Duckman- Seasons One & Two + Duckman – Seasons
Three & Four (Paramount DVD)
Picture:
B- Sound: B- Extras: B- Episodes: B+
Before South Park, before Family Guy, before the crazy antics of Adult Swim…there was Duckman. Duckman
features a foul mouthed Duck Detective who has more issues than any duck
ever should. The series originally aired
as part of USA Networks Up All Night programming
lineup that catered to an older audience.
Duckman even had to
eventually be bumped to a later time slot to appease parents that complained
their children were still seeing the ‘mature material’ at its intended
time. The series is certainly targeted
toward an adult audience, but unlike other series Duckman never uses bad language or gross-out tactics just for the
hell of it. Instead the series uses a
brilliant blend of humorously witty satire along with sex, violence, horrible
parenting, crime, and alcohol mixed to create a chaotically intelligent series.
The
animated series stars Duckman (voiced by Jason Alexander; Seinfeld) as a wise cracking, abusive (alcohol…violence…you name it
he’s done it), private detective who messes up, more than he cleans up. Duckman works with his straight arrow, Joe
Friday-esc, business partner, Cornfed Pig (voiced by Gregg Berger). Cornfed knows pretty much anything, about
everything; having held many previous occupations, being a Vietnam Veteran, and
oddly enough having a Peruvian Medical Degree.
Cornfed picks up most of Duckman’s slack and is the one who solves most
of the cases; though Duckman takes most of the credit. Besides his private detective business,
Duckman spends the other half of his time dealing with his family. Duckman’s family consists of Ajax the
dimwitted son with a heart of gold, Charles and Mambo the genius conjoined
twins, Duckman’s intolerant sister-in-law Bernice, and Grandma-ma the
flatulently comatose family member.
The
series is smart on one level, with its profusion of film, pop-culture, and
literature references; but concurrently uses highly integrated storylines give
the series an even greater depth. Duckman is hardly a throwaway series;
every episode is interconnected with reoccurring characters, past episode
references, and integrated plots that collectively make for a great experience.
The series
has a great art direction that is extremely unique with no series before or
after having the same charm. Duckman is bright, colorful, and
visually stimulating; but at the same time has a dark gritty side with varying
shades and textures that appeal to the adult themed, pseudo-crime drama of the Duckman universe.
As if the
main voice acting wasn’t enough the series also saw its fair share of guest
stars. The list of guest stars over the
4 Season, 70 episode span is huge. Stars
like Brendan Frasier, Estelle Getty, Ben Stein, and many, many more all made
appearances on the series. The stars
recognized the quality of the series and the genius that was spun into every
scene. It was intelligent, it was funny,
it was crude, it was Duckman.
But what
is most surprising about Duckman,
above all else, is how relevant the series still is. It almost seems as though it never even had
to try. The series has such a fine
balance of comedic irrelevance and satirical significance that its components
are just as fresh as ever. Where as South Park rips ideas from the
headlines of today and Family Guy seems
stuck on Star Wars and 1980’s
references; Duckman was unique in
that its pop-culture and literary references were timeless. The series smart writing style makes it all
the more memorable then, now, and always.
The
technical features throughout the four seasons presented on the two sets here
are not amazing, but get the job done quite nicely. The picture is presented in 4:3 aspect ratio
that demonstrates bright colors with a crisp image that is properly enhanced by
solid black levels and contrast. There
are moments where the image does appear a tad blurry and there are instances of
grit and debris throughout all four seasons, but nothing that is overly
distracting. The audio track is
presented in a simple Dolby Digital Stereo that projects everything pretty
evenly giving main priority to dialogue with the ambient and action noises
coming second. The sound is minimal to
say the least, but it gets the job done crisply and adequately.
The box
set for Seasons One & Two has
4-Discs with three of those discs containing many extras. Disc
One includes a commentary track with Jason Alexander and Everett Peck on
the Pilot episode of the series. Overall
the commentary is pretty drab as it only offers an interesting tid bit here and
there, but there is also a ton of silence that makes for a boring
experience. Disc One also includes some Promo Spots for the series and though
fun and entertaining, there is not nearly enough. Disc
Two features several featurettes that investigate the workings of the
series with specials like What the Hell
are you Starring At: A Special Investigation Inside Duckman, Private
Dick/Family Man which dives head first into the creative process surrounding
the series, focusing mainly on cast/crew interviews to display how the creative
series was dreamt up. Also there is a
featurette entitled Designing Duckman:
Inside the Creation of an Anti-Hero from Comic Book Character to Screen Star
(13 minutes) that delivers just what the title suggests as the crazy duck
is taking from the comics to the television screen and the work that went into
designing the scenery along with the evolution of the characters. The third and final featurette on Disc 2 is entitled Six Degrees of Duckman that describes each main character on the
series individually in a biography format that is very text heavy, but is
better than other DVD sets as it presents small video montages of some of the
characters’ ‘best’ moments. In the end,
the extras were certainly not the best this reviewer has ever watched, but they
were a lot more extensive than I would have guessed. Most of the time animated series such as Duckman get pushed to the wayside and
never get a fair treatment as far as extras on DVD, but the box set for Seasons One & Two gave us more than
was expected; too bad Seasons Three
& Four don’t do the same.
The
extras on the 7-Disc 48 Episode set of Duckman:
Season Three & Four deliver only three featurettes that total less than
20 minutes of material. First up is Video of the Original Animatic Drawings and
Animation from the Unaired Pilot with Everett Peck and Greg Berger (15 min)
and discusses how the series came to fruition with much of the show developing
in phases. A second featurette is Walk Cycles, Expressions, Storyboards and
Pencil Tests that is just as lackluster as it sounds as it displays rough
animatics (pencil drawings) of the characters as the would eventually be
presented on the series. The final extra
is a featurette that displays some storyboards from the pilot episode “I,
Duckman,” but overall is not very exciting.
Taken as
a whole (between the two sets) the extras were nice, but more is to be
expected. The extras were no where near
as bad as I would had anticipated, since so many animated series get the bare
bones treatment; but in the end the series would have benefited greatly by
having more commentaries, especially from Jason Alexander and fellow cast
members.
From the
first episode, the series took off like a beer and nudity magazine filled
rocket. There was never a slow, awkward
point and there was never a time when it seemed enough, was enough. The series was good from beginning to end and
the episodes can be watched again and again.
I’ll tell you what the hell I’ll be starin’ at!
- Michael P. Dougherty II
