Original subtitles

You know, I get letters from all over the world asking me,

"Everett, how do you draw Duckman?"

Well, I'm gonna show you right now.

[***]

Start with a straight line, add the front of the head,

then the bill.

Eh-- I mean, the bill go-- Heh-heh!

Wait a minute.

[CLEARS THROAT]

Back of the neck, the hair...

[SIGHS]

Okay, I can do this. Wait a minute, now.

Let me-- There's the hair,

front of the head,

bill...

[SIGHS]

[***]

I started doing actually a series in the East Bay Express

which was kind of a, you know, little free tabloid paper

up in the San Francisco area based on Duckman.

And then I started compiling some stories

and approached Dark Horse Comics with it,

and they liked the idea.

So I began working on the comic.

I started playing around with this duck character,

and I've always liked kind of animal-based characters.

I'm a waterfowl.

I'm not a TV show!

Really, he was a duck only in design.

I mean, he's a guy that just happens to be a duck.

I'm Duckman, private eye.

I'm here to investigate the, uh--

You know, the, uh, thing that needs investigating.

That was true with all of them. We didn't really get into, uh,

the fact that they were animals.

And-- And I intentionally would do some characters

that were strictly animals, some that were strictly humans,

and some that were sort of hybrid characters

or combinations of both.

Uh, and that's the fun of animation, you know.

You can have characters that are completely unrealistic,

but if you treat them in a realistic manner, you--

You buy that they're a-- You know, a real person.

Where was I?

Everett has this-- This fantastic, you know, kind of

universe of "manimal" characters.

And there were times when it just behooved us

to have a human character for a-- For a part, you know.

Whenever Duckman went after a female,

it was always a female.

It was not a female bird or dog or fox.

He's man first. Absolutely. He's all Duckman.

Man first. Yeah. He's all man. He's all man.

He does very few things that are really duck-like.

You know, he's rarely floating around a pond,

he's rarely flying.

We always thought of Duckman really as an adult show

for adults, and-- And not really a kid's show.

[BOTH SCREAM] Ow!

[***]

[DUCKMAN GRUNTING]

Whew! I would have scraped my knee

if I hadn't landed on this gun-wielding maniac.

We always tried to keep that in mind

with our storylines and the jokes.

And there's a lot of double-entendres and things

that-- That, uh, you know, were really designed

more for an adult audience.

I hate to prick your balloon.

Duckman, I believe the phrase is "burst your bubble."

I know. I just like to say "prick" whenever I can.

Prick. Prick, prick, prick.

Prick, prick, prick, prick , prick.

He also was a big smoker in the comic.

I mean, he always had a cigarette in his mouth.

And we tried to maintain a little bit of that in--

In the series, and we actually have a few scenes.

But we always had a lot of resistance against him smoking.

You've been smoking. I can smell it on your breath.

I was not smoking.

You can't accuse me of something I wasn't even doing.

Our thinking, of course-- 'Cause in the comic he did.

Smoke cigarettes. Cigarettes, I'm sorry.

--was that this was a show that aired at 10:30 at night.

Hi, Dad. Whatcha doing?

Throwing my life away on an overpriced marketing phenomenon

that'll leave me bedridden, tumorous

and politically incorrect.

OSBORN: You know, kids seek out animation.

And, uh-- And we-- We definitely, uh,

took the cigarettes away after the first season.

Right, like my cigarettes are really hurting anyone.

When I began drawing him originally,

he was a much taller, thinner, kind of gangly character.

And when I began to kind of refine him for animation,

I decided, since I had to clean the line up,

uh, and I wouldn't have the kind of fuzzy line,

I-- I could make him look a little more interesting

by changing his-- His proportions, his silhouettes.

So I, uh-- I squished him down a bit more

and kept his head a little bit bigger in relation to his body,

shortened his arms and legs,

and that's sort of how he began.

The earlier version of him had a little bit longer bill,

and as we realized, well, this, you know--

The shorter bill works better.

I want a bill job!

Had to be. The rest is perfect.

PECK: Basically, he became squatter

and a little larger head,

smaller body, as we progressed.

Ahem. Fine-looking honker, Duckman.

Oh, you noticed, huh?

We had a lot of dental work done second season.

You know, we had to work out things

like how his mouth would work and how we could do, uh--

You know, make him look like he's talking with a bill.

RENO: We had to work out what happened to the teeth.

And he'd pronounce certain words with his bill.

There's some actual mouth positions

where the teeth actually disappear

and then pop on again.

Fellas, fact is some of my best friends

are brain-dead, bread and water-eating scumbags.

[MEN MURMURING AGREEABLY]

From the beginning, how characters should look,

how they should move, how they should look when they're angry

versus when they're happy.

I mean, all of that was covered by Ian

and overseeing the artists at Klasky Csupo.

Jerry Richardson was my main character design guy

on the show through all four seasons

and, uh, a personal friend.

And he was very helpful in working with me to turn Duckman

from a kind of a rough sketch-drawn character

into an animated character.

I used to teach illustration and animation,

and Jerry was a student of mine,

um, a long time ago at Otis-Parsons School of Design

in Los Angeles.

And we remained friends.

And then when we started the series,

he had been working with Klasky Csupo

and jumped on board to help me refine Duckman

into an animatable kind of design.

And, uh, he was great that way.

He put together a beautiful series of do's and don'ts,

and as we got further into the series,

we had a book this thick of-- Of all kinds of special poses

that he did based on the characters.

Duckman, I feel like a new woman.

Me too. Unfortunately, I'm about 10 bucks short.

As we went into the second season,

we learned a lot more about, you know,

how the character worked onscreen,

and some things that worked well

and other things that didn't.

So we did, uh, a lot of, uh, yes and no kind of drawings.

And so we would get a lot together,

then ship it off overseas to Korea.

And, you know, there'd be a whole room full of-- Of people

working on this thing.

And in a month or two, we'd get, uh, a bunch of--

Of finished film back.

PECK: Jerry was great enough to go over there

and spent at least a week over there,

just showing people, okay, do's and don'ts.

And I wanted it to be, you know, richer,

with more, uh, modeling and kind of rendering in it.

I gotta say that the overseas studios did an amazing job

of, you know, following through on all that stuff.

There's nothing special about me, nothing unique.

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.

It was visually amazing.

Very striking right off the bat,

that was straight from Everett's comic book.

And-- And, uh, really, the colors,

it was so vibrant and so--

It was dark but-- But cool at the same time.

It was just really a-- A great look.

As we started talking about it, we realized, you know,

there was this fantastic start for a character.

He was kind of a bit more basic than what you saw later.

He was an angry duck, basically. He was angry. He had issues.

Well, it's time someone made it work better, then.

Took on the system, stood his ground, no matter what the cost.

And I'm just the duck to do it.

The comic, it's sort of an organic process.

When I'm drawing, I just sort of naturally write with it.

And so that-- That was-- That flowed out pretty easily.

It's-- It's, uh-- I'm fairly comfortable

writing for a comic, but that's--

That's a very different kind of dialogue for television.

That's, of course, where Jeff and Ron came in.

On the tube, everyone's a little bigger than life.

A little more glamorous.

They had had the experience.

But I learned a lot from them over the four seasons.

Wait a minute. You're saying that I'm a TV show?

Not that an adult series about a certain verbal and rakish drake

wouldn't be fascinating viewing, maybe even get well-reviewed

in papers like Newsday and the Wall Street Journal,

then make a few top-10 lists

and get an Emmy nomination.

We rejiggered the family a little bit.

In the comic, Duckman was married to Bernice.

Help! Help!

Help!

We made that his sister-in-law.

The snarling behemoth in the seat next to me

is not my wife.

A little back-story was that Duckman was responsible

for his late wife's death, accidentally.

Remember staking out that vendor at the parade

the day you accidentally caused my death?

One guilt at a time.

Which we thought was a little more darkly funny,

but we could also have more dark fun between Duckman and Bernice

if they weren't husband and wife.

Terrific. I bust a tail feather trying to protect this family,

and what do I get in return?

Exactly what you deserve.

Also, you know, he was very ???,

in our mind, and so it allowed us to--

To not feel queasy when he would come on to clients

who came in the office.

Watch a master at the top of his game.

[DOOR OPENS]

I'm Fantine.

Hee-hee-hee! And I'm Cosette.

[***]

We've been celibate for a year,

and we need you to go out with us.

Everett just created something so cool,

but I think-- I think he would agree

that it was-- It was rather two-dimensional.

He was pretty much an angry duck who kind of swore a lot.

And what we needed to do to bring him to life onscreen,

I think, was find that underneath,

find the foundation, why he acts the way he does.

Are you listening to me?!

I'm invisible, Corny.

I'm falling through the cracks.

What are his attitudes toward any number of things?

What the hell are you staring at?!

What about you? You seem to have something to share.

From women to social institutions to politics

to everything.

Yeah, I do have something to share.

Duckman, didn't you schedule a colonic this afternoon?

In fact, I have a miracle to share.

It really was kind of just figuring out a guy

from the ground up.

It's a miracle you moon-eyed zombies

fall for this Mother Mirabelle.

She's a fake! She's taking your money!

RENO: He becomes not only visually three-dimensional,

but-- But as a character, becomes three-dimensional too.

We toned his anger down, made him more verbal.

My past, my whole past is in this attic.

What a pigsty.

Oh, uh, figure of speech.

We came up with a show and a character in Duckman

that you could do almost any kind of joke you wanted.

Everyone loves a little good, clean, semi-legal pornography.

It was kind of this amazing find,

and part of that was due to the fact that it was animated.

This world's depressing enough without a few insults, slurs

and good, honest laughs at other people's expense.

You could go crazy with language.

No inskie-outskie. Ha-ha!

No buffarina!

He could be as silly or outrageous as we wanted

one minute--

Never nail the hammer on the head.

Woo-hoo-hoo-hoo! Hee-hee-hee-hee!

--and we could do intellectual parodies.

What's he doing with that pink stuff?

That's Crisco. He's our greatest wrap artist.

We found out we could kind of go anywhere with this thing,

because the rules for characters

are sort of different in animation.

You're not stuck with sort of the realities

of a live-action character that you have to adhere to as much.

In fact, you look like a million other duck detectives.

It's not like you stand out or anything.

It's an honest mistake. No hard feelings.

We are kind of the godparents or the caretakers,

and it was our job in realizing this, you know,

to still kind of remain true to the soul of the characters.

I don't need this kind of treatment

from some cheap jump-on- the-reality-show-bandwagon

schlockumentary.

[***]

There you go. It's easy.