Queer Duck: The Movie

This movie is the feature-length extension of the animated series Queer Duck (2000), created by frequent The Simpsons (1989) scripter Mike Reiss. Sexually scandalous yet sweet, this movie is a cascade of pop-culture stereotypes of gays in America, punctuated by rapid-fire references (as with The Simpsons (1989)) to, well, just about everything: classic movies, game shows, Gilbert and Sullivan, Paul Lynde. Hey, there's even a storyline: Queer Duck (Jim J. Bullock) and his partner of eighteen months ("That's a lifetime in gay years"), Harvey Fierstein sound-alike Stephen Arlo "Openly" Gator (Kevin Michael Richardson), hit a relationship crisis when the fey fowl is wooed by a brassy Broadway broad. Queer Duck wonders if he'd be happier being straight. While Gator the waiter spills his problems to a compassionate Conan O'Brien (thanks for the cameo), Queer Duck goes on a personal odyssey that ultimately leads to a showdown with a television evangelist at a theme park re-christened Fairyland. One has to see it to believe it. --Tom Keogh