Down and Dirty Duck

Down and Dirty Duck (1974)

Madder than Daffy, dumber than Donald, more existential than Howard!

Willard, a mild mannered insurance adjuster, teams up with a foul-mouthed fowl who takes Willard on a surreal quest to become less uptight - and possibly get laid in the process.

Date of release
1974-07-01
TMDB
4.7 / 10 (20)
Runtime
1h 10m
Genres
Animation, Comedy
Director
Charles Swenson

Casting

  • Howard Kaylan — Willard / Nego Lady / Side Hack Rider (voice)
  • Mark Volman — Duck / Side Hack Rider (voice)
  • Robert Ridgely — Car Salesman / Man at Bus Stop / Negro Gentleman / Big Fag / Police Officer / Tank (voice)
  • Cynthia Adler — Lady in Car / Boss Lady / Small Dyke / Lady in Elevator (voice)
  • Joëlle Le Quément — Land Lady / Lady at Bus Stop / Madam / Big Dyke (voice)
  • Lurene Tuttle — Duck's Mother (voice)
  • Walker Edmiston — Bus Driver / Jail Orator / Small Fag / Prospector / Mexican Official / President / Man in Elevator (voice)
  • Jerry D. Good — Transvestite Fag (voice)

Interesting facts

Down and Dirty Duck, first shown under the abbreviated titles Cheap! and Dirty Duck, is a 1974 American adult animated comedy film written and directed by Charles Swenson and starring Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan as the voices of a strait-laced, low-level white-collar worker named Willard and an unnamed duck, among other characters. The plot consists of a series of often abstract sequences, including plot material created by stars Kaylan, Volman, Robert Ridgely, and, according to the film's ending credits, various people Swenson encountered during the making of the film. The film received mostly negative reviews and became relegated to late shows.

Production

After the release and success of Fritz the Cat, several animated films meant for adults rather than children enjoyed success. Fritz, a film based on a character created by artist and illustrator Robert Crumb, was the first animated movie to receive an X rating in the United States. Charles Swenson developed Down and Dirty Duck as a project for former Turtles and Mothers of Invention band members Kaylan and Volman under the title Cheap!

Producer Jerry D. Good pitched the film to Howard Kaylan and Mark Volman while the production company, Murakami-Wolf, prepared the animated sequence for Frank Zappa's 200 Motels. Kaylan and Volman met with director Charles Swenson on June 7, 1973; Swenson had written the screenplay for Kaylan and Volman under the title Cheap!

The film's production budget was $110,000. According to Swenson, he created almost all of the animation himself, although publicity attributed the animation work to the Murakami-Wolf Production Company, with Academy Award-winning animator Fred Wolf, credited as his son's name, Bill Wolf, helped animate parts of the film personally.

Kaylan and Volman recorded the music at Cherokee Studios with The Robbs serving as their backing band, credited as Flo & Eddie.

During production, Roger Corman observed the title, Cheap! as a shot at his production techniques, and asked that the title be changed; film director Mick Garris suggested that Corman did not want to release a film titled Roger Corman's Cheap!, though Corman was not credited as producer on the film.

Read on Wikipedia · Text from Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Data from Wikidata.

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