George Lucas was coming off the high of Return of the Jedi. He was the untouchable king of cinema. So, when the first Howard the Duck movie trailer hit theaters in the mid-80s, people actually expected a masterpiece. They didn't get one. They got a cigar-chomping waterfowl from Duckworld who ended up in a Cleveland dumpster.
It’s weird to look back now.
Today, Howard is a fun cameo in the Marvel Cinematic Universe (MCU), voiced by Seth Green and popping up in Guardians of the Galaxy. But back in 1986? He was supposed to be the next Mickey Mouse. The trailer promised a high-octane, special-effects-laden blockbuster from the mind that gave us Han Solo and Indiana Jones. Instead, it became a cautionary tale about ego, practical effects gone wrong, and the perils of marketing a character that half the audience found creepy.
The Teaser That Hid the Duck
Marketing is often about what you don't show. The original teaser for the film is a masterclass in 1980s suspense marketing. It starts with a slow pan across a study. You see a copy of Rolling Stone with a duck on the cover. You see a chair. Then, the chair rotates, and you see... nothing. Just a pair of webbed feet.
It was a "hook."
The producers, including Lucas and director Willard Huyck, were terrified that if people saw the suit too early, they’d realize it looked like a person in a carpet-covered foam outfit. Which, to be fair, is exactly what it was. The trailer relied heavily on the Lucasfilm pedigree. If you watch it now, the narrator’s voice has that classic, deep "In a world..." gravitas that dominated the era. It sold a movie that didn't really exist—a cool, edgy, sci-fi noir.
The reality was much stranger.
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Why the Howard the Duck Movie Trailer Lied to Us
In the eighties, trailers were physical film reels sent to theaters. There was no "leaking" on YouTube. You saw what the studio wanted you to see. The Howard the Duck movie trailer highlighted the spectacle: the ultralight plane chase, the Dark Overlord of the Universe, and the massive explosions.
What it left out was the tone.
Is it a kids' movie? There's a scene with a duck in a bathtub and a sequence involving "duck breasts" that feels deeply uncomfortable. Is it an adult comedy? It’s too silly for that. The trailer tried to bridge this gap by focusing on the "out of this world" fish-out-of-water story. Lea Thompson was a massive star fresh off Back to the Future, and the marketing leaned heavily on her chemistry with a puppet.
Honestly, the special effects were groundbreaking for the time, even if they look dated now. Industrial Light & Magic (ILM) worked overtime. They had to figure out how to make a three-foot-tall animatronic duck look like it was talking, walking, and—heaven help us—flirting. The trailer showcased the "Laser Spectacle" ending, which was classic Lucas. But no amount of lasers could hide the fact that the lead actor was a series of little people in a suit that barely worked.
The Missing Marvel Connection
If you watch a Marvel trailer today, you expect a post-credits tease or a cameo. In 1986, the general public had no idea Howard was a Marvel Comics character. Created by Steve Gerber, Howard was a satirical, cynical tool used to poke fun at social norms.
The movie trailer stripped all that away.
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It turned a gritty, existentialist comic book into a slapstick adventure. Fans of the original comics were baffled. General audiences were just confused. When the trailer promised "A New Breed of Hero," nobody realized they were getting a feathered grump who was more interested in beer than saving the world.
The Fallout of the 1986 Marketing Campaign
When the movie finally dropped, it cratered. Hard.
The discrepancy between the high-octane Howard the Duck movie trailer and the actual film led to a massive backlash. Universal Pictures executives reportedly got into physical altercations over the film's failure. It became a punchline. But here’s the thing: because the trailer was so ubiquitous, the movie stayed in the public consciousness.
It became a "cult classic" specifically because the marketing was so loud. You couldn't escape it. If you were a kid in '86, that trailer was burned into your brain. The image of Howard falling through space was iconic, even if the movie itself was a mess.
Technical Glitches and Puppet Problems
The behind-the-scenes reality of what you see in that trailer is a nightmare of 80s engineering.
- The suit cost $2 million to develop.
- The duck's eyes were controlled by remote, but they often twitched or looked in different directions.
- Lea Thompson had to spend hours acting against a static prop while a puppeteer shouted lines from off-camera.
- The "Dark Overlord" stop-motion was handled by Phil Tippett, the same legend who worked on Star Wars and later Jurassic Park.
When you see the monster in the trailer, it actually looks terrifying. Tippett’s work is the only part of the film that truly holds up. The trailer builds it up as this cosmic horror, and for about five minutes at the end of the film, it actually is.
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How to Re-watch the Trailer Today (With Perspective)
If you're looking for the Howard the Duck movie trailer on YouTube or through archival sites like the Criterion Channel, you have to watch it through a 1980s lens. Don't look at the CGI. Look at the practical lighting. Look at the way they used smoke and mirrors to hide the duck's height.
There are actually three versions of the trailer:
- The Teaser: The one with the chair and the "Rolling Stone" magazine.
- The Theatrical Trailer: This one is heavy on the Lea Thompson/Jeffrey Jones plot.
- The International Trailer: Surprisingly, this version focuses more on the sci-fi elements and less on the comedy.
Watching these back-to-back shows a studio that had no idea what they were selling. They were throwing everything at the wall. Explosions! Romance! A talking duck! Heavy metal music!
The Legacy of the Duck
Believe it or not, the failure of the Howard the Duck marketing actually paved the way for modern Marvel movies. It taught studios that you can't just slap a comic book name on a screen and expect it to work. You need a consistent tone.
It also led to the birth of Pixar.
Wait, what? Yeah. George Lucas was facing a massive divorce settlement and the financial sting of Howard the Duck. To raise cash, he sold off his computer graphics division to Steve Jobs. That division became Pixar. So, in a weird, butterfly-effect way, the world's most famous "bad" movie gave us Toy Story.
Actionable Next Steps for Film Buffs
If you want to truly appreciate this weird slice of cinema history, don't just stop at the trailer.
- Watch the "making-of" featurettes: Most Blu-ray releases of Howard the Duck include interviews with the puppeteers. It’s fascinating to see the level of work that went into a suit that everyone hated.
- Compare the trailer to the original Steve Gerber comics: Read the first few issues of the 1976 run. You'll see why the movie trailer felt like such a betrayal to the "Duck-heads" of the era.
- Check out the MCU cameos: Go back and watch the end-credits scene of Guardians of the Galaxy. The "new" Howard is purely digital, but he captures the cynical spirit that the 1986 trailer tried to hide.
- Look for the "lost" TV spots: There are several 30-second commercials that aired during Saturday morning cartoons that are even more bizarre than the theatrical trailer, including ones that tried to sell Howard as a superhero to toddlers.
The Howard the Duck movie trailer is a time capsule. It represents an era when movies were weird, risks were huge, and George Lucas thought he could make the world fall in love with a three-foot duck from outer space. It didn't work, but man, it was a wild ride to watch it fail.