Original subtitles

George Lucas is an old friend.

I had gone to film school with him and

Gloria Katz, my wife slash writing partner

and I had

written American Graffiti with him.

So, you know, we felt very comfortable and

this was

another collaboration.

After

American Graffiti,

George had said that he had found this

comic book

about a duck from outer space that lands in

Cleveland.

And he said it was

just, he thought it was very funny.

And he thought

it was kind of very film noir with this

absurdist element.

And

we sort of forgot about the idea.

But then by the

sort of early '80s,

we began to think, well, maybe there is, as

ridiculous as this idea sounds,

maybe there is something that would be very

entertaining in this film and very unusual.

I think the attraction was that it was

going to be entertaining and fun and sort

of off the wall.

I mean, it was very different than the

things we had been working on previously,

so we looked forward to that.

Are you ready for an incredible story?

Help somebody!

This is obviously no place for an

intelligent, sensitive duck.

Well, Steve Gerber, we met with him and

talked to him about the comic book and how

he saw Howard's journey on Earth.

And

you know, he had a very unique

sense of humor.

So Gloria and I sat down and started

working on stories.

Actually, the original story

that we came up with was Howard in

Hawaii,

because we thought it'd be sort of fun to

shoot there.

And we didn't really want to explain why

Howard ended up on Earth, but, you know,

everybody in the movie business being very

literal, you have to start from Duck World,

explain what happened to Howard,

and

we sort of

were resistant to that, but we had no

choice. So we

actually went back and rewrote

it.

We actually used quite a bit of the

original story of how Howard arrived from

the Steve Gerber comic, and there was

always sort of goofy humor, and there was a

love story,

and yet there would be suspenseful, darker

elements too, so we incorporated all of

those, and it was a juggling act.

Listen!

You got some place to go?

Hey,

if I had someplace to go,

I certainly wouldn't be in Cleveland.

Casting Beverly was interesting because I

think we looked at every young

woman, every young actress, dancer, singer,

because she was in this group, Cherry Bomb,

which is a group we had to put together.

So we did a lot of casting.

We saw a lot of beautiful girls.

I remember I was running around at thrift

stores trying to buy stuff to audition with

so that I could look like a cross between

Madonna

and Cyndi Lauper.

remember trying so hard to find rosaries

and weird jewelry

and everything

for my big audition at Willard and Gloria's

house for Beverly Switzler.

Well, we loved Leah in Back to the Future,

and George really loved Leah also.

And we thought that Leah personally has a

great sense of humor.

When I got the part, they sent me a bunch

of the comic books, which I thought were

hilarious and really funny and irreverent, and

I read the script.

It was

very, very hot project at the time.

I beat out a lot of

girls.

I mean, plus I got to play a rock star,

which was really fun.

Part of the casting process was to get

young women who looked like they would be

in a group and could

play instruments and so forth,

and Leah actually learned to do it.

really wasn't a singer, and I had to work

really hard.

They worked me every single weekend, and

they kept threatening me that they might

not let me really do the singing.

Even halfway through the shooting, I don't

think they were entirely convinced whether

they were gonna keep my voice, and they did.

And I was a dancer.

I grew up as a ballet dancer, so the dance

part was fun and easy,

except I had a very, very heavy guitar that

I had to play,

and it kept bashing me in the leg.

Hickory dickory duck. He

ain't about to be plucked.

Tom Dolby was great.

He was our music director.

And he worked with the group.

And he put together a group that I thought

was good.

You know, he did sort of avant-garde rock

and roll.

And so he was there almost the whole time

helping us do the musical score and

helping choreograph all the movements.

Listen to me, small visitor.

I can explain how you got here.

Jeffrey Jones, of course, is a great

character actor.

We had seen him in Amadeus

and thought he would be fantastic in this role.

He had a lot of range.

You know, for me,

playing the part that I played, which was

really two different people but inhabiting

the same body,

the kindly scientist, kind of distant Dr.

Jennings and the

dark overlord of the universe who inhabited

his body,

it was great fun.

because it did actually have an arc and a

development,

and plus the fact it was very extreme.

So I love being the Dark Overlord of the

universe, who incidentally Willard

referred to as

the dirty underpants of the universe.

You think that's funny, Jenning?

I'm not Jenning anymore.

The transformation is complete.

I am now

someone

else.

Jeffrey was, I think, an inspired choice,

and he was really into it.

He worked on the voice.

He was very concerned about how the monster

would evolve, and it was difficult because,

again, when you shoot out a sequence, he's

always thinking, What part of my

transformation am I in?

Yes,

soon the dark overlord's willing delphiate.

Tom and Barry Berman, who were the makeup

artists,

we talked with Willard and Gloria,

And they came up with a progression of

looks when

the appliances would change shape

and get more pronounced.

And there were teeth and there were lenses

and a wig.

And as far as the progression was

concerned, it's just acting.

I want to see your license, Jack.

I have no license.

I am not

Jack.

The terrible thing was my daughter was

about four years old, and we wanted her to

come to the set.

And every time she saw Jeffrey,

she would start to scream and cry and

get hysterical.

And Jeffrey really, really felt bad. It

was pretty terrifying to see him and make

up eating lunch.

It was something. She

took my eggs!

Listen, everybody, this is it.

I've just seen it.

It's in there.

It's in...

Tim Robbins we discovered in

auditions.

It's nothing!

It's nothing! Never mind!

And Tim really understood the script,

understood how silly and absurd it was

going to be.

And he was just a kid out of UCLA.

And, you know, I thought, this is a really,

really gifted actor.

Howard!

People knew that there was this guy who was

up and coming, and he came in and gave a

great reading.

And

for Tim, because he hadn't worked on so

many movies, it was a little bit harder

because he was obviously, as all actors

are, anxious and trying to do his best.

And he really worked very hard and was very

concerned that he was doing a good job.

Howard,

can you burn a hole through this

with some kind

of

eye laser?

I just remember having a lot of fun with him.

He's a great guy and I was really happy to

have spent all that time with him.

He's so tall and strong. I

remember he could go like this with me.

He could like push me, like

press me.

He was very strong.

You wouldn't think he is so strong.

Look at this

wonderful

exhibit.

It's so lifelike and realistic.

Fuck off.

The other thing that we had talked to

George for years about,

should we do this live action or should we

animate it?

And we really wanted to animate it.

But Universal needed a picture for that

summer, and there's no way, you know, you

need years and years to do an animated

picture.

So George said, well, we can build the duck.

We can do it with the technology that we have.

In those days,

you didn't have CGI as much.

So we were

left with using puppets and doubles in

Howard the Duck costumes.

So we're building various ducks

and the ducks are constantly exploding or

losing feathers or the proportions of the

duck are wrong

and we had very, very little prep time.

This does not bode well.

I regret

that the technology wasn't as far as it

should have been

and we realized that right away.

The first day, I think at that time it was

really more of a puppet, it was actually

somebody

who had things inside of Howard.

So we're shooting and suddenly Howard opens

his mouth and his whole neck opens and it's

like the Terminator. You

see the inside of

and we're just everybody's silent because

you know it's a disaster.

And then we thought.

Oh my God, this is going

to take the rest of our lives.

And that's what George said too.

He said, we always start out with puppets

and then we think,

oh God, this is horrible.

Just put him in a suit.

And Howard got better.

The head got better and the puppeteers were

better and the little people were,

we reshoot it.

We'd say, okay, we've got half an hour.

Let's do that scene where he says X.

We'd put Howard back in again, put a

background behind him, no matter where we were.

And we were constantly reshooting, trying

to get Howard to be better all the time.

You know,

this is beginning to seriously undermine my

self-esteem.

In order to cast Howard, we had essentially

a person who was devoted only to going

around the country to find little people

and to give them essentially acting tests

and tests to see how they would move.

And we found a very gifted 12-year-old kid

who was very, very inventive.

But a child

really had too much trouble with the

claustrophobic nature of the suit, and it

just became too difficult.

So then we had the stand-in duck, which was

Ed, and Ed had just a wonderful

personality, would do anything possible to

make something work, and so we ended up

really shooting the majority of the

material

with him.

Talk about an identity crisis.

I remember my first audition for Howard the Duck.

Universal Studios had contacted me and I went in

and they were pleasant.

How are you? Da da da. And

it was more physical.

It wasn't an acting audition. It was,

can you jump? Can you run? Can you tumble?

And I was very agile then.

And I said, well, thank you. No

problem.

Nice to see you.

And you're waiting for the response.

And then I get a letter stating that I was

too tall.

I'm 3 feet 4 inches tall.

And they were looking at that time for 3

foot 2 or under.

And then called me back.

And then they wanted to consider me for

stunt double

or understudy for

a person that they had found.

I was kind of like the backup

and then eventually

took over the role.

The boy, who I think was 12,

it was very difficult.

The shooting conditions were really hard,

so to wear this thing all day was hard, plus

you're limited in the hours.

You'd have to have schooling

and you could only be on the set for a

certain amount of hours.

And then so I would shoot at night for him,

I would do the stunts and stuff,

then the editor was saying he's having

problems matching.

where

I would talk like a man, I would put my

hands and I'd,

cigar,

and just, that's the way Howard was.

And the other kid would get up, he'd walk

away, he'd just be very buoyant.

You know, he's a child.

Plus, I was supposed to be in love with him.

So

I was much happier when Ed was in there

because Ed was sweet and

he worked really, really, really hard.

And it was just easier to get through the

day and imagine that I was in love with this

duck

when it was Ed.

We also had a young woman

a little person who did stunts.

And she was really sort of this stunt woman

doing Howard.

So it was a combination of a lot of

different things, and it was like the man

in the iron mask.

They had to wear this helmet.

I think it was like one of the first

fully self-contained animatronic

suits,

meaning it wasn't connected by hardwire.

The motors were in the head,

the cables ran up my back, I wore a battery

belt, and it was all remote control.

And then we had a bank.

I think, of four different puppeteers

who were

using little joysticks.

And one person was only concerned about the

eyes when they blink, when they look right

and left.

Somebody would be doing the mouth and so forth.

And it was a nightmare of coordination.

I mean, they really had to know.

and rehearse and so forth what they were doing.

Sometimes we'd be shooting and the duck

would just, the

face would just start going,

and

they'd go, a plane is going over or

someone's using the garage door opener.

And the worst thing was that they would do

the duck's close-up before mine.

I was like, dude, I'm the leading lady.

Can't you do me before the duck? No.

Ed Gale, even though he was wearing this

costume, really became Howard the Duck.

And he took it very seriously.

He worked as an actor.

He wasn't just a guy in a little suit.

My only vision was through the mouth and

obviously only when it was open.

And then we also discovered I had a natural talent

of memory and knowing where I'm at when I

can't see.

I just had the sense of

knowing where I was.

And then a lot of times we would rehearse,

I would rehearse backwards.

So if I had to walk up to you

10 steps, I would walk backwards 10 steps.

and then on action,

walk forward 10 steps.

make yourself at home?

Make myself at home?

I wish.

And of course, it was

equally odd because there was really

no voice.

I mean, the voice of Howard was

added later.

What?

I don't need any more of your sympathy,

your charity.

When it came to dialogue and reading the

script, I think we tried

for a minute

for me to actually speak and do the

dialogue.

It was hard to hear me,

it was muffled, and the director was like,

Okay, don't talk.

And

eventually what they did was the lead

puppeteer was Tim Rose,

and they gave him a microphone and

like a miniature speaker off the side, and

he would do the dialogue.

You know, and those suits are hot and

claustrophobic, and you have all those

gears running.

You know, you'd see little Howard sitting

there between takes,

and they'd have a hair dryer stuffed in his

bill to

keep him cool.

It was quite a trial.

Ed was a real trooper.

He really was great.

It was very difficult to get in and out of

the suit,

so he had to be in it for a long time,

and, you know, you couldn't go to the

bathroom, so.

You had to hold it.

Going to the bathroom was interesting.

It was really funny, though.

It's a lot like football players.

They sweat so much, you never have to go,

'cause if you're drinking a sweating,

drinking a sweating, it never hits your

kidneys,

you know? So I never really

had to go.

I didn't think about that for, like, weeks

into the show, and I'm

like, Hey, I don't go to the bathroom, do I?

Drinking lots of Gatorade.

You think I might find happiness in the

animal kingdom, Ducky?

Like they say, doll,

love's strange.

We could always give it a try.

When it came to the love scene, we decided

to try to make it seem like, oh my God,

this is going to become

a sex scene.

And he starts getting very nervous, like,

wait a minute, is this really gonna happen?

And that's when he's not able to control

himself and his head feathers go up.

Which took months

of technological stuff to get his head

feathers to.

to go erect

but it was fun. I mean

not every day on this movie was fun.

That day was actually one of the more

pleasant ones.

I've got a headache.

And I got the aspirin.

We pushed all those sort of sexual

connotations but people were really upset

with it at the time because they kept saying

oh who is this film for? Children or

adults?

And I would say it was

for anyone who finds it amusing.

This is not what you think.

We're just very good friends.

Well, I have a very

off-center kind of sense of humor, so I

appreciated the whole idea of having a love

scene with a duck.

I thought it was hilarious.

Must be mating season.

We deliberately said, okay, this is based

on a color comic book.

And the two people who really contributed to the

80s comic book look were Peter Jameson, who

was the production designer, who did

fantastic sets using primary colors,

and Richard Klein, who was the director of

photography and who had done a lot of

movies and was really a rock in the midst

of the worst situations.

You know, I could always depend on Richard

because he had

been through worse situations before.

Joe Tompkins, who did the costumes, did a

great job.

I mean, Cherry Bomb, the girls' group, is

very 80s, and we had punks and the whole

scene in the nightclub in the beginning.

Go on in, Frankenweenie!

We finally found you a date!

We had beautiful costumes.

I still have them, and we had a beautiful

costume house because they had to make all

the duck costumes, so they spent the big bucks.

This is my fault.

I got a shoplift at the Little Tyke section

of Goodwill.

I'm still upset about my hair and Howard

the Duck because

I should have worn a wig.

It took about, I don't know,

two hours a day,

and

she'd crimp it,

and

it would smoke,

and I don't even know how I have a hair on

my head left.

Creating Duck World was interesting and we

had to imagine, well,

aside from it being populated with ducks

instead of people, what would it be like

and what would the scale be? So Peter

Jameson

had a whole thing figured out, well, if a

table's this size.

And so throughout the film, we would shoot

different segments of Duck World.

Wow!

which also meant that we had a team of

little people.

Fortunately, George has made a lot of

movies with little people, so they had a

whole list of available little people, and

they were always great and always around,

and that was fun. Casey,

did you hear something?

Being on the set, we could see more,

'cause the camera would maybe just do a

quick pan,

but I was able to sit there and read all

of, oh my God,

the book's titles.

It was so detailed,

even the money.

The crew members on that film,

they're just so detail-oriented,

knowing the camera's only going to see a

quick second of it.

And they pulled puns on everything.

What was the mag-- the Playboy was

Play Duck.

Yeah.

And I just-- that part was funny.

That was--

I loved that whole

setup.

It was fun.

He's sitting in his chair in his living

room on his planet.

What is going on here?

and suddenly the chair takes off and he's

blasted through walls and out into space.

A lot of that was actually done practically

and the chair was on a wire

and he would be

pulled across a miniature room and the

wires were there.

So they would take those shots and

put them in the computer and take the wires out.

Well in those days

it was a big deal. Now

they do it on television every day.

I mean it's not a big deal.

So it really was

right on the cusp of technology changing.

The scene in the restaurant when the

ketchup blows up and all that,

they built that set and we were there for a month.

It's really hard to be funny

when you've done

every angle, including the ketchup's POV.

When they got to the ketchup's POV, I was like,

No!

You know, it's hard to tell a joke that

many times.

That's

disgusting.

We recreated a diner on a sound stage and

the sushi bar scene is also interesting

because it is sort of a history of special

effects.

You've got practical special effects which

are bar stools flying into the air and

squibs and air cannons to blow windows and

that's all done in the old fashioned, the

special effects guys who are great

and then on top of that you have eye LM

than taking that

and putting in visual effects

along with the practical special effects.

Underneath all the plates and everything

there were

like little air jets and they had to go off

in sequence when things would blow up. They

get the point, Denning! The problem is is

when you use special effects

and they do not work,

you're losing so much valuable time and

have hundreds of people standing around.

It's very, very difficult to plan for it

because it's going to do something that you

really can't control.

Prepare

for a

takeover!

Prepare and

open! The other sequence which actually

almost became a second movie being shot

simultaneously

was the ultralight sequence.

in which Phil, the Tim Robbins character,

and Howard end up

in an ultralight flying through Petaluma,

which is actually where they shot American

Graffiti.

So it was sort of a return to the

main street of Petaluma.

But that was a massive sequence because it

was a real ultralight.

Howard,

hold up!

Hold up!

The ultralight sequence was just really

designed by Joe Johnston,

and not only being dangerous in that they

actually flew it, but just the whole

coordination and the crew and everything

that went into it was just

monumental.

Howard's pulling up!

Eventually we had three units going.

Everybody's familiar with first and second

unit, we had a third unit going, because

again, time was running.

Damn.

The final climactic sequence was shot in a

huge naval installation in San Francisco.

So we took the whole building over and

built the astronomy lab

and, you know, happened to be shooting when

it was absolutely freezing.

So it was like being in a cold ice chest,

the whole sequence.

All right,

turn me into a dark overlord.

I'll still spit in your wormy face.

I was so sick

and I was laying on that table tied down

and my dress was like all ripped off and

they would like throw a blanket on me

between takes.

I was coughing.

I was

like,

you know, it

took a whole month.

In the last sequence when the dark overlord

finally becomes a creature, a huge monster,

had Phil Tippett, who was the

master in this area, build it.

Today, I don't think they would do that.

He'd build it the same way

Ray Harryhausen and so forth had worked on

so many movies.

They would start with clay and the little

clay model would get more and more

sophisticated.

You just hope that when you're going

that they really put in a big monster with

his tongue going like this, you know.

Phil Tippett really took over the design of

that monster and, I mean, he made the

sequence so much better.

We had the big concert scene at the end

where Howard finally goes on stage and it

was shot in a big auditorium in San

Francisco.

And Tom Dolby and George Clinton had come

up with this really great funky Howard the

Duck sort of theme song that we got to do

at the end.

So it was like, you know, doing our own

little rock concert with Howard.

What I also remember is I never got a day

off, because my days off would be spent

working on the choreography, learning the

guitar, and recording.

I had to record all that music before we

shot it.

I enjoyed it.

I got to do a little dancing, got to move.

Again, it was different.

I was younger, I was more agile.

Of course, Thomas Dolby, he had a

special guitar made for me, and I still

have it today.

So I got to rehearse with that one a lot.

Again, now they bring in a dance

choreographer

to teach me how to dance and teach you how to do

a concert, throwing the pick out.

Doing the whole bit.

Not bad for a duck from outer space.

You were great,

Ducky.

The last shot in the movie, the idea there

is that their relationship

builds

and

continues.

I had a crazy couple of years, because in

Back to the Future, I was supposed to be in

love with my son.

And then in Hard the Duck, I was supposed

to be in love with a duck.

I was very confused.

The idea was that there was going to be a

future for them and for perhaps the movie,

maybe there'd be a sequel.

Of course,

it never happened.

But we like to think that Howard and

Beverly stayed together.