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Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Contrary to Duckman's worst fears, the "private dick/family man" is not doomed to "live an unnoticed, unappreciated life," not with the DVD release of this cult fave animated series based on Everett Peck's underground comic. For four seasons, Duckman nested comfortably in the USA Network's "Up All Night" programming block, its politically incorrect misanthropy given full voice by Jason Alexander as a character whose cluelessness, insensitivity, deviancy, and boorishness are his best qualities. Who is Duckman? No one special, he laments, "I'm just one more duck detective who works with a pig and lives with the twin sister of his dead wife, three sons on two bodies and a comatose mother-in-law who's got so much gas she's a fire hazard." As with Alexander's signature Seinfeld character, George Costanza, Duckman has few redeeming qualities. He's an incompetent detective whose few acts of heroism are inadvertent (in one episode, he is sent flying after groping two women and unwittingly lands on a Presidential attacker). He rants and raves on everything from "clean" comics to the commercialism of TV news. His catchphrases are equally obnoxious: "What the hell are you starin' at?" and "Homana, homana, how wah." This could get tiresome after awhile, but what buoys Duckman are its inventive and vividly colored animation (produced by the folks who birthed Rugrats, Klasky Csupo), sharp and clever writing, and virtuoso voice work by Alexander and company, including Nancy Travis as Duckman's braying sister-in-law Beatrice, Dweezil Zappa as Duckman's dim son, Ajax, and E. J. Daily and the late Dana Hill as his other conjoined-headed son, Charles and Mambo, and Gregg Berger as breakout character Cornfed Pig, Duckman's brilliant porcine partner whose deadpan just-the-facts delivery suggests Jack Webb, but who insists his "spiritual forerunner" is Jack Lord. Duckman can be hit and miss, and some of its satiric targets (reality shows, fact-based TV movies, clip episodes) are obvious, but for those who like their comedy most fowl, it really fills the bill. --Donald Liebenson
Product Description
Movie DVD