Duckman: Private Dick/Family Man (1994–1997) User Reviews

Best Underrated Animated Show Ever

[cjwhite-31645 · 8/10 · 20 March 2018]

I learned about this show from WatchMojo.com (Along with Clone High, Spawn, and The Critic) in their video Top 10 Underrated Cartoons, and I looked into it and ever since I saw I, Duckman (Episode 1) I would watch more of it on YouTube. I showed it to my Step-brother and Step-sister and they absolutely love it. Many people have never heard of it because shows like The Simpsons were always surpassing others with its wit and humour. Duckman needs some reruns on USA and Comedy Central for old times sake. Actually if I got to pick what shows and movies I would put on Netflix this would be one of them. Although the show was AMAZING, the ending should have been explained. It's not The Sopranos bad but it needs explaining. Other then than that since I couldn't produce any thing better than 10/10

100,000,000,000/10

Funny animated show

[gangstahippie · 9/10 · 9 September 2007]

Rated TV-14 for Sexual Content and Language.

I remembered hearing about this show back in 1998 when it used to play on the channel Teletoon.I didn't watch it then but now, it plays on the channel, Razer.I have seen about four episodes of this show and I must say, it is fairly intelligent and funny.

The show stars Jason Alexander of Seinfeld fame and also Tim Curry of Rocky Horror Picture Show and It fame.The show is about a duck who is a police officer.He basically does his job as a policeman, while coping with personal problems.This show is fairly funny at times and fans of animated-comedy will like this.

Hilarious and a show I am ashamed that I liked!

[planktonrules · 9/10 · 24 September 2018]

DUCKMAN was a crude, disgusting and incredibly funny cartoon that I loved back in the 1990s when it debuted. While folks today often think about "South Park" as groundbreaking because of its excesses and crudeness, DUCKMAN was nearly as offensive and awful...and debuted three years before "South Park". If it sounds like I have mixed feelings about this show, you are right. While I love it, I would NEVER consider showing it to children. Heck, I would hesitate to even show it to adults with good taste and breeding. Fortunately for me, I have neither.

The show was about the adventures of an evil duck who co-owns a detective agency. Unlike his very competent partner, Duckman is essentially a pervert and idiot and he spends the episodes insulting everyone and saying stuff that normals would never say out loud. And, Jason Alexander's voicework was magnificent as the perennially angry duck. Well worth seeing....just don't say you weren't forewarned!!

The BEST animated TV show EVER!

[CuriosityKilledShawn · 10/10 · 11 March 1999]

I've always enjoyed animated ducks for some reason: Duck Tales, Darkwing Duck, Daffy Duck, Donald Duck. Though none of them are as deranged as Duckman. Originally broadcast between 1994 and 1997 Duckman lasted for a total 70 episodes but could easily have gone on forever without becoming stale.

The titular character is a discombobulated, unapologetic slob and pretty much the worst living person in the world. He's a private detective, a widower, a peeping tom, an alcoholic, a sex maniac, a murderer, a (fill in the blank). You name it, Duckman has done it. But who can blame him for being such a slimeball when the world he/we live in is so insane, outrageous and just plain nonsensical? Eric Tiberius Duckman(voiced by the maniacal Jason Alexander) could carry the whole show by himself but when he's surrounded by a bunch of eccentric supporting characters you just know that trouble is just waiting to explode at every opportunity. My favorite has to be Willibald Feivel Cornfed (or just Cornfed Pig), Duckman's incredibly deadpan sidekick who is seemingly talented and highly skilled at everything and is perpetually oblivious to his partner's infinity of vices and incompetence.

The typical plot will involve some bizarre case he'll inevitably blunder through or will revolve around his highly dysfunctional household, though every now and again Duckman's arch-enemy King Chicken (Tim Curry), a sort of Professor Moriarty in fowl form, hatches some diabolical scheme in revenge for being bullied in high school.

Since I was a teenager this has been my absolute favorite animated show, better than The Simpsons, Family Guy and even King of the Hill. Nothing will ever surpass it. There never was, or will be, anything quite like Duckman ever again. The level of satire, observational humor and writing is so sharp it's deadly and the animation is done in that unique Klasky/Csupo style (anyone who has seen Rugrats will understand). It's a wonderful, highly imaginative and wild world and all with a noirish, 1940s feel.

You can never have too much of this particular bird.

One of the funniest, cleverest yet crudest animated shows you will see

[TheLittleSongbird · 10/10 · 8 August 2010]

There may be those who may not like the humour, but for me this is one of the best animated shows ever. It is crude yes, so was Rocko's Modern Life, but it is extremely funny, clever and intelligent.

The animation is very unique in style and just wonderful to watch. I just love the backgrounds and colours and the character designs are very interesting. The music is also excellent, and even better is the writing which is so brilliant and so sharp I can't stop laughing. The stories are also outstanding, as are the characters. Eric Duckman is a triumph of a title character, he isn't sophisticated but rude and ignorant yet has a wit and charm about him. Cornfred, Ajax and Mambo are also wonderful and even King Chicken(voiced by an unrecognisable Tim Curry) is a hoot. And the voice acting especially from Jason Alexander(who is funny rather than annoying, not him in person but he has done some annoying characters) is superb.

In conclusion, one brilliant show. 10/10 Bethany Cox

Intelligent, Funny and Subversive

[marcigabrielle · 10/10 · 24 January 2006]

Perhaps the deepest cartoon made in the USA, "Duckman" runs short at 70 episodes in four seasons.

Unlike the often innocuous criticism found in "The Simpsons" (a pretty good show in its own right), and the rude-for-rudeness-sake humour in "South Park," every bit of this series follows a plan. The criticism of US society, from its mercantilism to its selfishness, carries much more bite than it does in any other animated series.

The cultural references in "Duckman" also tend to be obscure sometimes (anyone browsing the fan sites will realize most have not even been caught). In that, it is different from "The Simpsons," which usually uses pop culture instead of the high-brow stuff often hidden in "Duckman." As other people writing about it notice, there is a growth in the characters (Bernice, Duckman and Cornfed). Also, by making the main character not just an offensive neurotic but in fact someone who is living a personal tragedy (as is made clear in episodes like "The Once and Future Duck" ('You'll love her until the end of your days...') and in "Bev Takes a Holiday" (when he takes a chance to tell Beverly all those things he couldn't tell Beatrice), the series is anchored in a deep sense of reality.

One can't avoid feeling sorry for him and his lucid madness.

All in all, in my opinion, the best cartoon ever made in the USA and one of the best series ever. I doubt it will ever be on DVD though. Far too many things the Duck said make much more sense today.

Smarmy, cynical, satirical- truly a cult of a cartoon comedy show

[Quinoa1984 · 10/10 · 18 July 2004]

Duckman was a show that used to be on during the last hour or so before it was time to sleep about ten or so years ago. It was a contrast to a lot of the kid-type of animation I was watching at the time; I was still a minor junkie for Disney and Looney Tunes stuff, and most Saturday morning cartoons were still on the run-off of the peak from the days of Ninja Turtles and Batman. But also around this time I began to recognize that the more raunchy, mature, surreal, obscene, and (though I didn't know the term at the time) satirical cartoon shows were more creative than the stuff I was used to. Around the time of Beavis and Butt-head, Ren and Stimpy, and even The Maxx were hitting TV sets via MTV, USA put out two shows- one of them was Weird Science, and the other was Duckman. I've always remembered a few key bits from the show, and some of the lines are very quotable to those who haven't forgotten it completely. Luckily, I found a tape recently with about six episodes I taped long ago, and the jokes stayed very fresh. And the delivery of the jokes are rapid-fire a lot of the time in the better episodes.

In the voice department, the choices in talent are top notch for the story-lines, which are usually just an excuse for crude, fascinating parodies of pop-culture, politics, movies and TV shows, music, detective mysteries, and the dysfunctional family unit. Jason Alexander is a wonderful choice for Duckman, and his performance is a comedic 180 from his days on Seinfeld (even if there might be some similar characteristics here and there). Also, the voices of Gregg Berger as the unmistakably monotoned and deadpan Cornfed, Dweezil Zappa as the hilariously inept Ajax, and Nancy Travis as the sex-starved, obnoxious Sister-in-Law Bernice, all contribute in a full amount. Along with some great writing - even when a joke isn't sure-fire, the wit behind it compensates - the animation style, while a far cry from some of the refurbished, computer-enhanced product of today, is inventive and often abstract. It has that home-made, gritty quality that Beavis and Butt-head or South Park would later have. And, like those shows, if you're a little kid, I mean little as in younger than I was watching the show, you may not understand most of the jokes (i.e. there are enough stripper and VD references to fill two shows sometimes). But it's inventive to catch if it's on TV late at night, and it functions rather well in that time slot. One can only hope for a DVD box set.

So, to no one who's barely or even never heard of this program, here's a general note: think of this show as if Dashiell Hammett met up with Walt Disney and decided to go to slum part of Vegas with a free mini-bar and make a collaboration in the vein of Luis Bunuel and The Simpsons combined. Not to mention, it's by the group that did Rugrats.(strong) A

Childhood favorite show

[kyleallencole9 · 7/10 · 28 August 2019]

I remember watching this show late nights on the USA channel!! It was a favorite cartoon of mine. I always watched this along with USA's silk stallings and USA up all night

The Father of Adult Cartoons

[mihaitomy · 10/10 · 2 February 2020]

I can't believe how underrated this show is. Great voice cast, interesting social commentary, great humor and inteligent puns. If you want to see a great show that will blow you away with how meta it is look no further, this is it. Way ahead of it's time and a blueprint for the shows similar in style that came out.

Great show!

[KatiesGhost · 10/10 · 2 August 2008]

"Duckman" is a great show. I first saw it when I was 10 years old at the time and after school I rushed home and turned on Comedy Central. I saw a cartoon called "Duckman" and I LOVED IT!! It's such a funny and cool show. It's created by Klasky-Csupo, who are great creators of cartoons. They animated some of my favorite shows ever, like "The Simpsons" and "Rugrats".

I've seen lots of episodes of this show and I think they're all really funny and sweet. The voice actors did a great job voicing the characters, too.

I wish that Comedy Central could bring this show back, along with "The Critic" and "Dilbert".

But this is a great Comedy Central show. Great job, Klasky-Csupo!

Very abrasive, obnoxious, not that funny, and not as smart as it thinks it is..

[GrigoryGirl · 2/10 · 29 March 2022]

This was considered uber edgy in the 90's, but now it comes across as bitter, angry, nasty, and not really all that funny. It's filled with preachy, "Gen X" style rants about how everything is BS and how Duckman has all the answers because he's so much smarter than the rest of us, and we're all too stupid to figure it all out because we're not on the Duckman's level at all. The main character is extremely abrasive, a jerk, and a know it all who really isn't as smart as he think he is. Jason Alexander's voice over is way over the top and obnoxious, like George Costanza on cocaine. Even in 20 minute episodes, it's awfully hard to take. So what may have been awesome and edgy in the 90's sounds more like the ravings of an arrogant lunatic.

This was cancelled?

[Op_Prime · 5 January 2000]

How could this show have been cancelled? It was one of the funniest and most clever shows on cable. This was a great show and deserved a longer time on the air. The series was as funny as The Simpsons and as gross as South Park (that's not a bad thing). I'm so glad Comedy Central has started to air the old episodes.

Animated version of last man standing

[josealvess · 10/10 · 16 July 2020]

This show has the same way if thinking as LMS,but the crazy antics,jokes and characters are more crazy and i love it! Speacil that Pig who has the most manielest voice i ever heard!

Subversive

[safenoe · 8/10 · 2 March 2022]

I remember Duckman, watching it in the 90s, and sadly it kind of got a bit overlooked amongst another animation series. The humor is crude and subversive, but still entertaining and thoughtful at times believe it or not.

Jason Alexander's Voice Drew Me In

[view_and_review · 8/10 · 23 March 2024]

"Duckman" drew me in initially because the titular character was voiced by Jason Alexander. He played a wild, shoot from the hip private eye with a more level-headed and reasonable pig as a partner named Cornfed Pig (voiced by Gregg Berger).

Duckman and his family were the main focus. He had a big dumb son named Ajax (voiced by Dweezil Zappa); conjoined twin sons, Charles (voiced by Dana Hill) and Mambo (voiced by E. G. Daily); a sister-in-law who hated him named Bernice (voiced by Nancy Travis); and Grandma-ma who, I believe, never spoke.

It's been a while since I've watched it, but I used to tune in when I could just to see the situations Duckman would get himself into and hear a Jason Alexander rant.

Quack! Quack! Quack! (Ad Nauseum)

[strong-122-478885 · 1/10 · 13 October 2014]

Yeah-Yeah. I know that Duckman (with its grotesquely American, white-trash mentality) was "just-a-cartoon", but, regardless, this TV show absolutely scraped the bottom of the barrel when it came to laughs.

This TV show's despicable title character named "Duckman" was nothing but a snivelling, callous, hateful, hypocritical, little bastard who was so full of scorn and contempt for everyone and everything that, before long, he became just an irritating bore.

Believe me, Duckman does so much belly-aching and scenery chewing throughout every episode that, within minutes, he gives the viewer (who's in their right mind, of course) a serious case of chronic brain-freeze.

Duckman was about 10x worse than being forced to have to watch an onslaught of irksome TV commercials for 30 solid minutes, non-stop.

This was the type of brain-dead TV show that likes to fancy itself as being cool, hip and "with-it" - But I definitely viewed it as being quite the opposite.

I can't believe that this reeking, rotting excuse for comic entertainment actually lasted for 4 seasons back in the mid-1990s.

How Could Wizard Magazine Overlook 'Duckman'?

[SGall23241 · 12 December 2003]

Yep, that's what they did. Back in 2001, when they had their 'Top 100 Cartoon Shows of All Time' list, somebody seemed to have forgotten about this gem. They put 'Scooby's All-Star Laff-A Lympics' on their list, but left out 'Duckman'?! Give me a break! Jason Alexander ('George Constanza' on Seinfeld) voiced the fool out of Duckman, and was superb! Alas, unfortunately, it was taken off the air too soon. Loved the ep where an escaped prisoner, who looked exactly like Grandma (and sounded like a heavily-voiced man), forcibly kissed Duckman because she hadn't had a man for a long time since she had been in prison, and said, "Hm! Not bad!" (while Duckman was choking like a mad duck, and wiping his mouth), I thought I was going to fall out of my seat because I was laughing so hard!

Cornfed Pig, the Jack Webb-sounding partner was just as hilarious as he was constantly saving Duckman's hide! Would somebody *please* do this cartoon justice by acknowledging it?!

Great Social Commentary...

[writingy · 20 February 2000]

Duckman is one of those touchstone series that really made a difference... like many of the other users here, I agree it has a lot of the spirit of the Simpsons, but it is willing to take it a bit further... Duckman really gives it to American Society and the media, taking what could be cliches, and turning them into biting social commentary.... plus it is outrageously funny. Highly recommended...

Bizarre and hilarious!

[GeneralB · 10 April 2000]

This was another exceptional cartoon series. Like "The Simpsons" it features a lot of great social satire, but the show is even more bizarre. I actually didn't start watching with any kind of frequency until after they stop making new episodes, but soon fell in love with it. Fortunately the old episodes are still on the air.

Duckman

[tinytyrant · 30 April 2005]

A great show. Knew no bounds (like a few other animated joints about the place) and always served up a laugh.

Produced by two of the same crew, Klasky and Csupo, responsible for the first few seasons of The Simpsons.

Sarcastic, cynical yet strangely warm and welcoming. The familiar voice of Jason Alexander lent the perfect pitch to the often ranting, hapless, underdog, anti-hero title character, Duckman. Not exactly 'nice' viewing however, this is a result of the blunt style and content of writing, which incorporates more reality than schmaltz.

If you spot it on your program guide, cancel whatever you have organized and give it a look.

Best show............EVER!!!!!

[quahogq · 24 November 2000]

Oh...My...GOD!!! Is it humanly possible to make a television series greater than Duckman? The answer is simple: No, it is not. Why is this show so great? Well, let's see, the writing, the characters, the storylines, the social commentary, the animation... The list could go on and on. This show has been canceled for quite some time (since 1997) but re-runs currently show on Comedy central at some ungodly hour of the night/morning. It doesn't promise to stay there for very long, though. If you want to see this series, start recording it whenever you get the chance. I am currently lucky enough to have almost the entire series on tape. Be sure to pay special atention to the following episodes, which are the best DM has to offer:

America the Beautiful- One of the most biting social commentaries ever shown on TV! It also has a VERY catchy song at the end of the show...

The Once and Future Duck: The most popular DM episode.

Pig Amok: Hilarity in it's purest form.

Noir Gang: My fav episode.

About Face: Some interesting bits of drama and character development.

Role With it: Some more interesting bits of drama and character development.

Bev Takes a Holiday: another fav of mine.

LOVE! ANGER! KVETCHING!: See for Joe Walsh's special version of "Life's been Good" sung towards the end.

Four Weddings Inconceivable: The final episode.

I,Duckman: The first episode.

Gripes of Wrath: A classic!

Psyche: A rather subtle landmark episode that also happens to be excruciantingly funny.

Joking the Chicken: See for Duckman's brilliant speech at the end.

It's a Thing of the Principal: Funny!

Cock Tales for Four: Why didn't this get an emmy!?

The Girls of Route Canal: Hilarious spoof of "The Bridges of Madison County."

Research and Destroy: Great spoof on the film Brazil and office/corporate life in general.

Papa Oom M.O.W. M.O.W.: Funny!

Hamlet 2: Hilarious spoof on Hamlet.

Exile in Guyville: Funny!

Not so Easy Riders: Funny!

Clip Job: Easily the best clip show ever produced! Very self-aware.

The Amazing Collosal Duckman: Funny!

From Brad to Worse: Funny!

Bonfire of the Panties: Funny!

A Room with a Bellevue: Another popular episode.

Wonderful show; very well could be the best ever

[jackal749 · 3 July 2000]

This show was so wonderful. The cynical, half-deranged title character is too funny for words. The throwbacks on society are not only funny, but oh so true. I agree with everyone else that this show was one of the best ever made. Watch it on Comedy Central, because I can't explain how funny this show actually is.

Praised by UK newspaper

[davebesag · 26 February 2004]

I remember seeing a comment in TV section of one of the broadsheet UK newspapers (either the Guardian or Independent) about 8-10 years ago which said something like, 'What is UK TV coming to when the best show on is about an animated duck.' Obviously well received then!

I wasn't going to write anything else but apparently I need to write at least 10 lines! Pity the show isn't on DVD and I don't believe that there are any plans to do so. The show used to be on at about 11pm on BBC2. To be honest, I don't think that the whole run was shown because I don't remember as many shows being shown as actually exist.

If it don't work on the outside and don't work on the inside you must be nuts.

[Bobo-56 · 12 September 1999]

Duckman is about a sexually repressed duck who takes his time by staring at "jugs" and working as a private dick where upon he is met by the porky friend cornfed who though in his meger existence adds to the plot through his fast witted humour and actually shows some kind of loyalty to Duckman.The mix of sex and troubles at the home place not too mention the fact that he is got a big rash on his butt and fluffy and uranus wouldn't mind if he asked them to scratch it. BUTT! He does seem to happen to please himself through inflatable love and binoculars.

Absolutely Hilarious. The best Cartoon since the Simpsons. Can't be beat wont be beat.