Dirty Duck

Flo & Eddie of The Turtles and Zappa fame perform the songs and voice the main characters of this pretty good animated film. It's short, coming in at barely over an hour, but it's effective in it's animation style (the animation over still photos and clip art) and funny for a number of reasons. Highly sexual, satirical and slapstick. Also highly offensive, especially when it comes to race; as evidenced by the subway pimp that the main character encounters.Set to a lamentably unavailable soundtrack, it's surreal animation sequences more than make up for any lulls or inferred rip-offs. This is a better film than 200 Motels, that's for sure. And who can fault a movie that opens with the song lyric "This whole movie is a giant piece of sh*t..."?

Look, I won't lie, I watched this film because of it's cult status. Believe me when I say it's bad, like, nonsensically terribly. It's got no clear message or goal, and from what I gathered, it's just here to be "shocking". I powered through this film with the aid of alcohol, and without it, I know for certain I would've quit before the 10 minute mark. Unless you plan on drinking, avoid this movie at all costs...

Dirty Duck, is an adult animated film about Willard, who is a shy and nervous insurance worker who is in love with one of the receptionists at work but he can't seem to talk to women too well and one day he is asked to go investigate a claim made by a woman who owns a tattoo parlour. She claims that a Ouija board told her she was going to die today and just as Willard gets there she does die. In the will the woman left Willard, her full grown sun who happens to be a duck. Willard, and the duck wonder around and meet very unusual people and get in numerous unusual situations and the duck tries to give Willard, more confidence in himself and tries to teach him how to get a woman. Lots of psychedelic and unique images follow. Dirty Duck, has a good soundtrack which is composed by Flo and Eddie, who were members of the band The Mothers Of Invention, and also did voices and wrote some of the film. The film itself isn't great. It took a long time for me to get into it and a lot of the visual and sex gags I just didn't find funny and they got tiring after awhile. There wasn't much story to the film either. I did like some of the visual gags and some of the film was very unique and had some clever ideas but it doesn't quite work as a whole. It's not a terrible movie but not a great one either because a lot of it just does not work. The film seems to be made after the success of 1972's X rated adult animated film Fritz The Cat, and in some ways is similar although Fritz was a groundbreaking film and this is not. Still there were parts I liked and maybe with repeat viewings I may like it more.

The soundtrack is fun and the movie feels self aware for the most part, but there is an underlying sense that it may not be smart enough for that. Add to that the deeply unsatisfying ending and it's difficult to tell what this movie wants to be.

I wish I could find a copy! This is an outstanding piece of sexual satire and general weirdness by Flo & Eddie, with a surreal sex scene that's an obvious and direct precursor to the one in The Wall. I managed to save an audio tape of only part of the song with our favorite lines: "Dogs, horses, or a guy, Give someone DEAD a try!" and Willard's creation of his artificial girl.