Howard The Duck

I spent a lot of time recovering from the Black Plague over the weekend, which gave me a lot of time to watch movies.

I managed to catch the entire Howard the Duck movie, something I haven't done since the 80's! It was on at like 1 am saturday night, and due to daylight savings time kicking in, it lasted until 3:30 am! That's like three and a half hours of Howard! I was in Duck Heaven.

For those few uncool people that haven't seen this movie, I feel pity for your passionless souls. Howard the Duck is about this poor, hapless humanoid duck who is living the good life in an alternate earth populated by intelligent ducks (instead of humans) when a spectroscopic laser beam whisks him out of his living room, easy chair and all, and deposits his feathery ass in a back alley here on EARTH. What follows is the most hilarious, most rock and roll, most intimate romantic love scenes between a woman and a duck ever seen on the big screen! Spoilers to follow. You know, just in case you haven't seen the movie since it was released back in 1986. What rock have YOU been living under? Maggot.

So after howard gets tossed into some dingy back alley in the middle of the night, he gets tossed into a trash can (he's not a big duck, mind you) by a bunch of thugs who think he's a kid in a duck costume. This theme continues throughout the movie, obviously, who expects to see a walking talking duck running around in a sweater vest and a tie? In a back alley on earth? In the middle of the night? So, Howard, who is having a very bad day at this point, decides to take a little duck nap in the trash can until Lea Thompson (who looked so hot back then) tries to exit a bar after her band finished it's gig there and gets tossed against a trash can by a couple of thugs who want to molest her. I'm not sure what it is about back alleys that attract these kinds of thugs. I spent a lot of time in back alleys myself and I never had a thug molest me. I mean, what the fuck is wrong with me that I can't even get a goddamn drunken belligerent thug to molest me? Is my ass too fat? Are my moobs not large enough? I mean, shit, I'm just as hot as the next guy in the dark! What the FUCK is your problem? FUCK YOU BACK ALLEY THUGS! FUCK YOU AND YOUR 80'S HAIRDOS!

Howard, being awakened by Lea falling onto his trash can, becomes angered by the mistreatment of the poor helpless Lea Thompson, otherwise known as Beverly in this movie. I mean, you can only push a duck so far, right? Well, not a two dollar duck, you can push them to the edge and over and they just keep taking it like a good little... errr... uh. Howard, a self proclaimed Master of Quack-Fu, reacts in sheer martial arts poetry, no doubt inspiring later spin offs like Flying Tiger, Hidden Dragon. That's right, I just called Flying Tiger, Hidden Dragon a martial arts spin off of Howard the Duck. Blow me. Howard destroys the thugs with his Quack-fu-ery, and Beverly takes pity on the poor duck since it's raining now and he doesn't have an umbrella. I personally thought ducks were fond of water, but hey, what the fuck do I know, right? So bev takes Howard home, after establishing the fact that he's not actually a kid in a duck costume but an actual, honest to god alien who just looks like a duck (because why the hell would you take some crazy whacked out kid in a duck costume home at 3 am, and not a nice, well mannered alien duck?), and Howard promptly falls asleep on her windowsill. Hey, he's had a bad day, adding human-duck intercourse to the mix would just be over the top, no matter how good Bev looks in her 80's mini skirt and big hair. Still, I woulda done it. But I'm odd.

So anyway, there's a little subplot about the relationship between Howard and Bev developing, and he takes over as the manager of the band she's in, the Cherry bombs, because the one they had was a bona-fide dick, and I guess that one letter makes all the difference, because once the duck takes over the band does lots better. The patrons of a bar threaten to accost howard, but since proving to them he is an actual alien Duck, for goddamn sakes, he tells them he has Space Rabies and if he bites them, they will die horribly in less than 15 seconds. Hey, I'd believe it, I had Space Rabies once, and believe me, it was no picnic. What? I got better. I had Space Herpes, too, but that's a whole other movie (Ice Pirates with Robert Urich). Also, Bev spends some time sharing a bed with howard, but there's no duck-human Boom Boom going on, at least not yet, despite Bev wandering around in panties and bending over on all 4's in front of howard. Shit, if she had done that in front of me, I'd a ducked her. I'd have DUCKED THE SHIT OUT OF HER. Space Herpes or no space herpes.

The main plot is, basically, Bev has a scientist friend played by Tim Robbins, of all people, yes the academy award winning Tim Robbins plays a geeky scientist in Howard the Duck. Actually, he plays a geeky janitor who KNOWS geeky scientists, which turns out to be just as well, since he knows Jeffrey Jones! Jeffrey Jones, hero of Mom and Dad Save the Earth, which was probably the only movie ever to have Kathy Ireland in it that did reasonably well. But anyway, Jeffrey Jones plays Dr Jennings, an astrophysicist who was testing an intergalactic spectrometric laser ray type thingy (don't get all sciencey here with me folks, this is 80's science fiction based on a comic book here) on the night when Howard was brought to earth, and they figure out that it was Dr Jennings space laser (as I will refer to it from now on) that accidentally sucked howard through the wormhole to earth. Good old Dr Jennings rapidly becomes accustomed to Howard being a walking talking alien duck, and they become fast friends. Dr jennings happily decides to send howard back to his own planet, and whoosh, off he goes, end of movie.

HAH! If only things were that easy. Dumbass. Getting aliens home is NEVER that easy, didn't you ever see ET? Men in Black? Starman? Fucktard. Go watch a goddamn movie.

So while Bev and Howard are on the way to the lab to get howard home, Dr Jennings goes on ahead to get the space laser ready to send howard home. However, the space laser has ANOTHER mishap (damn space lasers, goddamn things never work right) and Dr Jennings is blown through a wall or something just before howard arrives. The resulting fire and damage slightly delay howard's departure, just long enough for the police to show up (doubtless being called to put out the fires from the mishap) and discover and arrest howard on suspicion of... being an illegal alien. heh, This movie kills me. Bev frees Howard, Howard and Bev get lost in the bowels of the lab while trying to avoid the police, and run into Dr Jennings, who is wandering around in a daze from the explosion. Dr Jennings helps them escape the lab in his car, and the police put out an all points bulletin, shoot to kill order on the escaped duck. Because that's what you do with ducks, you SHOOT THEM. Just like in Duck Hunt, I guess.

On the way out of there, Dr Jennings begins to complain of bad gas. But it's not bad gas. Oh, noes. It's a DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE that has been sucked out of the Nexus of Sominus, just like howard was sucked out of his living room, only instead of the DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE ending up in a back alley like Howard did, the DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE ended up in Dr Jennings bowels. Probably not the cleanest of places to hang out after being sucked out of your own pocket dimension, so obviously the DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE began taking over poor Dr Jennings. Much like in the movie Alien. Only BETTER. So the trio (or quartet at this point) pulls over to a diner so that Doc Jennings can get some food so he feels better. I know a nice greasy breakfast at 3 am always makes me feel better after a night out testing space lasers and avoiding police, so I can't fault them here, it's exactly what I would have done. EXACTLY.

So while waiting for breakfast, which Howard freaks out at because, you know, it's EGGS! lol Howard and Bev discover that Dr Jennings, well, he just isn't good old Jeffrey Jones anymore. He's become a PEDOPHILE! :-o Wait... no. That's what happens to the ACTOR, not the character he plays in this film. Sorry, I got confused. Yea, according to IMDB.com, Jeffrey Jones was brought up on kiddie porn charges and hasn't worked in movies since 2007. I guess he took to chasing Ferris Bueller on his day off a bit too often.

But yes, at this point in the movie, the DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE has taken over Dr Jennings, and begins to display psychic alien death ray powers. You know, like what shoots out of your ass after a burrito special at taco bell. So Howard gets in a brawl with the patrons of this diner over the egg situation (I guess him and patrons of public places just aren't going to get along for the duration of this movie), and Bev manages to convince the pedo- , I mean, DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE that if he doesn't save Howard, he's going to lose the Code Key that the DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE needs to unlock the lab and the space laser so he can bring down his other DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE buddies and they can have a big DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE party on planet earth and make it their bitch. Which, is totally what the DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE wants to do, so he wrecks the diner, saves Howard, gets the code key, and takes Bev off in a stolen semi back to the lab, stopping off at a nuclear reactor along the way to refuel... his bowels. I guess radioactive waste wasn't on the menu at the diner, which is SO odd because i thought that's what the three star breakfast at Denny's WAS. I could be wrong.

The police track howard to the diner, but Howard frees Tim Robbins, the lab janitor/geek, from a squad car, and they escape the police in a powered glider which just happens to be sitting in the vacant lot next door. Hey, don't ask me what it was doing there. Alien duck luck. So tim robbins and howard make it back to the lab well in advance of the police, only to find Bev tied up underneath the space ray... ahhhhh, Lea Thompson tied up, that brings back SO many memories of the fantasies I... HEY. I was 16 when this movie came out and Lea Thompson was a HOTTIE back then. Bite me. If I want to tie up Lea Thompson in my 16 year old fetish fantasies, I am goddamn well going to do so and she's going to LIKE IT. At least, in my head she does. All the time. Oh baby. I need a minute.

So, uh, where was i. OH right. Bev. Tied up. Under the space ray. Sigh. So, Tim Robbins takes howard into another part of the lab, where they keep the experimental death ray weapons. Oh come on, Dr Jennings in a mad scientist, OF COURSE he has a locked room with hidden death ray lasers. DUH. So Howard grabs a space ray, zaps Dr Jennings, and Tim Robbins unties Bev, even without having sex with her first. Goddamn lab geeks need to get their priorities straight, you NEVER untie Lea Thompson without having sex with her first, that's my motto. But The zap Howard gave Dr Jennings didn't kill the DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE. Oh no. It only freed him from Dr jennings, who is now fine, and Dr Jennings helps howard escape from the true form of the DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE, which, kind of looks like a cranky space-crab-snake-scorpion who is having a very bad hair day. So now that the DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE is out in the open, howard gives it a good zapping with Dr Jennings death ray laser, and then has to make a choice between saving the earth, and going home. So he destroys the space laser with the death ray laser, and the movie ends with Howard, managing bev's band Cherry Bomb, onstage, doing a duet with Bev, singing the movie's title theme song, Howard The Duck. I mean, DUH. Go back home to my worthless Duck-job in my apartment, alone, OR, rock out with Lea Thompson? FUCK YEA!!!!!! I know which one I am picking.

Right, so I loved this movie. It reminds me so much of the 80's, and as everyone knows, the 80's were AWESOME. They were, don't you even say they weren't, SHUT YOUR WHORE MOUTH. I mean, if you can watch this movie and not laugh when Bev opens Howard's wallet and finds a credit card to Bloomingduck's, and a duck-sized condom, or not be thrilled when Dr Jennings tells the diner patrons to "Release the small waterfowl," and not cry when Howard gets Bev in her end, uh, I mean, at the end of the movie, then you are more of a heartless alien monster than a DARK OVERLORD OF THE UNIVERSE. This movie not only restores my faith in women, it also restores my faith in ducks. Shit, when they were rocking Howard the Duck at the end of the movie, I quacked out with my rack out, jumping all over the room playing air guitar, hairy moobs flapping like... like the WINGS OF A DUCK! lol Hey. It was 3 am when i was watching it, who the hell has clothes on at 3 am on a saturday night? No one I want to know, that's for sure. plus it made it SO much more enjoyable to watch Lea Thompson tied up. :-D

But the movie did not restore my faith in all waterfowl, of course. Geese are still the spawn of hell. I mean come on, they are PURE WHITE and their bills are BRIGHT YELLOW. If those aren't warning colors in the animal kingdom, I don't know what is. I mean, look at cows. White and black in random patterns to warn you to STAY THE HELL AWAY. What? Cows aren't dangerous? Oh, you naive, innocent FOOL. Cows are the most dangerous, terrifying things on the planet. Fuck venomous snakes, toothy sharks or marauding lions, try a STAMPEDING HERD OF COWS and see if you don't run for your goddamn life. I was in one when i was in my teens, and I ran for my life. I mean, you encounter a venomous snake, and you can usually shoo it away with a stick. Sharks, you punch in the nose (i've never been attacked by a shark to actually confirm if that works or not), or if they aren't too big you can just shove them away, or hell use a bang stick. Masai warriors hunt lions with spears as a way to pass their teen years. But a fucking stampeding horde of COWS? You best fuckin run, cuz there ain't no bang stick or spear that's going to save your sorry ass. RUN YOU GOODAMN FORREST GUMP SONOFABITCH, RUUUUNNNNN LIIIIKE HELLLLLLLLLLLLLL!!!!!!!

They tell you that vengeance is best served cold, but don't tell me that when I am EATING A HAMBURGER! Oh yea, baby, SIZZLING HOT ALL BEEF PATTY!!!!!! Take THAT you BLACK AND WHITE MONSTERS FROM HELL!!!!! I AM GOING TO GO TO WENDY'S LATER AND ORDER A GODDAMN DOUBLE HAMBURGER!!!!! WITH CHEESE!!!!!! MUA HA HA HA HAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!