Meet Wally Sparks vs. Howard the Duck

Skottula

on 4/11/2013

Few things wounded me more in hindsight that that the legacies of two unforgettable comic characters were immortalized on film in such a way. In the case of both Howard The Duck and Rodney Dangerfield, I didn't discover their greatness until well after their prime - Dangerfield as the world's most lovable loser (who I first fell in love with largely through his role in Ladybugs) and Howard the Duck - the comic book industry's most conscientious objector, who unfortunately, I first became aware of through George Lucas' re-imagining of the comic book character. I suppose there are silver linings to each, Meet Wally Sparks likely gave Dangerfield enough money to avoid poverty in his later years and the Howard the Duck movie made me eventually seek out the original Marvel comics years later, which easily became one of my favorite comic series of all time. As movies, however, you could absolutely do better than either of these and finding high points to talk about from either is tougher than weighing out which had fewer weaknesses. In the end, though Howard the Duck amused, delighted and captured my imagination as a child, and although the character is now much beloved to me, no memory of actually watching Howard the Duck compares to the mild amusement I recall from renting Meet Wally Sparks once on VHS at the height of Jerry Springer-mania. My respect to Rodney.