Movie rumours

We all know full well that Wikipedia can be a pile of old shite when it comes to rumours about future things, but now there are rumours sprouting from there about Count Duckula becoming an animated feature film produced by Dreamworks, set to be released at least in the year 2009. A part of me wants to believe in it, but after the whole thing about the series being shown again on a kids' channel in the UK, another reckons it's completely false.

What if it were true... there would be so many possibilites.

The thought of Dreamworks making it quite bugs me. I honestly never found any of the Shrek movies as funny as claimed, though there are a number of other animated movies I've yet to see, the latest being Kung Fu Panda. One movie I did like by them was Chicken Run, which was co-produced with Aardman, who according to this rumour had been interested in co-producing this.

Then there is this problem. Several cartoon series had been made into poor films within the last few years, such as Garfield. I watched a small bit of the first one some time ago, and not only did Garfield look hideous, it also starred Jennifer Love Hewitt, who is one of many celebs that annoy me; and it tried too hard to be funny. Tee hee guinea pigs that talk like African-Americans, pull the other one.

Then you have Alvin and the Chipmunks, another example of how animated movies have sunk quite low these days. I saw the trailer on the net last year, and I don't think they were even trying to be funny there. Theodore practicing coprophagia - I know it's a natural thing some rodents do, especially rats, but did these writers honestly though it'd be funny to put that in a kids' movie? And don't get me started on Scooby-Doo, which was just fart jokes throughout.

Back to Duckula. If there really was going to be a theatrical movie based on the 80's cartoon series, I can predict fart jokes, overuse of pop culture, a range of sub par video games released a week before, and terrible songs sung by American pop stars for an OST. But most of all, I predict that it'd be in CGI.

Not all CGI films are as bad as traditional animation fans make them out to be, like Pixar's Cars. But with Duckula, I dread to think of what the model for him would look like - it'd be so detailed, with the indication of features, eye colour, fabrics of his clothes...I don't know, I'm so used to a 2D character with very limited detail, the thought of him being in 3D will scare me.

Now here's the one that would make my brain sizzle with anticipation - who would provide the voices? Would David Jason, Brian Truman and Jimmy Hibbert have the time, or would there be replacements? I know that there may well be some very talented voice actors that could imitate anything, but I would not like it if Duckula sounded more American than he did on the show despite his original actor being British. I know that the original show was a British, Spanish AND American co-production, but damn, this will be so American I'd crave some rain, tea and digestive biscuits in no time.

All of that said, I would go and see it.

But for the time being, we'll have to wait and see if this rumour is actually true.

More new plushes

Source: Plush-Toy UK

I honestly don't know where these are coming from, but it seems that there is not only a new Count Duckula soft toy, but also a Nanny one! In fact this is the first time I've ever seen a Nanny toy. I wonder if an Igor or perhaps a Von Goosewing one will show up.

I've seen these pop up on eBay about a week ago, but I won't be able to get them just yet. I've asked the seller who's been putting them up there a question about what sort of company is producing and what year they were made in; no answer yet though. I guess the only way to find out is to buy them myself and look.

This is most exciting, new Duckula plushes for the new generation are being made at bloody long last! And these ones look a little decent this time!

New Duckula plushes?

Look what I got in the mail today.

[Apologies for the crap photography, my camera's not as good now since my sister dropped it.]


I recently picked this up from a UK-only charity listing at eBay, and I can tell you now that I've never seen this plush ever. So I decided to get it, despite the fact that it has a tacky design once again [his cape was the wrong side up!]. In the photo it seemed quite a big one, but it's a lot smaller than I thought. In fact, it's about the size of a plush doll that is typically found in seaside crane machines, so I have a feeling that these are new products, and despite not having any labels on it, I think these are made by something along the lines of PMS, a company that distributes soft toys and the like to crane machines. It's definitely not fan-made, that's for sure.

This plush came from Shoeburyness, which is actually near where my older sister lives. Now and again we go out to Southend, and the last time I went there, some of the crane machines were filled with Dangermouse plushes. I'm sure that there's got to be more than one of the one I got today, so the next time I go to Southend I shall keep a lookout. My sister also booked a holiday to Great Yarmouth next month, so I'll ask her to lookout as well if they're not in Southend.

This has certainly given me hope for perhaps a new set of Duckula merchandise for 2008. In the past few years there have been new Dangermouse products to celebrate the likes of his 20th and 25th anniversaries, while Duckula has a 20th anniversary this year. It'd be totally unfair otherwise.



My bigger plush has a friend of his kind now. He's been surrounded by SpongeBob the whole time.

Let me make it clear...

First off, apologies if this post offends anyone here, but I have to get this off my chest.

Just now, I found a piece of my Duckyboos website being used on a bootleg t-shirt for sale on eBay. eBay is full of people trying to make a quick buck from t-shirts using any old crap on Google, and when you are affected it becomes a very sticky situation.

Now, to anyone who is stupid enough to take any content from my website without permission, I want to make it clear - while I don't claim any copyright to the official images I've used for decoration on the site, just because it shows up on Google, it does NOT mean that you can take it and not let me know what you're going to do with it. Asking for my permission is a simple procedure which you can do so here, and depending on the use, most of the time I probably will give the thumbs up for you to use, because like the Count himself, I won't bite. That way you won't get an email asking to take whatever you took from my site off.

Equally, I don't like seeing my stuff on your Myspace pages or Youtube slideshows either, especially my fanart, so be warned if I have to PM you about it.

And for anyone who is even more stupid enough to try and sell any pictures you pinch from Google, DeviantART and the like, especially fanart you WILL be reported, because that shit is illegal to even try and sell. Website graphics aren't meant to be ironed on t-shirts, so they will end up looking like shit, and buyers, please don't buy them.

That should be it for now, but to the kinds of people I've mentioned, you are warned.

More screenshots

I've decided to take screenshots from random episodes now, and after uploading some for four episodes the past two days, we now have more than 1,500 pictures in the whole Duckyboos gallery! And since I'm planning to concentrate with episode screenshots this week, and the possibility of scanning some comic stories, this number may well grow rapidly. I recently found a nice tool in Livejournal that lets you upload pictures to your Scrapbook straight from Windows Explorer [Windows XP], which is very useful if you're uploading loads of pictures at once.

I'm also working on the Series 3 section of the Episode guide, which will be online within this week, and I will tweak the other series pages just a little bit to suit the new changes.

Stay tuned, and goodnight out there, whatever you are~!

Return of the Downloads & more

Hot damn, I can't believe it's been a full six months since our last update! Where does the time go? Anyway, I'm happy to announce that I have restored the Downloads section that I once cancelled. At the moment I have only made a wallpaper that I had made with one of my own fan-artworks available at the moment, but I'll be adding more, and I will enable the avatars and audio section shortly.

Also to add, from now on all news updates will be mirrored on the Blog in hopes for it to be a bit more interactive, ie. if you have something to say about an update, now you can!

Lastly, I have moved the guestbook to a new service called SmartGB, which is now located here. The old one had a very boring look and I was unable to reply to your wonderful feedback, but now I can. All is not lost though, for I have copied all of the old messages onto there, and I've responded to some of them, so check it out. ;)

Sid Quack

"I'm a-workin' out here on Maggots Farm
I'm workin' out here on Maggots Farm
I wish that I had lots of dough
And a brand new suit of clothes
And the finest food that I could eat
And never have to eat Granny Reekie's soup
I'm a-livin' out here on Maggots Farm
Instead of a mansion on a hill
Oh Maggots Farm is makin' me ill!"

For once, I'd thought I'd have a crack at drawing one of Duckula's two doppelgängers, Sid Quack, from the series 2 episode "The Count and the Pauper." Man, if there could be a Wario in the Count Duckula universe, this guy would be that. Even if they did look exactly the same - I supposed that would be understandable because in real life, all male mallards look the same, what with either green heads and that, there's no way to tell them apart. Still, they could have done with different hairstyles.

Despite the episode being nothing more than a parody of the Prince and the Pauper, I thought it was a great one, because I think the songs the two ducks sing at various points just make it. Mr Jason did a great northern farmer accent for Sid too. What was also funny was that Nanny and Igor had doppelgängers too, really nasty ones on that.

I won't be posting much more Duckula fanart on my DeviantART, unless it's extremely epic and well done. Fanart of anything seems to either like sweets are to kids, or frowned upon by miserable bastards who get too upset that any fanart ends up on the front page there. I've also been in a slump these days, but things seem to be picking up again.

"I'm living out here on Maggots Farm
This country life has lost its charm
I want my castle on the hill
Maggots Farm is a-makin' me ill!
I miss old Nanny and old Igor
Stink and Reekie are becoming a bore
I want some decent food and some decent clothes
And not old Reekie's soup and bones
I'm workin' out here on Maggots Farm
I'm workin' out here on Maggots Farm
I'm workin' out here on Maggots Farm..."

This post is in memory of my little budgie, who died a few hours ago today.
RIP Percy, c.1995-2008.

Merry Quackmas

Here's wishing you a merry ducky Quackmas!

I also have to inform, and regret that blog comments are now moderated, for personal reasons. This means that I'll be notified when you post a comment on an entry and I'll have to approve it if I think it's appropriate.

All the best for the holidays, and thank you for your kind feedback!

Some plans

Just a quick post before I go to bed.

I've got plans in my mind for Duckyboos which involves moving the news and updates section from the main site into here not only to make it a pinch more active, but also to make the previous news posts more organised, and for future ones more easier to post. It'd save me having to knock one out of three posts, which I hand type into the index file, everytime I update, and from making new pages as the old news archive grows. Should I?

Season 2 release for Latin America

Good news for Duckula fans in South America, the second season has appeared to have been released!

Source: TruCinePortal.com

Apparently there will be 19 episodes on this DVD, but this source doesn't tell whether or not there is anything else on it like features and stuff. What I do find interesting though is that the picture of Duckula on this cover is derived from the cover of the 1991 Annual. It seems that whoever designed these seem to have done them better than whoever designed the UK DVD covers.