Scientist Dean Jones is living beyond his means. He has a nice house in a good
neighborhood, a wife, a kid…and a pile of overdue bills higher than a giraffe's
pussy! Life is looking pretty bleak. It also doesn’t help that his wife is so
intellectually disabled that she’d fit right in with Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels
in DUMB AND DUMBER. I’m not kidding. As the film begins, she trying to
"
economize" by making homemade apple sauce with cinnamon, mustard, curry
powder and garlic for Dean’s work lunch. Yeah, that’s going to keep the bill
collectors away. Anyway, Dean goes to work and a duck in his lab eats the insane
apple sauce concoction then accidentally gets radiated. If this was a horror
movie, the duck would start ripping out necks and pecking people’s peckers with
his evil beak, but this is a Disney movie, so instead, it starts shitting out
gold eggs all over the joint. You’d think that would be a good thing, but since
Dean, who’s not the brightest bulb himself, surrounds himself with only idiots,
everything quickly gets way out of control.
For what it is, THE MILLION DOLLAR DUCK is a fun film. Quick pace, goofy story,
Herman and the Purple Cows on the radio, some absolutely adorable women's
fashions on Sandy Duncan, a few laughs, an impressive cast full of familiar
faces, interesting old laws about hoarding gold, vintage cars and fashions, an
old Jack in the Box sign, a dangerous-looking duck stunt that made me sad, some
place called "
Gay 90's" (sadly, I think it was a restaurant), a Richard
Nixon impersonation, a wacky car chase, Kurt Russell's father (Bing Russell), a
confusing ending that left me with a lot of unanswered questions. TMDD might be
dated, but it’s still an enjoyable ride. I've seen it a number of times
over the years and always smile.
Also, the title THE MILLION DOLLAR DUCK is just a great name for a film. I’d
love to see a remake, or maybe even a prequel that explains how Dean Jones and
Sandy Duncan’s characters ever got together in the first place! That’s
gotta be an interesting story!
