Yesterday, some co-workers and I were discussing Robert Altman's Popeye and how weird it was. Somehow, the conversation eventually went from Popeye to Howard the Duck. As a child, the movie scared the crap out me. I remember seeing part of it on T.V. and being profoundly disturbed by Howard. I don't remember why, I just know that I really disliked that movie. Of course my curiosity got the best of me and I had to look up some clips from the movie. What I discovered was that I still find Howard incredibly disturbing and can't really look at him without feeling uneasy. My co-worker, Steve, concluded that it must have something to do with Howard occupying the deepest, darkest regions of the uncanny valley. I think he might be right.

Reading the trivia for the movie on IMDB, I did discover the one good thing that resulted from the creation of this movie. I'll just paste the exact text below:

According to reports at the time of the movie's release, George Lucas was heavily in debt (having just built the $50-million Skywalker Ranch complex) and was counting on this film to get him back in the black. When it bombed, he was forced to start selling off assets to stay afloat. His friend Steve Jobs, the CEO of Apple Computer, offered to help by buying Lucasfilm's newly-launched CGI animation division for a price well above market value, and Lucas, in desperate straits and thankful for the assistance, agreed. That division eventually become Pixar Animation Studios.

Weird.