You gotta love (or hate) any decade in which a dwarf in a rubbery duck suit is put forth as the hero in a wannabe blockbuster. Where to begin with this legendary 1986 turkey? How about the pre-credits sequence, in which we meet our feathery, pint-sized hero, an ill-tempered humanoid duck who’s shanghaied from his home planet and sent to Earth? (I think I speak for a generation when I say naked duck boobies is one of those things that, once seen, cannot be unseen.) Howard isn’t happy to be stranded in our world, though he stays with rocker-chick Lea Thompson, so things can’t be that bad! I had a huge crush on Thompson when I saw this as a kid, but I must admit that the bliss of seeing her in her panties was substantially dented by the fact that she’s coming on to a duck alien. (In the too-much-information department, we get a peek into Howard’s wallet and find a condom. Oookaaay.) Then there’s young, gangling Tim Robbins as the wacky nerd-scientist who tries to figure out what brought Howard here (it’s painful to see Robbins taking Rick Moranis’ sloppy seconds, but hey, everybody has to start somewhere) and Jeffrey “The Ferris Bueller Principal” Jones as a government agent who gets possessed by an evil alien. Howard the Duck is the sort of disaster you watch in awe, gripped by curiosity about what new way the movie will go wrong next. Willard Huyck directed it, though I remember seeing executive producer George Lucas’s name plastered all over the posters. Maybe the studio thought that kids who swallowed Star Wars will swallow anything.