Duckman: Season 1 & 2 DVD releases tomorrow
ZapRatz
You long haired fat-bellied goofy tattooed 60’s throwback Village
People wannabe biker freak!
By Jaime Weinman | September 14th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
<http://blog.macleans.ca/2008/09/14/you-long-haired-fat-bellied-goofy-tattooed-60s-throwback-village-people-wannabe-biker-freak/>
The subject heading is from one of the episodes included in Duckman:
Seasons 1 & 2, available this week. This set surprised me, because I
usually expect nothing but the lamest presentation from CBS/Paramount
home video (home of the bare-bones sets, flimsy packaging and rescored
Fugitive episodes). But this is a really well-done set. The special
features are extensive: a commentary on the pilot by Duckman voice
actor Jason Alexander and Duckman creator Everett Peck (he created the
comic on which the series is based; the series was somewhat different
— including changing Duckman’s marital status from married to widower
— but he was involved with supervising the art direction for the
show), a 30-minute featurette about the making of the show and its
characters, featuring Peck, showrunners Jeff Reno and Ron Osborn, and
most of the voice actors; another featurette on the look of the show
and the characters; original promos for the series’ premiere on the
then-fledgling USA network; and an “interactive guide” to the Duckman
characters. Either there’s a big Duckman fan at Viacom who ordered
some money to be spent on this thing, or CBS/Paramount is changing its
ways. I’m assuming the former.
The box has Paramount’s usual disclaimers about possible edits and
music changes (a meaningless disclaimer, as it turns out; the new
Cheers season 10 set doesn’t have that disclaimer and still has
extensive music cuts, while other sets have the disclaimer and no
edits). I can’t say for sure that no music has been changed,
particularly because the first season used music by Frank Zappa (who
died while the show was in pre-production) and my Zappa knowledge is
limited. (Plus the only first season episode I have for comparison
happens to be one that didn’t have any Zappa in it.) But I did hear
some real music cues in the episodes, and one good sign is that
Zappa’s music credit is still there in the first season credits —
normally, when Paramount trashes the music, they change the credits
too. Others who are more familiar with the first season than I am will
probably be able to find out whether there are music changes and if so
how many; I can say that the episodes I was familiar with appeared to
be unchanged. Picture quality is fine for an early ’90s animated show;
stereo sound.
[snip]
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NetFlix data:
Duckman: Season 1 & 2
http://www.netflix.com/Movie/Duckman_Season_1_2/
Jason Alexander ("Seinfeld") provides the voice for the title
character of this irreverent animated series that follows the
misadventures of the distasteful private dick Eric Duckman and his
partner, Cornfed Pig (Gregg Berger). Despite his obsession with sex,
his taste for booze and his penchant for avoiding work, Duckman still
manages to keep his family together and solve a few cases from time to
time.
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