Duckman

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Duckman
(left to right: Eric Duckman, Bernice, Ajax Duckman, Gecko Duckman, Charles and Mambo Duckman, 'Grand-Ma-Ma', Cornfed Willibald Feivel Pig)
Format	Sitcom
Created by	Everett Peck
Starring	Jason Alexander Gregg Berger Nancy Travis Dana Hill Pat Musick Elizabeth Daily Dweezil Zappa
Country of origin	United States
No. of seasons	4
No. of episodes	70
Production
Running time	22 minutes
Broadcast
Original channel	USA Network
Original run	March 5, 1994 – September 6, 1997
External links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

Duckman is an Emmy Award nominated animated sitcom developed by Jeff Reno and Ron Osborn, based on characters created by Everett Peck in his Dark Horse comic.

Contents 1 Description 2 Plot 3 Characters 4 Guest stars 4.1 Final episode 5 Computer Game 6 DVD release 7 Episodes 7.1 Season 1 7.2 Season 2 7.3 Season 3 7.4 Season 4 8 See also 9 References 10 External links

[edit] Description

The series consists of 70 episodes that aired right before USA's Up All Night on Saturday nights from 1994 to 1997 on the USA Network. The initial showrunners were Reno and Osborn, and the show was produced by Paramount Television (now CBS Paramount Television). The animation was produced by Klasky Csupo. In later years, the show running duties went to David Misch and Michael Markowitz. Producer Gene Laufenberg was with the show for most of its run. Scott Wilk and Todd Yvega created original music for the series, including the theme.^[1] The first season also featured excerpts from the late Frank Zappa's published catalog. The original timeslot for Duckman episodes while still being produced was changed to later at night due to complaints from parents about children seeing the adult humor-oriented show.

[edit] Plot

The series follows the adventures of a lascivious private detective duck who lives with his family and sister-in-law Bernice (his late wife's identical twin). Duckman's wife, Beatrice, died before the show began. The tagline of the show, seen in the opening credits, is "Private Dick/Family Man." (Dick being short for Detective, as well as serving as a double entendre)

The series takes place in Los Angeles, as indicated by the episode "Bev Takes A Holiday" when Beverly's detective tells her "here is the address in LA" when referring to Duckman's address.

[edit] Characters

• Eric Tiberius Duckman (Jason Alexander): The main character, called simply Duckman throughout most of the show, though he recalls his father referring to him as "Duckboy" in his younger days. He shares his middle name with Captain James T. Kirk of Star Trek fame, a role Duckman assumes in "Where No Duckman Has Gone Before". A slovenly, womanizing boor who is more interested in sex than work, he usually fails at both. He is lazy, sarcastic and obnoxious, with a quip or insult on the tip of his tongue. He relies heavily on his partner Cornfed, who has gotten him out of numerous precarious predicaments. He has been shown or implied to be responsible for the deaths of at least three of his family members, including his wife and father (his father's last words were apparently "Careful, son, I don't think the safety's on."). Despite all of this he would risk his life to save them, even going so far as to throw himself on a bomb, sacrificing himself to save the rest of his family.^[2]
  Duckman is a widower; when his wife Beatrice died, she left their house to her sister Bernice, so as to insure some sort of stable atmosphere for her and Duckman's three children, Ajax, Charles and Mambo. He graduated high school in 1971,^[3] and is also a graduate of Don Galloway Detective School and has a detective license from Panama signed by Manuel Noriega. Duckman wears glasses which contain his eyes. They can be removed like normal glasses, taking his eyes with them.
  Duckman often uses his catch phrases, "What the hell are you staring at?", "Hommina hommina how wah" (punctuated in the first season by somebody saying "I didn't know you could speak Cherokee"), and his trademark scream of "D'wah!" Often when Duckman had something to celebrate, he would do "The Funky Duckman," which is a non-stop series of pelvic thrusts while "singing" the lyrics "You thrust your pelvis, hah!" over and over. The first line is usually "You let/put your down down."
• Willibald Feivel Cornfed, also known as Cornfed Pig (Gregg Berger): Duckman's Joe Friday-esque business partner; loosely based on the character "Greggery Peccery" as portrayed by Frank Zappa in a handful of songs. An amazingly talented pig, Cornfed knows dozens of ancient martial arts. For much of the show's run, Cornfed is secretly a virgin - this is "remedied" in an episode regarding the Cornfed family's genetic disease contracted from a relative generations past who enraged a tribal elder in a foreign country and was force fed an odd berry.
  Most (if not all) of the cases solved by the Duckman Detective Agency are solved by Cornfed, with Duckman usually hurting the case rather than helping. Cornfed deals with all of the elements of the detective agency that Duckman ignores, such as getting the clients, paying the bills and solving the cases. Cornfed has also helped Duckman numerous times with his personal life, and has often offered him advice on how to keep his family together and how to avoid the various villains, scoundrels, debt collectors, famous celebrities, video stores, politicians, late-night talk show hosts, ex-classmates, ex-girlfriends, prostitutes, pizza delivery drivers, nuns, 9-1-1 operators and old ladies who want to see him dead.
  Cornfed might look mild-mannered, but in his chest beats the heart of a super pig and is also a jack-of-all-trades similar to Forrest Gump. He has had numerous former occupations, such as mailman, truck driver (at which point he reunited Duckman and his wife Beatrice, also naming their son Ajax after the company he was employed by), waiter, plumber, clerk for a Supreme Court justice, and member of the Irish Parliament. He has a medical degree from a Peruvian med school, and was also educated in air conditioner and VCR repair (the former of which was paid for by Marla Maples when he did her wainscoting at Mar-A-Lago).
• Ajax Duckman (Dweezil Zappa): Duckman's eldest teenage son. He speaks with a slight Californian surfer-dude accent, and always calls his father "Dod." Despite being somewhat slow, he is a skilled free-verse poet, and occasionally surprises Duckman with a few words of slacker wisdom, as well as the occasional piece of obscure knowledge. He is not quick to take action unless he needs to, and when he does need to take action, usually finds a way to avoid it. Still, his dad is proud of him. Ajax got his name from a trucking company Cornfed was driving for when he and Duckman first met. Ajax is a huge Merv Griffin fan.
• Charles and Mambo Duckman (Dana Hill then Pat Musick, and Elizabeth Daily): Duckman's Siamese twin sons, whose heads shared the same body and both think very differently. In fact, both heads are often arguing with each other. Charles and Mambo are geniuses. Although Charles and Mambo may seem physically odd, they often are more level headed than their single craniumed father. Duckman can never seem to remember Mambo's name (calling him "la bamba," "mandingo," "mono" and "Gumbel," among other things). In later episodes, occasionally one will attempt to commandeer their one shared body.
• Bernice Florence Hufnagel (Nancy Travis): Duckman's sister-in-law. Dresses in spandex and is a fitness buff, always trying out the latest exercise trend. Bernice hates Duckman with a passion and constantly criticizes him for his lack of interest in his children and anything else involving his family. She also beats him up once in a while. She would like nothing more than to see him fail or get in over his head on one of his investigations.
  Although she reviles their father, Bernice is very loving to her nephews. She is considered to be their primary caretaker, since their father is usually either running off on a dangerous case or dealing with a dangerous case of the runs. Bernice does have a soft spot: she never fails to show her appreciation to anyone who can show up her no good brother-in-law. Sometimes, it may have been implied in the series that she likes Duckman more than she realizes). She eventually falls in love with King Chicken, Duckman's arch-enemy; towards the end of the series they become engaged and marry in the series finale. It is revealed in the fourth season that she was actually a triplet, and had another sister, Beverly, who was separated at birth. She eventually became a congresswoman.
• Beverly Glenn Hufnagel (Nancy Travis): Beatrice and Bernice's long-lost sister. It was revealed in the fourth season that Bernice and Duckman's wife Beatrice were separated from their triplet sister at birth. Eventually she tracked them down and took over Bernice's place in the household when Bernice was elected to Congress. She is much nicer to Duckman than Bernice, and sees the good in him.
• Beatrice Hufnagel Duckman (Nancy Travis): Duckman's first wife. Duckman met her in a farming country area in Iowa while working for a magazine that sent him to take pictures of bridges, and she met him after a car accident when he hit her cow. They began to spend a lot of time together and quickly fell in love with him. She was originally married to a duck named Richard until he had a heart attack (caused by Duckman), and she married Duckman soon after. She became pregnant with Duckman's first son Ajax while still married to Richard.
  She and Duckman were married for several years until she was believed to have passed away from when Duckman flicked his cigarette out into the street during a parade and it hit a balloon, which deflated and knocked her down a manhole. Beatrice looks a lot like her sisters Bernice and Beverley, but is much softer spoken than either. She is usually seen wearing a dress with her hair fixed up. Duckman idealizes his love for her, despite his puerile tendencies. She is revealed to still be alive in the series finale.
• Grandma-ma/Sophia Longnameovich (Nancy Travis): Duckman's apparently comatose and immensely flatulent mother-in-law. In the episode "Aged Heat", she is kidnapped by her dopplegänger Agnes Delrooney (played by Brian Doyle-Murray), who poses as her for several episodes until her scam is revealed (although in the meantime there was an episode which made it obvious that it was really Grandma-ma). Grandma-ma sits in the same chair and rarely moves.
  Grandma-Ma has a soft spot for her son-in-law, but can only express it in her disgusting bouts of wind-passing. Grandma-Ma also loves to watch TV, although most of the Duckman family often wonders if she is aware of what she is watching, or whether or not she knows where she is. In the episode "Crime, Punishment, War, Peace, and the Idiot", it is revealed that she is a Russian immigrant. She had a boyfriend named Petrov, who looked like Cornfed and was coveted by Trigorin, who looked like Duckman.
• Gecko: Duckman's purple dog. Although this may seem strange in the real world, in a family that has a two headed duck and a patriarch whose best friend is a pig, Gecko is the most normal of the bunch. Like most dogs, Gecko likes to eat, but as far as watch dogs go, is not very good. Still, Duckman prefers his company any day over Aunt Bernice's. It's also shown in one episode that Gecko was stolen by Duckman from one of his neighbors, and that his true name is "Sparky."
• George Herbert Walker 'King' Chicken (Tim Curry): Duckman's arch-nemesis. Duckman bullied him in high school, setting him down the path to supervillainy. He has been the constant thorn in Duckman's side, doing everything he can to ruin the duck detective's life. Although his plots often end in defeat, King Chicken keeps on clucking, returning again and again with more nefarious schemes. He became engaged to Bernice during the series finale.
  King Chicken is an evil genius, often proving to be intellectually superior even to Cornfed. He also has an uncanny talent for manipulating others. His schemes have often involved turning very large groups of people, sometimes even the whole country, against Duckman, usually in hopes of making him feel as isolated as he did when he was bullied in high school. He has created deadly viruses capable of manipulating reality itself, incited all women in America to destroy and vilify Duckman, and convinced a small southern village that Duckman was the Antichrist himself. During the final confrontations, it is usually by accident or a fluke that Duckman manages to foil his plans.
  Despite his hatred of Duckman, he does not seem above forgiveness. In one episode, he learns the reason that Duckman bullied him in school: Duckman was the 2nd most unpopular kid in school and would always get beat up after Chicken ran home. Upon this revelation, the two briefly become good friends. He and Bernice also seem to have a romantic interest in each other, drawn together by their mutual hatred of Duckman. They often engage in loud (and destructive) sexual intercourse.
  His catch phrase is simply "Mwah ha haa, bawk bawk bawk!" Usually punctuating the end of his speech about his evil plan. His first and middle names are based on President George H.W. Bush.
• Honey Chicken (Judith Light): King Chicken's wife. She has frequent 'romantic' affairs with Duckman, and has had a daughter together with King. She is engaged to Duckman in the final episode.
• Fluffy and Uranus (Pat Musick): Duckman's two teddybear-like office assistants. One is pink, the other blue, but their constant optimism makes them interchangeable. A constant running gag involves each of them attempting to show Duckman the brighter side of whatever issue he's having at the moment, only to be somehow ripped to shreds, literally, in various fashions by Duckman. They are literally living stuffed animals, so are perfectly fine by next episode or later in the original episode.

[edit] Guest stars

The show regularly featured high-profile guest stars, including David Duchovny, Heather Locklear, Coolio, Burt Reynolds, Carl Reiner, Lisa Kudrow (in an episode titled "The One With Lisa Kudrow in a Small Role"), Eddie Deezen, Katey Sagal, Estelle Getty, Leonard Nimoy,Charles Martinet (as Super Mario), Marina Sirtis, Ben Stiller, Courtney Thorne-Smith, Brian Keith, Ben Stein, Janeane Garofalo, Joe Walsh, Ice T, James L. Avery, Sr., Eugene Levy, Gilbert Gottfried, Bob Guccione, Bobcat Goldthwait, John Astin, Joe Mantegna, Vicki Lawrence, Jim Varney, Tisha Campbell, and Dan Castellaneta (as Homer Simpson). Jason Alexander had a small "cameo" as himself in one episode.

Episode 51 "With friends like these" was supposed to be voiced by the cast of Friends, but designs were changed at the last minute.

[edit] Final episode

In the final episode, many characters get married and as the ceremonies draw to a close, Beatrice (Duckman's deceased wife) appears and shocks the entire crowd. Cornfed reveals he knew that Beatrice was alive all along. This plot twist is never resolved and has thus created a cliffhanger. Writer Michael Markowitz noted (in Sep 1998): "We never formally planned Part II... and I'll never tell what I personally had in mind. I'm hoping to leave it to my heirs, for the inevitable day when Duckman is revived by future generations. Ah, the Spandex suits they'll wear, the hovercrafts they'll fly!"

[edit] Computer Game

Towards the end of the series, a point-and-click adventure computer game was created. In it, Duckman has become a famous detective, and a television series based on him is about to debut; but, someone is pushing Duckman out of his own life, and replacing him with a bigger, better, heroic Duckman. The player's goal is to help Duckman get rid of the impostor and reclaim his rightful place.

[edit] DVD release

In January 2008, TVShowsonDVD.com reported that Duckman would be coming to DVD.^[4] In May, details were finally announced. The first set will include the first two seasons of the shows, for a total of 22 episodes, and will be released on September 16, 2008.^[5]

[edit] Episodes

[edit] Season 1

Show #	Prod. code	Date	Title	Description
1	4000	5 Mar 94	"I, Duckman"
2	4001	12 Mar 94	"T.V. or Not to Be"
3	4003	19 Mar 94	"Gripes of Wrath"
4	4004	26 Mar 94	"Psyche"
5	4005	9 Apr 94	"Gland of Opportunity"
6	4006	16 Apr 94	"Ride the High School"
7	4007	23 Apr 94	"A Civil War"
8	4008	30 Apr 94	"Not So Easy Riders"
9	4009	7 May 94	"It's the Thing of the Principal"
10	4011	21 May 94	"Cellar Beware"
11	4010	28 May 94	"American Dick"
12	4012	4 Jun 94	"About Face"
13	4013	11 Jun 94	"Joking the Chicken"

[edit] Season 2

Show #	Prod. code	Date	Title	Description
1	4215	11 Mar 95	"Papa Oom M.O.W. M.O.W."
2	4214	18 Mar 95	"Married Alive"
3	4216	25 Mar 95	"Days of Whining and Neurosis"
4	4217	3 Apr 95	"Inherit the Judgment: The Dope's Trial"
5	4218	10 Apr 95	"America the Beautiful"
6	4219	17 Apr 95	"The Germ Turns"
7	4220	24 Apr 95	"In the Nam of the Father"
8	4221	1 May 95	"Research and Destroy"
9	4222	8 May 95	"Clip Job"

[edit] Season 3

Show #	Prod. code	Date	Title	Description
1	4224	6 Jan 96	Noir Gang
2	4223	13 Jan 96	Forbidden Fruit
3	4225	20 Jan 96	Grandma-ma's Flatulent Adventure
4	4226	27 Jan 96	Color of Naught
5	4327	10 Feb 96	Sperms of Endearment
6	4328	17 Feb 96	A Room With a Bellevue
7	4329	24 Feb 96	Apocalypse Not
8	4330	2 Mar 96	Clear and Presidente Danger
9	4331	9 Mar 96	The Girls of Route Canal
10	4332	16 Mar 96	The Mallardian Candidate
11	4333	6 Apr 96	Pig Amok
12	4334	13 Apr 96	The Once and Future Duck
13	4335	20 Apr 96	The One With Lisa Kudrow in a Small Role	(Also known as Planet of the Dopes)
14	4336	27 Apr 96	Aged Heat
15	4337	4 May 96	They Craved Duckman's Brain!
16	4338	11 May 96	The Road to Dendron
17	4339	25 May 96	Exile in Guyville
18	4341	22 Jun 96	The Longest Weekend
19	4342	29 Jun 96	The Amazing Colossal Duckman
20	4343	6 Jul 96	Cock Tales for Four

[edit] Season 4

Show #	Prod. code	Date	Title	Description
1	4449	4 Jan 97	Dammit, Hollywood
2	4446	11 Jan 97	Coolio Runnings
3	4440	18 Jan 97	Aged Heat 2: Women in Heat
4	4445	25 Jan 97	All About Elliott
5	4447	1 Feb 97	From Brad to Worse
6	4448	8 Feb 97	Bonfire of the Panties
7	4450	15 Feb 97	Role With It
8	4451	22 Feb 97	Ajax and Ajaxer
9	4452	1 Mar 97	With Friends Like These
10	4453	8 Mar 97	A Trophied Duck
11	4454	15 Mar 97	A Star is Abhorred
12	4455	22 Mar 97	Bev Takes a Holiday
13	4456	12 Apr 97	Love! Anger! Kvetching!	(Also known as Ain't Gonna Be No Mo No Mo')
14	4457	19 Apr 97	Duckman and Cornfed in 'Haunted Society Plumbers'	Nominated for an Emmy
15	4458	26 Apr 97	Ebony, Baby
16	4460	3 May 97	Vuuck, as in Duck
17	4459	10 May 97	Crime, Punishment, War, Peace, and the Idiot
18	4461	24 May 97	Kidney, Popsicle, and Nuts
19	4462	14 Jun 97	The Tami Show
20	4463	21 Jun 97	My Feral Lady
21	4464	28 Jun 97	Westward, No!
22	4465	12 Jul 97	Short, Plush and Deadly
23	4466	19 Jul 97	How to Suck in Business Without Really Trying
24	4467	26 Jul 97	You've Come a Wrong Way, Baby
25	4468	2 Aug 97	Hamlet 2: This Time It's Personal
26	4469	16 Aug 97	Das Sub	(Also known as Class Warfare)
27	4470	23 Aug 97	Where No Duckman Has Gone Before
28	4471	6 Sep 97	Four Weddings Inconceivable

[edit] See also

• Squirrel Boy

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Duckman at TV.com
• Duckman at the Internet Movie Database
• Jump The Shark - Duckman
• Cooltoons