BABY HUEY’S GREAT EASTER ADVENTURE (Columbia TriStar, priced for rental, rated G) 1999. Directed by Stephen Furst; starring Joseph Bologna, Maureen McCormick, Harvey Korman, David Lander, Michael Angarno and Tiffany Taubman.
The oversized toddler duck in diapers named Baby Huey was kind of cute in the comics of the 1950s. And the naive yellow-feathered giant bird with more clumsy strength than brain power was kind of amusing in the Paramount theatrical cartoon shorts of the same decade.
But as a live-action costumed character in the new feature-length musical comedy Baby Huey’s Great Easter Adventure, the 7-foot Pampers-wearing duckling is a lot more difficult to warm up to.
It doesn’t help that the producers chose to fill the cast of this musical with adult and child actors who can’t sing. In fact, Baby Huey (voiced by director Stephen Furst) sings more on key than the noncostumed actors, and that isn’t saying much, since Baby Huey wouldn’t even pass the elimination round against the likes of classic costumed crooners Barney and Big Bird.
Yet the movie may find an audience among very young kids who are more open to costumed characters and less bothered by nonmusical musical numbers. They may also get a bigger kick out of the overacted performances of Harvey Korman and Joseph Bologna as the bad guys who want to ducknap Baby Huey and make him the star of a Las Vegas revue.
Patient parents who try to sit through this goofball preschool comedy will find some amusing distractions in picking out familiar childhood stars, including Maureen McCormick (Marcia on The Brady Bunch) as the understanding mother of the young boy who finds and adopts the duck-in-a-China-shop Huey, and David Lander (Squiggy on Laverne & Shirley) as the brainless henchman of Bologna’s leisure-suit character.
