#aaaaahh noo i got the duckman autism noooo

[aehno]

Pointless drabble about a show I like

Duckman was a show that I was obsessed with for a while

I watched it in my first year of college, and it's just. Really, really unique to say for the very least. I lowkey kinda crushed on the title character ngl and you cannot judge me because this is tumblr and I know for a fact you, dear reader, have crushed on worse. Worse than even a bespectacled yellow creature who is shaped like a dehydrated toilet.

I mean it's interesting, I really like this character, even if he's not the best at being what he is. He's this perverted, bitter loser who has turned to hedonism after the death of his wife, who he had a codependent relationship with that the show never explores the flaws of and I really wish it did...

He really, really loved this woman, and was shown to be a better person with her around, or at least happier. But with her death, he's just fallen apart. He thinks he can't parent his kids properly without her, and has turned to drinking and pornography to fill whatever hole's in him now. The women he meets in the show also leave him by the end of an episode, meaning he'll never properly replace her. So yeah her death fucked him up bad.

We see that he also has a bit of a Freudian excuse. His mom was neglectful much like he is now and wished she could do better as later revealed, and his father died when he was young, and was also a bit of an asshole, too. So, yeah, the guy had shit parents, meets this woman who LOVES him really deeply, and suddenly he feels completed, he's loved and he loves her back. They start a family and that seems all well and good and then his wife suddenly dies. She says, QUITE LITERALLY IN HER WILL that she does not trust this man with a family, and so she gives her twin sister Bernice custody of the kids. And what we also see here is that he mirrors his parents a little- death of the spouse causes him to become more neglectful, but there's one difference: now the kids have a competent parent. A compelling idea that is also barely explored.

Bernice could have been a better character. So she's this harpy of a woman. An absolute BITCH! She treats Duckman like garbage because she views him as vile and morally repugnant, a poor influence on the kids. She encourages them to bully him like she does, and Charles and Mambo seem more willing, while Ajax is a bit more innocent and oblivious. She does clearly want what's best for Duckman, and in her defense, he can be pretty bad sometimes. So it's a compelling conflict but we don't see much beyond "they hate eachother's guts" and Bernice can be super over the top sometimes, to the point that it isn't really a realistic portrayal of a lawful good asshole, and I wish they did better. Also her resemblance to his wife but not acting like her at all is SUPER interesting as well.

Anyway I guess I'll talk his other relationships now, too whatever.

Duckman and Cornfed are gay, there I said it. Gay. There is probably some internalized homophobia on both ends considering that they both seem more interested in and comfortable with girls, that being said Duckman is definitely a lot more shameless about his bisexuality, though this might just be because he's desperate and horny and so he has an excuse he can use for himself, while Cornfed definitely is a bit more reserved about... that and prefers to pursue girls as a result. You can say I'm headcanoning but uh

Yeah.

Some fucker beat me to this. It's not even subtext, it's just text. This shit is Revolutionary Girl Utena but for boys.

Anyway those are probably the most compelling things in the show, notice how I'm mostly talking about the lead character here. He's kinda the most interesting one. The other guys are neat, like Cornfed, but like, generally speaking most of the cast isn't very developed.

You got Duckman's kids, he tries to be a good parent sometimes, but is pretty neglectful other times, always chasing immediate gratification and not really knowing how to be there for them. He feels bad about his state but never does anything about it. Charles and Mambo resent him, and he can't relate to them because they're smarter than him, and he really feels bad about what's happened with Ajax, as he barely spends time with him but relates to him a little bit more with how stupid he is.

I completely forgot until now that Bernice's mom is in a comatose state and communicates exclusively through farts. Why, oh why is this where my autism goes.... oh right it's because I have a fetish for pathetic men and Duckman is literally every man I like at once and I should kill myself.

There's also King Chicken. NGL I'm not a big fan of this character, he only has one good episode, and it's the dinner party one (best season 3 episode and probably the only reason you should even bother with season 3 tbh) He is Duckman's worst enemy, vowed to ruin his life after Duckman bullied him in high school. Pretty funny premise. In the best episode it's revealed that Duckman only bullied him because once he was out of the picture, the bullies turned on him instead. And then King Chicken's fuckass wife tries to make them not be friends anymore after they seem like they're about to be because she likes her current situation, where she feels like she actually has power or something idk it was kinda vague. Also Duckman and King Chicken are kind of gay much like Duckman and Cornfed. Wish there was more to say about that alas there isn't really much I can even so much as recall....

Funny how much "they're kind of gay" there is in this fucking show huh. It's sadly a bit behind in other ways, a lot of transphobic shit in there actually, some of the character designs and jokes are, anyway bleh. Weird how the show makes fun of gross hateful people and humor with the title character and then turns around and does that. I think some racism, too, though we mostly see it in the videogame I won't even bother with because it looks bad...

Seems kind of relevant that I segway into the last characters I really remember at all, who are gender neutral, Fluffy and Uranus, who are meant to be neutrally politically correct. Overly saccharine and trying to help Duckman be better, and the running gag is he brutally murders them to get them to shut the fuck up. OG Happy Tree Friends Pmuch. Idk it's a funny bit, and I like how over time they get more and more sick of Duckman, even snapping a few times. It's interesting to see him try to expect more in return from them in dire situations, and how they often end up turning on him. Really emphasizes his self destructive nature, and how he doesn't even realize it sometimes.

Like what the fuck why is this character so compelling I'm probably the ONLY PERSON ON EARTH who thinks this and it's all because of a fetish I have for men that are like him.

I think the only reason more people don't really feel that interested in him or the show is because it's kind of bad sometimes lol. I'll focus on the character. At his best, Duckman's an oddly endearing little shit and at his worst he's grating to watch and you wonder how this garbage even aired to begin with. (You kinda see it in the video I put up there about him and Cornfed being gay for eachother.) In his worst episodes, Duckman is a very exaggerated version of himself, downright annoying and not charming at all. It's a shame because I find him weirdly relatable.

Like, he has no filter, no shame, and is a very unstable individual. He's disgusting, openly so, and he makes bad choices, does bad things, but he has a heart, he is capable of love. He's aware that what he does is wrong sometimes, and he tries to fix it sometimes, but it never works out. He refuses to listen to help. He thinks he's right in some ways but he hurts because nothing he does will ever satisfy him. The things he does to be "happy" or "feel good" are empty and hollow, and the ways he tries to find love always fail (About Face, the Friends parody one I related to even though it was bad.) He's desperate for it, too to the point of foolishness (the Elliot one I forget the name of where he's getting manipulated by a sycophant). Like, it's really, really not often I see characters like this. Because that's ME IM LIKE THAT HE'S LITERALLY MEEEEEEEEE

TLDR I want to write my own Duckman revival with yaoi in it. Also the show's ending was BAD and an obvious set up for a twist if the show was continued and I'm lowkey fine that it didn't because that last season WAS NOT GOOD.

Happy Halloween