Current location:	In front of a laptop
Current mood:	WTF?!
Current music:	'A Study In Brown'
Entry tags:	political correctness, sissy duckling

Elmer, the other white meat.

I just watched HBO's 'The Sissy Duckling'.

If it were possible to wish incendiary cancer of the eyes on someone, the writer of this animated abortion would be the focus of it.
A politically correct 'fairy tale', complete with musical numbers, starring Harvey Fierstein (who also wrote it) about a self absorbed sissy duck (Elmer) that argues the meaning of the word 'different' with the narrator every five minutes.
There were so many problems with this visual cavalcade of tripe that I'm not even sure where to begin.

The story takes place in a quazi-Ewok like villiage of ducks complete with homes, sports teams and a public school system. They have enough technical knowlege to manufacture clothes, homes and candles. About the society level of an 18th century American town.
Elmer is born to an overbearing battleaxe of a mother and a grumpy father, played by Ed Asner. Elmer isn't into sports but into making and putting on puppet shows.
Of course, no one in the story asks why Elmer's voice sounds like his windpipe was crushed by a vicegrip.
The father tries to get Elmer into baseball and outside so he can make some friends and not be a hermit for the rest of his life. Elmer just sasses his Dad back and acts like a little bitch thoughout the whole game. When the ball heads for him in the outfield, he just watches it go by and doesn't try to catch it. Seldom do I shout at the tv but I had to blurt out a 'GO FOR THE BALL YA BUM!'
At this point the sissy duck belches out a rant against baseball and storms off. Now I'm not a jock or even a huge lover of baseball, but when I did play as a kid, I tried to catch the ball and participate despite not enjoying the game. If you're in it, you're in it. Give it your all. Elmer couldn't be Bothered. He just cracks insults at his dad, who should have slapped the bill off of the little winged rat until it spun around like a certain WB character.

In the course of the story, the flock has to fly south for the winter in order to survive. WHY?! They've already mastered fire! They have fires in their homes to cook their little duck dinners. They have lit lanterns and candles all over to light their houses. It made no sense. They could have stayed home and avoided what was to come next. Maybe Miami is duck Mecca or something.
Anyway, at this point Elmer has been beaten up by a jock duck with a marine feathercut and his cronies (one of which has brain damage). Elmer, rejected by the other kids and his father emos out and decides to run away and live by himself. Wahhhngst.
Elmer's parents join the rest of the ducks and start to fly south. No more that three seconds after they take off, the ducks come under heavy fire from hunters shotguns.
First thing that came to mind at this point was A.) wouldn't the ducks be ready for this, since it seems to be an annual occurrence for them? And B.) how did the hunters not notice the little hats and clothes that the ducks were wearing.
"Hey Bob, check this out! This one's got a little cap on!"
"Holy shinkies, Ted! This one has make up on and a bow on it's head!"
"Sweet Jesus in a box! There's a whole village over here in the reeds! This is the pond of the damned! RUN!!!"

The hunters shoot down a few ducks, including Elmer's dad. Elmer drags his dad back to their house and he nurses him back to health. Somehow a duck with a penchant for puppetry has the medical knowhow to remove buckshot from a charred wound.

*voice from peanut gallery: 'It's a cartoon ya dink!'*
Quiet you!

They hold up for the cold winter in their home, again because they have FIRE, and Elmer keeps his Dad's spirits up with, what else, puppetry. Over the winter they bond.
When the flock returns in the spring, led by the jock duck that has become the leader of the flock. They mourn the fallen ducks that were shot down, and mock sissy Elmer. Until Elmer's dad shows up to everyone's surprise and explains how he was saved by his namby-pamby son. The jock has a change in heart and the flock accepts Elmer as one of their own. Elmer, of course, acts haughty and as self absorbed as he ever did and declares that he hasn't changed and that he's proud to be a sissy. Um, sissy power? Wha?
The last shot we get is Elmer screatching that everyone isn't different, buy uuuunnnniiiiqqquuuueeee!!!
Um...yeah. Die.

All in all, it was a very stereotypically bleached out, politically correct piece of flotsam that would have insulted my intelligence even if I was still 6 years old. The ugly duckling was more skillfully executed and had a better message than Elmer whining about the definition of 'different'.

Just had to write this out. This toon was that bad. And can animators use another duck bill model other than Daffy Duck's? I'm guilty of this crime to but, ever duck in this cartoon looked like the heads didn't fit on their bodies.
The animation quality was very good though. Lipsynch was off a tad here and there, probably due to shipping the inbetweens out to South Korea to get it done under budget. If it was sent to S.Korea. I have no idea if it was.

Ok. Rant over. I'll propably make some anti-fan-art of this cartoon splort once work eases up a bit.