In
one of the alternate realities I occasionally construct in my head —
their shared commonality always being both an abundance of free time
and the unlimited resources to devote to such pranks — I obtain the
mailing lists of all of James Dobson, Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell’s
umbrella organizations and send everyone contained therein a copy of Queer Duck for Christmas. Or, strike that, for Hanukah.

Despite
the assured proclamations of Bill O’Reilly that the title is a
correlative sign of the Devil’s rise — along with the Israeli-Lebanese
war, Brokeback Mountain, all California ballot initiatives, the
Tele-tubbies, mint-flavored Oreos and everything George Soros says —
and thus part of the impending apocalypse, Queer Duck actually
charts its roots all the way back to 1999, as a cult smash short on
Icebox.com. The moniker, though, is entirely apt, as the cheeky
animated movie does detail the over-the-top adventures of the
world’s most popular homosexual duck and all his fabulous friends — a
collection that includes hard-partying leather enthusiast Bi-Polar Bear
(voiced by Billy West), Openly Gator (voiced by Kevin Michael
Richardson) and Oscar Wildcat (voiced by Maurice La March).

Directed by Xeth (sigh… yes, Xeth) Feinberg, this sort of elongation of Queer Duck’s
wafer-thin conceit to a feature-length project wouldn’t work were it
not for the fact that it was written by four-time Emmy-winning The Simpsons
scribe Mike Reiss, who’s also a co-producer here. If it’s all a bit
slapdash, Reiss peppers the brisk, 72-minute romp with more than a
dozen winning musical numbers, including celebratory showstoppers like
“Gay Day in Happyland” and “Let’s Play Gay Baseball,” and Jim J.
Bullock pithily delivers the abundant quips as Queer Duck. These bits
are all spot-on in their attention to detail, and will delight and
remind fans of similar irreverent fare like South Park and The Simpsons, which each have their own storied history of tuneful send-ups.

Queer Duck is presented in a regular Amray case, with a Dolby
digital stereo audio track that ably handles the program’s musical
numbers. It’s presented in widescreen enhanced for 16×9 televisions,
and there’s an additional 5.1 surround sound track as well as optional
English subtitles. A clutch of featurettes highlighting the voice
personalities, animation and other elements of production are included,
as are five of the original Queer Duck Web shorts — including
the classic “Fiddler on the Roofie” and “Bi-Polar Bear and the Glorious
Hole” — and more behind-the-scenes footage. Queer Duck
certainly may not be for everyone, but it’s a smart niche comedy, well
done. In its own absurdist way, too, the film and show subtly attack
entrenched homophobic attitudes, undermining them by re-contextualizing
them in such a ridiculous arena. B- (Movie) B- (Disc)