Embrace Your Love of Bad "B" Movies

Not since Ghoulardi have we looked forward to a B-movie this much. Mystery Science Theater 3000, the cult TV show that offers merciless commentary on bad movies, rolls into the Ohio Theatre Aug. 8 to roast Eegah and perform silly sketches. We honor MST3K’s riffing by taking on our claim to bad movie fame: Howard the Duck.  

Welcome to CLE 
As if being chased through the gritty streets of Cleveland (does it really have to be raining in this scene?) by a female biker gang named Satan’s Sluts (where are they these days?) moments after being teleported light years into space isn’t bad enough, Howard now has to save Beverly Switzler (played by Lea Thompson) from two drugged-out punks. Howard uses Quack-Fu (did Donald or Shaq teach him that move?) to win the day. “This is obviously no place for an intelligent, sensitive duck,” Howard says before asking Switzler where he is. “Cleve-land,” Howard says skeptically. “Uh-huh. That’s a perfect, weird name for this planet.”

Ducky Love
Howard and Switzler settle into bed after a night of pop music and bar brawls for one of the most awkward scenes in movie history. “It’s just that you’re so incredibly soft and cuddly,” she says. (Where was a producer or assistant director or anyone who didn’t have feathers for brains when this was filmed?) A bunch of science guys (nerds!) interrupt before all restraint flies the coop, but there was at least one lip-to-beak kiss. (Between this and 1985’s Back to the Future, where Thompson’s character has a crush on her own son, the ‘80s were a very confusing time.)

Environmental Concerns 
The nods to Ohio — Howard wearing an Ohio State University sweatshirt and lab worker Phil Blumburtt (played by Tim Robbins) rocking a blue and red hat with a C on it — are nice. But this flying scene at the conclusion doesn’t look like any part of Northeast Ohio we’ve ever seen (it’s actually the Montezuma Hills in Rio Vista, California, where most of the movie was filmed). But that’s not enough to distract us from the awful pratfalls of the duck hunters as Howard dive-bombs them.