Duckman

This is the weekend of you-know-what, so it’s time to watch some TV parodies of this indestructible franchise. (The above cartoon is from 1972, when, according to Leonard Nimoy, the popularity of Star Trek reruns turned into a full-blown phenomenon, making it one of the few shows to be better-known in reruns than it was in prime-time.)

Box art for seasons 3 and 4 of Duckman, which will come out on January 6, giving us the entire series (minus whatever Paramount winds up cutting out for music reasons; who knows what they’ll do with the Coolio episode) on DVD. It’ll be good to see Duckman and Cornfed in Haunted Society Plumbers, the Russian literature episode, or the one where Duckman is sent to prison, mistaken for a woman, and becomes part of the evil warden’s scheme to turn him into an exotic dancer. Yes, these plots make sense when you see them, sort of.

The subject heading is from one of the episodes included in Duckman: Seasons 1 & 2, available this week. This set surprised me, because I usually expect nothing but the lamest presentation from CBS/Paramount home video (home of the bare-bones sets, flimsy packaging and rescored Fugitive episodes). But this is a really well-done set. The special features are extensive: a commentary on the pilot by Duckman voice actor Jason Alexander and Duckman creator Everett Peck (he created the comic on which the series is based; the series was somewhat different — including changing Duckman’s marital status from married to widower — but he was involved with supervising the art direction for the show), a 30-minute featurette about the making of the show and its characters, featuring Peck, showrunners Jeff Reno and Ron Osborn, and most of the voice actors; another featurette on the look of the show and the characters; original promos for the series’ premiere on the then-fledgling USA network; and an “interactive guide” to the Duckman characters. Either there’s a big Duckman fan at Viacom who ordered some money to be spent on this thing, or CBS/Paramount is changing its ways. I’m assuming the former.

The back cover art for the Duckman DVD includes the dreaded disclaimer we get on every Paramount TV DVD nowadays:

Yes, finally, a Duckman DVD, September 16. The first two seasons, which, as the linked news item says, add up to a full season of 22 episodes. Highlights include three appearances by Duckman’s arch-nemesis King Chicken (who comes up with insanely elaborate evil-genius plans to get revenge on Duckman for making fun of him in school), particularly “Inherit the Judgment: The Dope’s Trial,” where Duckman is put on trial for heresy when he claims that the egg came before the chicken. (“It’s heresy to challenge their theory of chicken creationism,” explains Duckman’s partner Cornfed.) Also, the Ben Stiller clip show I mentioned in a previous post, and the episode whose plot was ripped off from an episode of “Taxi.”