funny one and when you know Splinter is kidnapped he turns dark and it was kind of a character arc of his where he went from funny to like Went full dark and then kind of like , came out the other end and you know , learned a lesson and little more gritty .
But they decided to go Raphael , for whatever reason . But even studio interference because they're just yeah , man , we need the dorky , surfer version of a turtle and apparently , like some of the wide shots , like the long shots , him like climbing and being all Splinter . You see none chucks on it . On his hip instead of the size .
Yeah , but when it came down to it I was more of a Dottello fan . Were one reason , one reason only better video games . Video games period .
I knew it . So who landed the role for Howard the duck ? None other than Robin Williams himself . Now , keep in mind , at this point in history , he's not the beloved Oscar-winning actor or the Aladdin voice or a bunch of other things . He was actually just kind of known as morgue from orc and the dude who played Popeye in that movie with a Shelley Duvall .
So , yeah , he also . He's just known as a comedian . So at this point , it's not like , oh , robin Williams , he's a a-list actor , it's like , hey , robin Williams , he's a comedian . Things started off bad for Robin and only got worse when it came to doing this role On one of the first days on set .
Remember Tim Rose , the Admiral Akbar puppeteer and working on Howard the duck . Yeah , he's showing Robin Williams around the set and at one point Robin picked up the microphone that was hooked up to Howard the duck and , you know , started doing some mimic lines , you know , testing out some voices , uh , given a shot of what he thinks Howard would sound like .
And well , the voice he was doing sounded exactly like when Tim Rose was doing test reads , the Akbar guy . And as Howard's reading , or Robin's reading , these Howard lines , all of a sudden over the PA , you can hear the director start screaming Rose , you fucking asshole . How many times have I told you not to talk over that microphone ?
I'm out here doing stuff .
¶ Controversies Surrounding Howard the Duck
Stagehand immediately runs over to the director , goes hey , that's not Tim Rose , that's Robin Williams doing that voice . Without missing a beat . The director's just like Robin love what you're doing , baby , keep it up .
And .
Robin Williams , knowing what this kind of indicates , he immediately turns to Rose , goes Uh , is that the way things are around here ? And Tim Rose responds Well , to be honest , he's actually in a pretty good mood today , compared to others .
And Robin Williams without missing , because , oh , life is too short to work with people like that Not a great way to start out on the set for Robin Williams , and didn't really matter because he was gone in under a week anyways .
Yeah , that situation didn't help and , uh , the straw that broke the camel's back really for , uh , robin Williams , was the fact that , you know , normally they record the voices first and then match the mouths to it in animation , puppetry , pretty much everything like that .
Well , this time , because they're behind schedule and everything was all being done , all wackadoo , basically , robin Williams had to try to match what he wanted to say to a flapping beak that was just kind of randomly going off , and apparently doing it backwards was just a nightmare .
Very , robin Williams basically flipped out on set one day and started complaining I can't do this , this is insane , I can't get the rhythm of this , I'm being confined , I'm being handcuffed in order to match the flapping duck's bill . And he basically just walked off set because of that .
He was like , can't do this , don't want to do this by you guys , have fun . Uh , maybe he was one of the first ones that realized this movie wasn't gonna be good .
In the meantime , while Robin Williams was gone and they were scrambling to find somebody , tim Rose , the animal acbar guy puppeteer , is working temporarily Feeding in lines so they can continue shooting . And then we fast forward to memorial day weekend , 1985 . A Hollywood agent gets on the phone and calls an actor named Chip zine . Mr Zine , know how ?
You've only done Broadway roles and bit rolls and chips and playing Einstein in 321 contact for two episodes . Well , guess what role I've got lined up for you ? The agent says you get your ass on a plane right now . You can be on a Howard the duck with George Lucas . Apparently , production was a panic and needed someone like right then and there .
So they started calling up agents and chips agent was able to get ahold of chip and literally told me if you get on a plane right this moment , I can get you this job . Chip said yep , dropped everything he's doing and hopped up on a plane and just flew right out to Hollywood .
Basically , that was the last thing they needed to be doing was chip reading his lines , and then they sent it off to post-production with only a little bit of time left on the clock . They sent it out for test screenings and the test screenings for how the Duck were actually extremely good overall very positive from the people .
However , later producer Gloria Katz in an interview said she actually destroyed most of the majority of the negative review cards because she wanted the studio to think it was going to be really good . Yeah , apparently I guess I learned today too , you can have access to your little review cards too and destroy them if you want .
If you're putting a movie out for screening Interesting which kind of ruins the whole , like I mean , I know it makes you wonder how many times that has happened in history .
I know it's not exactly a scientific method , so it's not like they're breaking any ethics or anything , but it's still just they're doing this for like a take a read on a movie . Now , that being said , I also don't like screenings because I think , you know , there'd be too many times .
For oh yeah , they were going to do this awesome thing for this franchise , but instead they showed to some studio audience they really like it , so they changed it . Yeah you shouldn't have listened to them .
Yeah , oh , like back when they took out this giant spider from King Kong when we talked about that a while back . Yeah , it's just like . So promotion for the movie of his own clusterfuck here .
First of all , the film was rated PG and the fact that a couple of years ago , pg 13 was a brand new thing , so parents automatically assume , hey , if it's PG and not PG 13 , it's obviously safe for kids .
However , the parents apparently ignored all the advertisements that had ties in with Budweiser and commercials about Howard the Duck smoking and drinking , and even one commercial where Leah Thompson seductively talked about her love of Howard the Duck . Yeah , I talked about .
She likes to run her fingers through his feathers and he has a nice soft bill and stuff like that .
It's , it's , yeah , right , I don't know , like I'm not a speciesist or anything , but just I think we see your bigotry coming out here . I mean , I'd be a lot more open to it if it was like not a creature that's on earth , it's like oh , here's this other creature that sent to you . And you know , I don't know , I don't know , like a wookie even .
Yeah , so they that you couldn't find on this planet ?
Yeah , I mean just still like a duck . Come on man .
So 30 armed space tentacle , God is okay , Duck not so much . Got you , I'm going to get this . Can't gloss over the fact that there was a 1,914 tin duck number you could call . You got to call it up and get . Listened to Howard the Duck quote unquote talking to other movie stars and interviewing them .
I listened to some clips of this and they were extremely stupid . It's basically a Howard the Duck saying like hey , I'm going to be in this movie with my buddy so and so . Hey , buddy so and so what do you think of that ? And then it just like plays a clip from the movie and then it goes back to how it would be like ha ha , ha , Isn't that brilliant ?
Yeah , I mean , dude , they are bad and they all lasted like a few minutes each and it probably cost you about as much as a used you go at that point of listening to them .
Oh , don't you love the anecdote that just happened . I love it when that person talk to that other person .
Yep , that is exactly how they sound about . It's like you can tell that they didn't even know a clip was going to play next to you the voice act for Howard they're like oh , I can't wait for New York to enjoy this , I can't wait for everybody on San Antonio , right At the San Antonio theater . You're right there with about the quality of that .
Another really weird marketing angle angle that did when they're hyping up the movie is they wanted to treat Howard the duck like he was a real alien duck in the movie , being a real alien duck actor when the actors went out to real actors like Leah Thompson went out and did interviews , they even had to act like Howard was a real duck in the interviews .
When they're like how's it work , Like working with Howard , you know , since he's an alien from another planet , there's some weird things going down , but he's learning our ways . It's one of the most awkward things you'll see them trying to be like oh no , Howard's a real person . He really is . He's a real actor from a different planet .
I don't know why the studio thought that would be a good idea .
That's stupid . I mean because , yeah , you can watch it .
Yeah , they're literally just yeah . They're trying to play it off like , oh no , he's a real duck , trust us .
Literally no one will buy that .
Yeah , they should . I don't know .
Like if they're seeing , you're like , oh , we're not necessarily trying to market to kids , then what are you doing ?
Yeah , that's , yeah , right , that does seem like something you'd try to do for kids .
huh , yeah , that is a marketing you do for children , Not marketing you do for that probably also helped lead to some of the confusion for the movie .
¶ Discussion About Howard the Duck Movie
Yeah , and also there was some very unfortunate side effect from this too , because they were really on this . People need to think Howard is real deal .
They didn't let actor Ed Galen to the premiers at all because they were like , hey , if people see this dwarf actor showing up at the premiers , they're just gonna be like , hey , that's obviously the actor that played Howard .
We can't have people knowing that we can't invite that man here so that dude had to buy his own tickets to go see the movie if he wanted to see it . Oh , that's crap .
And they can at least give a free movie .
Yeah , right , yeah , they were just like hey , we can't have you at the premiere because people will associate you with Howard the duck . And we got to let people believe that Howard the duck was real . The voice actor , chip Zion he was also not invited to the premiere on the same assumption .
They're just like hey , if you show up there and you actually start doing the Howard the duck voice or people put together , they'll just think that duck's not real and we can't have that happening . Invested too much time in this , to which I'm guessing everybody involved rolled their eyes so hard they probably never came back down .
Yeah , that's just come on .
Yeah , Chip didn't even get to go to the premiere or nothing . He had to go to the local theater to see it on premiere day . When he showed up he noticed that it was mostly parents with their kids and he kind of freaked out because he was well aware this is not a kids movie . So he ran around the theater before it started .
He's like you shouldn't be here with your kid , this is not really a kid movie . After he did that for a couple of minutes he realized he was all of a sudden that creepy , weird dude telling people to leave a theater .
So he kind of simmered down .
Yeah , he was trying to help them , but also he really wait a minute . I might get the cops called on me or get shocked .
Yeah , at some point you realize . Okay , no one's taking me seriously here , yep .
Yeah , I'm just like oh okay .
Well , I'll just see what's happened and we'll just have a right later .
I mean , they'll be like oh , sorry for not listening to you it was that creepy , yeah , so I doubt they all lined up to him as he weighed outside the theater . We owe you an apology . Random stranger movie gets released and it gets released to very poor reviews and poor box office receipts .
Fear is disliked it because , despite being adult themed advertising , everybody thought it was for kids . So they brought their kids along and their kids apparently didn't like , because they're like what's this going on here ? Mom , can you explain these things to me ? Why does that duck have boobs ?
Yeah . Well , I think adults like why is that duck have boobs ?
Yeah , they were like what is this weirdness ? Critics also hated this movie because , well , they just said it was a bad movie . Gene Siskel just flat out called it a quote , unquote stupid film . And Leonard Moulton he openly questioned why they went with live action when it should have been perfectly good for an animated movie .
He could not understand why they didn't make it animated . And that was the correct question . Yes , it was . That little ball was just like why not animate it ? Why this monstrosity ? A couple of the critics apparently actually said that too . Leonard Moulton was actually just the most famous thing .
New , it wasn't the Razi , for that year is released and was nominated for worst movie of the 80s . My opinion is far from the worst movie of the 80s . It's honestly it's not horrible . It's like maybe a five out of 10 . No , it's just got some really bad pacing things and some shots going way too long , but there's some all right moments to have there .
This is by far like yeah , not the worst movie in the 80s . Yeah , Anybody said this is just wrong .
They're just saying it to sound popular and start a conversation .
You're the worst movie , the eight , I mean . Now , that being said , I can't exactly bring one out from my head like oh no , this is worse . But I mean , I don't know .
I don't know . There's a bunch of trauma movies that are pretty bad Right , but hell the or trauma-esque movies that weren't quite as good as trauma but just awful . Or , you know , some of those Roger Corman films of the 80s , superman 4 .
Superman 4 , there you go . That was awful . It was awful and it was even worse because at least with Howard the Duck , he was the first outing and it's not the fourth in a series where it was just like that steadily . They got steadily worse as they went along .
A few things from the movie to go over with , just cause interesting little tidbits and stuff .
So there's a scene at the beginning of the movie , like right towards the beginning , where Howard's just sitting in his chair minding his own business when suddenly he gets yanked out of his , through his apartment , busting through walls , past her masturbating duck in the bath and sucked into a big sky vagina .
It's true , he gets yanked through all these walls , through his building and at one point there's a female duck sitting in the north of the wine glass just masturbating in the tub .
Yeah , I remember the food he burps through the wall and she goes right back to going at it , so yeah , yeah , that's disturbing .
Yeah , that is .
No , sir , I don't like it .
Yeah , howard the Duck is yanked past a masturbating duck and right into a giant big sky vagina , and , yes , it's a big pink hole in the sky Nate .
And that scene , though , is important for one reason , cause for that whole scene , they basically had Howard the Duck on a guide wire track on this chair and everything , and this was the first instance ever that they used CGI to delete guide wires from a scene , and this would be something that pretty much every action movie , from then on out , would use .
Probably the most famous scene was a matrix bullet dodging scene , where you know the whole lean back . Yeah , yep , howard the Duck , technology was used for that .
Hmm .
Yeah , oh yeah .
¶ Howard the Duck
And as he gets sucked into the big sky vagina , we get to hear a blowhard narration that basically flat out stage yeah , this franchise is going to be hit and it's going to be around for a while . Here's the narration , nate as he goes into it , big words coming up on the screen and everything .
Hmm , the cosmos , countless worlds upon worlds , worlds without end . In these galaxies , every possible reality exists , and what is reality on any one world is mere fantasy on all others . Here , all is real and all is illusion . What is , what was and what will be ? Start here with the words .
In the beginning there was Howard the Duck and then the credits start rolling . Now , if that doesn't scream setting up a franchise , I don't know what does .
Yeah , or attempt at least .
Yeah , or attempt . Also , it sounds like they're setting up a little bit of multiverse stuff there too . It does , doesn't it ? Yeah , it really does . Also , in this movie you get to hear someone refer to cocaine as Toot , which is something that I'm pretty sure died off with the 80s Game . Member sees Howard the Duck crawl out of a dumpster .
Somebody's like man , I'm too high on Toot for this Toot . Also , you can see an all-female biker game called Satan Sluts , and all this I just described happens in like the first 10 minutes , so you can see why parents were a little weirded out . Yeah , from the jump , Like oh man .
Yeah , from the jump .
It's just strapped like hey , this is adult-oriented stuff , mommy . What Satan Sluts mean ? Yeah , it leads to some awkward conversations , I'm sure . What was that duck ?
doing in the bathtub .
Yeah , I see mommy doing that in the bathtub sometimes when daddy's gone . At the end of the movie where they're fighting the giant stop-motion monster that the studio insisted be put in , there's a scene where Howard fires a laser cannon at the big baddie .
Hyrule goes off and you know the Howard the Duck head gets set on fire and some of the suit gets set on fire , with young 12-year-old Jordan Prentice inside of the suit . Panic ensues and he was put out with fire extinguishers . Thankfully he was fine and he was actually kind of okay with it . But labor in industries and OSHA was not .
This scene actually got it a mark with the Child Endangerment Act or Child Actor Endangerment Act . So I guess if there's gonna be a lot of fire around , don't send your 12-year-old out there to be in the scene . It seems kind of weird . They had him out there for that at all . So Howard the Duck now considered a commercial and critical failure .
All plans for a sequel are scrapped and the idea of making another movie-based stuff of a Marvel license is so tarnished . No one tries again until 1998's Blade , blade , yep , blade , okay , yes the next .
okay , yeah , that was the next Marvel movie to come out .
It took 22 years for another Marvel movie to be made , because everybody's like well , that don't work . Comic movies , apparently that's not gonna be a thing . I mean , there were words like the Punisher movie and some made for TV movies .
I'm not saying that because there was like more than that .
Yeah , we were talking about theatrical releases .
Okay , yeah , I should have stipulated that earlier Was the Punisher a Dolph Lundgren . Was that not ? Was that a direct TV ?
That was made for TV movie . I actually had to look that up .
I didn't realize that .
That movie's only like an hour and six minutes along . I had no idea that was yeah or maybe wasn't made for TV , maybe it was direct to videos what it was . But yeah , it was never in theaters . Yeah , I believe it was shown as like some schlock thing later down the road and that , oh man , it's so bad too . It's so , it's depressing , it is bad .
The only thing I mainly remember that was naked Dolph Lundgren , like meditating in the sewers , and I was like this doesn't seem very Punisher-y .
I mean , I remember more than that , but it just it wasn't good , it just wasn't had to do the Yakuza , they were stealing kids . And it ends up the very end where he's like yep , 89 minutes . It was giving a worldwide theatrical release , except in the United States , sweden , south Africa . Yeah for me . So yeah , it was .
It was straight to VHS , it was a direct to video in America .
Yeah , is your mind blowing , Nathan ? It is blowing . So how are the duck ? That year it was a financial flop as far as box office went .
It was 54th in the box office for that year and we're gonna go over some movies that when it came out that year cause this was actually a stacked year for movies that came out the movies that it did better at at the box office Arnold Schwarzenegger's Raw Deal armed in dangerous with John Candy , maximum Overdrive by Stephen King , big Trouble in Little China ,
highlander , troll , transformers , the movie Clue , labyrinth and Little Shop of Horrors . So it did better than those movies . The movies that made much more money than it American Tale , aliens , top Gun , crocodile Dundee , flight of the Navigator , the Fly Short Circuit , three Amigos and , for some reason , song of the South Re-Release , yeah , but the Song of the .
South Re-Release . Yeah , yeah , I remember the old Zippity-Doodle .
Oh no , totally , yeah , I just- . Yeah , they were released in theaters back then and apparently it did all right . Well , yeah , of course it did all right , cause you know , oh man , I just- . It's Disney and also Disney was like not releasing anything around that time of note . Really , I don't think .
Yeah , I love how the Disney falls basically got out the window , cause they're like I remember the Disney vault . Oh , we're releasing Pinocchio from this month to this month and that's it , and then we're gonna lock it back up . Nowadays , the age of streaming is like , okay , you can lock it back up , but then you just get in by piracy .
Like if you want to make something on this , then put on Disney Plus or have it available , cause the moment you lock it away , it's just , we're just gonna pirate it , that's the end of it .
And we are morally right to pirate it too , cause F them Right . So , as you can guess , with the movie tanking , immediately the actors and crew start distancing themselves from the movie . They mainly turned on the film and proclaimed how they always thought it was just a one-time paycheck . And yeah , you know . Yeah , this movie is crap From the start .
We just knew it was gonna be anything . They're all lying , nate . They all thought they were on the gravy train with meatball wheels , whatever that term is . One aside is between this movie's financial losses and the divorce he was going through , george Lucas actually , in 1986 , had to sell off the graphics group which he felt underperformed on this movie .
Who wound up buying this ? Steve Jobs , who promptly renamed it Pixar . This kind of goes back to you know how are the duck comic being remade because of chicken bones being mailed out , or burnt bones being mailed out , directly released to Pixar being formed ? I mean , in a real brownabout way we can pretend right .
Right .
Yeah , also , in 1986 was Howard's first appearance back in the comic since the original series or the magazine . He shows up in an episode where he's extremely depressed and goes through . It's a wonderful lifestyle story motions . So whether he's depressed about the movie or not , I'm not sure .
Couldn't find a copy of the comic to read and even though it has multiple stories in it , on the cover of this magazine it says not for kids . We mean it . I would kind of wonder if that was a slight jab at the movie thing You'll be like , oh sure .
Yeah , I mean , especially after the recent people going in there and their kids looking at duck boobs .
Yeah , duck memories . Yes , yeah , that had to be a fun meeting where they were just like , hey , we need a female duck here . Well , what do female ducks have they got knockers ? Give her knockers . I want to feel up at duck knockers on set .
So after that appearance in the comics in 1986 , howard would just kind of show up sporadically here and their guest appearances showing up alongside of Spider-Man it showed up in She-Hulk a lot , because you know the humor kind of matched up with them and at one point even teamed up in DC and merged with Lobo to make Lobo the Duck and basically just as little
guest starring and
¶ Howard the Duck's Journey
stuff . We're gonna keep on going until the year 2000 when Marvel would contact Steve Gerber to do a new Howard the Duck series . See , marvel is launching its new Max sub-brand of comics to be geared towards adults and Marvel wanted a six issue Howard the Duck mini series to go along with it . Do you remember that Max line that ?
came out .
Yeah , I had actually forgotten about it until doing this research . Gerber sat down with his artists and they decided to design Howard the Duck and start making this comic . So they had their design for Howard the Duck ready and went to the higher ups at Marvel who looked at those and said , hey , you forgot about that whole Disney thing , didn't you ?
And they said , well , we thought that kind of like passed by them . They're like nah , nah , nah , nah , disney ain't gonna be happy with these drawings . You gotta change some stuff up on them . So Gerber now , probably having some triggered PTSD , was again very pissed . So he went to the Marvel higher ups with a new plan . He's like hey , isn't Howard ?
More personality first and character design second . How about for this mini series we try something different . Like we make him into a mouse , kind of a jab at Mickey Mouse . And the Marvel higher ups were like you know what ? We actually kind of like that because it is more about the personality than anything else .
Hey , and they even went one step further and like , hey , maybe we should make them a variety of animals for this series . Let's do that . We'll call it Howard the Zoo , and that was kind of the unofficial name for that mini series is .
He was mainly a mouse through the entire thing , but he would pop up as the occasional different critters that you know getting shot by ray guns . Whatever he's Howard the . Whatever Howard the moose . Yeah , I couldn't find copies of the to read either , so I tried .
Kerber actually wanted to take advantage of this situation and suggested they put out a reader poll so fans could vote for their favorite new animal persona for Howard , his new fursona as it would be . And yeah , it was going to be like hey , what are the fans voting for ? We'll permanently change it to that .
Mainly , he wanted this as a way to get out from under Disney , so that way he could just go back to designing character the way he wanted to without being like , hey , I'm handcuffed here , right , yep , the series came out and was pretty popular .
The series featured a long time Howard the Duck antagonist , dr Bong , who was not in fact a Bong but a bell themed villain . Oh yeah , I'm guessing his origins were probably a joke back in the 70s , you know , because bongs were around in the 70s .
Yeah , bongs were in the 70s . Make sure they didn't call them out .
Well , here's the thing Back then you had to call them water pipes so they'd kick you out of the smoke shop because bongs were used for smoking marijuana , water pipes were used for smoking tobacco .
So the series also mainly parody popular comics of the time and they did good job parodying Sandman , preacher , witchblade and more in the series which were the popular comics of the time . Howard the Duck's spoofing preacher might be kind of fun , or Sandman .
Was Sandman ? Was that old school Sandman the new Sandman ?
Like current Sandman . I believe the current Sandman the DC Sandman .
Yeah , but they're both DC Sandman . One DC Sandman like he was like an old school guy , like old timey thing , but then the new Sandman it's like the dream Morpheus .
Yeah , I'm pretty sure it's a dream Morpheus guy , because I mean , this is gonna be 2000s ?
I don't think this is the same thing as stuff from the 70s .
Yeah , I mean they might , but also if there's their lampooning preacher I'm assuming they're also doing the newer stuff too and Witchblade . Sadly , this would be the final time Steve Gerber and Howard the Duck would work together , as Gerber passed away due to illness in 2008 . Sad times .
Sad times .
Yeah , one last note with him , though . In Marvel's Secret Wars 2 there's a character named Thunder Sword who is Stuart Caldwell , a television writer empowered by the beyonder . He's actually a parody of script writer Steve Gerber , and if you look at the pictures of him , it's like he looks identical to Steve Gerber . So there you go .
There's an in memoriam of Steve Gerber . He's in Secret Wars 2 . I don't know if it was a really flattering image of him or whatnot , but depiction of him , but I don't know , didn't read it . 2009 rolls around and , with Steve Gerber finally out of the way , disney makes its move to acquire Marvel Comics .
Finally out of the way .
Yeah , I'm sure that they're not related , but it's fun to think that Steve Gerber was the last bastion holding back Disney . He's like we want to make our move here , but we got Steve Gerber there being angry and pissy . Oh , he's like standing out front with a pitchfork fending off Will Eisner or whoever it is back then .
I promise you , if he was the only staying away of Disney , he would die a lot sooner . Oh , he accidentally fell out of a window .
Yeah , Steve Gerber was so depressed over the Howard the Duck movie that he just happened to fall out of a second story window and land on a bunch of bullets .
Right , this is me while someone randomly shooting the air . Yeah , they're not supposed to do that , but he landed on the bullets .
He died from the fall , but that falls only like eight feet . Oh yeah , he landed on a bunch of bullets too in the process . So after Disney bites , and probably because the lawsuit really didn't matter anymore , howard starts showing up pretty much everywhere , starts appearing in a new mini series .
One of them were Howard the Human shows up on a planet of ducks in a little roll swapping and another two shot where he teams up with Squirrel Girl , howard the Duck and Squirrel Girl , who is very popular character , who I know very little of Squirrel Girl . It's also fun to say what Squirrel Girl .
Squirrel Girl yeah , it is . It is kind of , and they hired it . I thought the hiring someone to play Squirrel Girl like a live action , but they never really did anything they did and it didn't go anywhere .
And it was the chick who's like the eight .
She's in the 18T commercial .
Yeah , they actually had test shots of her and she looked really good at Squirrel Girl actually .
Who apparently is Squirrel Girl , is a friend of Galactus . Impressive yeah , they exchanged Christmas cards . Oh neat yeah . Apparently she has the highest like win rate with the villains because most of the villains she quote-unquote wins . She's be friends . She defeated Galactus by befriending him .
Yeah , I should have heard seen articles written about how she's like the most powerful Marvel character because she's like lost the least battles or something like that . Yeah , like on a technicality , is actually Squirrel Girl was hey , whatever . Whatever works man , hey , whatever you get to sleep , man , that's fine . So , outside of his little mini series he did .
He started showing up as guest appearances in a lot of comics and also now starts showing up in animated shows . Before the Disney acquisition , far as I can tell , the only animated thing he ever showed up in was a episode of the original X-Men cartoon where he's on a shirt that Beast is wearing .
That's literally the only appearance of a cartoon before , like I would say like 2012 , I believe 2014 . To the delight of fanboys everywhere , howard the Duck pops up in the MCU and his voice by one , seth Green , for the voice .
Seth Green .
Yeah , Seth Green For the voice . Seth Green is just doing an impression of Danny DeVito . So if you want to know where that voice comes from , it's Seth Green doing a Danny DeVito impression .
I didn't realize that I just turned Seth Green in his role , though I didn't really think too much deeper into it .
Yeah , yeah , yeah . Usually if you ask a voice actor like , hey , what's your source behind this or your inspiration , yeah , this is Danny DeVito . Also for the record , howard the Duck did survive the blip in the Marvel movies . Whether that matters to you or not , I don't know , I just found out .
Well , if he survived , oh so he wasn't vanished , is what you're saying ?
Yeah , okay , seth Green also provided the voices for him in the television appearances of what If and the Guardians of the Galaxy and Ultimate Spider-Man on Disney XD when he showed up . Oh , is he in that too ? Yep , just little bit parts .
¶ Howard the Duck Potential Movie
In a 2016 interview , rob Zombie says he once pitched a Howard the Duck movie idea to Marvel , but they turned it down . 2018 , and Leah Thompson says in an interview she's preparing to meet with Marvel over her idea for a new Howard the Duck movie .
She's actually still a fan of Howard the Duck after all these years and still thinks , actually , the character has great potential for being a movie and would like to be part of the movie too Maybe not , you know , as a continuation of the old character , but just , you know , be part of it because , again , she likes the character . That's cool .
Hulu intended to air a Howard the Duck animated series that was going to be written and produced by Kevin Smith and Dave Willis . That would have eventually led up to a crossover featuring a Howard the Duck , modoc , hitmonkey , tigra and Dazzler , and it was going to be called the Offenders .
However , in January 2020 , hulu canceled Howard the Duck series and scrapped all plans for the Offenders as well , and that's essentially where we stand right now . Howard is mainly a guest star in the MCU and cartoon series .
I'm sure he's going to get some more comic mini series up coming up soon , because he's still a highly popular character and that's good news for fans , isn't there ? We have it , howard the Duck . Is he still popular , far as I know , because I remember people were like all over themselves when he showed up on the .
What , if I remember everybody's super stoked about that . Yeah , far as I know , he's pretty popular with fans . I mean , far as I know , whenever he's not on screen , everybody's asking where's Howard ? Out loud Yep , just like old Poochy . So there you go , nate . Have you learned anything fun and exciting this episode ? I did .
I learned that Howard the Duck was actually popular and he did things . Yeah , he did do things , many things , including succeeding and failing , right , yeah . Yeah , I mean , I really do think .
I should come out with another movie about him , but again they need to fix their mistake and like just the way that I'm doing it is that I'm doing it is like I'm doing it .
I'm doing it , I'm doing it , I'm doing it , I'm doing it , I'm doing it , I'm doing it , I'm doing it . They need to fix their mistake and , like , just did live action .
Oh yeah , I'm pretty sure at this point it would be all CGI , or actually they could even pull out the CGI slash live action thing . Okay , nowadays , I would guess . Even if they did the animation , like they did for the what ifs so now , hopefully , you at home have learned things about Howard the Duck too , and now you have , your life has been enriched .
That's what we have to say today .
Thank you , Howard .