Although I didn't see this film in theatres, I caught the first HBO premiere. At age six or seven, I thought "Howard the Duck" was an awesome movie. It was as good as any cartoon shown on television, at the time. And that lobster thing scared the HELL out of me. In fact, most anyone in my age group that I can think of, also loved that film... at the time. When I watch it lately, admittedly it's not as great. But neither are many of the cartoons, with which, I grew up. In the same respect, I used to love "Shirt Tales", "Snorks", "Inspector Gadget", "Count Duckula", "Masters of the Universe", "Heathcliff", "Bannana Man", and so on. These days, however, most of those shows bore me senseless. My favorite childhood show was "M.A.S.K." and I'm a bit aprehensive to purchase any episodes or season sets, fearing that it might not hold up to treasured memories. "Ducktales" is still pretty captivating, though.
Anyway, what I'm attempting to convey is the idea that as a childrens' film, "Howard the Duck" is wonderful. From what I remember, though, it was marketed as something more adult, like a "Star Wars". Thus, it didn't rake in the similar box office cash. If children back then had been charged for every HBO viewing, however, it would have done exceptional. And for anyone who wonders why it didn't sell well to kids on VHS, remember two things. First, feature tapes were expensive, back then. I remember using birthday money two purchase "Turtles II" for like twenty bucks, which seemed like a lot to a youngster, and was in 91'. Second, you could just as easily get yourt parents to record the film off of HBO. It still costed like 5 bucks for a blank vhs tape, but that was cheaper than the alternative, and often times you could fit up to three movies on one tape.
"The key is, you've got to be crazy to maintain your sanity"
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