02.06
In the 90s, there was this show called the Simpsons. It was popular. Ridiculously popular. It was a show that appealed to everyone with it’s smart jokes, edgy humor, and slapstick gags. As a comedy, it had everything one could want and it was animated on top of it. So it got bigger, and naturally when something gets too popular, everyone wants a piece of the pie. Because of the Simpsons’ popularity we had a slew of shows come out that missed the entire point of it.
This frequently happens. A show will come out and be so popular that everyone will rush to copy it’s surface details without exploring why it truly succeeds.
The Simpsons was popular because it appealed to everyone and tried everything, the networks only saw a prime-time animated show and thought that was all it took for a hit. So we naturally got a lot of forgotten failures like Capital Critters, Family Dog, and Fish Police which completely missed exactly why the simple formula of the Simpsons was such a success.
However, because of the Simpsons, animation had a chance to spread it’s wings during this period and there were shows that took advantage of this door the Simpsons had opened. One such show was Duckman: Private Dick/Family Man, an adult show that pushed the boundaries of what adult animation could entail but at the same time never forgetting it’s roots in animation with frequent insane and unpredictable plots as well as gags and ideas only possible in a cartoon. This was an adult cartoon through and through, not an animated sitcom that forgets it’s a cartoon, nor a cartoon that forgets it’s a sitcom. It was truly unique for the time, and in many ways, still is today.
Now don’t get me wrong. When I say “adult”, I don’t mean humor that is offensive for the sake of being offensive nor do I mean random humor meant for potheads still awake at 2am. The show dealt with subjects as rich as spirituality, government, society, human beings, relationships, and family, and never completely dismisses them but offers a critical eye on the subjects that questions why we think the way we do about them while throwing in a nice ribbing for everyone involved. But while the show touches on material such as that, it never forgets it’s an animated comedy and throws in as much satire, slapstick, foul jokes, and wordplay that one can handle with each of it’s characters and the crazy world they live in. Duckman is truly an adult show with a brain, made simultaneously for those who like to think when they laugh and those who like to turn their brain off and laugh. It’s a balance few shows have ever gotten, but Duckman has it in spades.
The episode variety for this show is staggering. You can have a noir parody one week, followed by an episode about family squabbles the next, then an episode about the wonders of television, or instead maybe a robot invasion or maybe a Twilight Zone satire? It never lingers too long on the same subject or area, it rarely repeats itself (except for a gag or two), and is constantly on the move. Duckman is a show that is as quick as it is creative.
But, the show wouldn’t be as great as it is without the characters though, and this is where Duckman goes the extra mile to make itself work. Duckman is a lewd, loud, and totally disgusting sex pervert who cares nothing about anyone but himself (or so we think) and is the one who most of the extreme jokes come from in the show (usually followed by a mob lynching or an equivalent, though), yet while most shows would just leave him one note like that, as we learn more about his life and his past, we learn why exactly he operates the way he does. It doesn’t excuse him, but it does shed a bit of light on him that he puts on more of a front than he wants to admit. His partner is a pig named Cornfed, who could very easily by the Mary Sue (or Gary Stu for guys) of the show, and actually is one in the first few episodes. He is very quickly given personality quirks (over-thinking, over-bearing, and not as liked by others as he thinks he is) that many such characters do not. Duckman’s family is also interesting, including an overbearing and hateful against the world sister-in-law named Bernice who has a soft side for her family and is always looking for a man (though never the “right” type of guy), a teenage son that is clueless yet poetic in his ignorance of the world (he knows his limits and knows he cannot overcome them), two twin boys who are merged together and are geniuses (yet are complete social retards without any tact whatsoever) and a family line that is probably best viewed for oneself in the series without being spoiled here as it really is hard to explain in words.
Duckman ran for 4 seasons and around 70 episodes, which is probably the longest for an animated adult show at the time, and it earned every episode of it’s run. Strangely compelling in it’s surreal nature and it’s straightforwardness, it’s both simultaneous rejection and constant embracing of traditional values, it’s dumb and smart humor, and it’s complete insanity that is grounded in some form of reality. Duckman is an anomaly, as strange today as it was when it came out in the 90s. It seems almost like it was ahead of it’s time, but couldn’t actually have been made at any other point in time than the 90s when the Simpsons opened the door for shows like this and before networks truly understood how to copy the success of the Simpsons. It exists solely for that one point in time where adult animation was not yet defined nor successful, and it’s probably for the best that it came out when it did.
The show is now out on DVD all 4 seasons are spread across two DVD sets and is surprisingly affordable. If you want something truly unique in the world of adult animation, you can’t go wrong with Duckman. Just be warned that the final episode is a bit controversial and has a cliffhanger ending that was made purely to mess with viewers. It makes sense when you remember the show itself thrives on that sort of humor, however, and probably couldn’t end any other way.
I’ll leave you with this old ad for the show when it was airing on USA in order to give you an idea of what the show was truly all about:
And that’s just the beginning.
Originally posted on Tuesday, April 13, 2010.