The premiere episode introduces Skip Tarkenton, a somewhat naive and optimistic young man who has come to Hollywood looking for a job as a cartoonist. When he arrives at a low-budget animation company called Buddy Winkler Productions, he finds out Buddy Winkler has just died, and the company desperately needs new blood. So Skip gets an animation job at the firm, which is nicknamed "The Duck Factory" as their main cartoon is "The Dippy Duck Show". Other Duck Factory employees seen regularly on the show were man-of-a-thousand-cartoon voices Wally Wooster ; cynical, sometimes lazy comedy writer Marty Fenneman ; veteran artist and animator Brooks Carmichael; younger storyboard artist Roland Culp; sarcastic editor Andrea Lewin; and hard-nosed, penny-pinching business manager Aggie Aylesworth. Buddy Winkler Productions was now owned by Buddy's young, ditzy but good-hearted widow, Mrs. Sheree Winkler, a former topless ice dancer who had been married to Buddy for all of three weeks before his death. Seen in some episodes were clips from various "Dippy Duck" shows the Buddy Winkler crew were working on -- sometimes fully animated, sometimes in pencil sketch or animatic form. The opening and closing credits were also animated. Series co-creator Klynn was also credited as the show's "creative animation consultant", while production of the actual animated material was done by Ted and Gerry Woolery.
Show history
The Duck Factory lasted thirteen episodes; it premiered April 12, 1984. It was directed primarily by Gene Reynolds, Rod Daniel, and Victor Lobel, who each did three episodes. The show initially aired at 9:30 on Thursday nights, directly after Cheers, and replaced Buffalo Bill on NBC's schedule. Jay Tarses, an actor on The Duck Factory, had been the co-creator and executive producer of Buffalo Bill, which had its final network telecast on Thursday, April 5, 1984. Episodes of The Duck Factory were shown out of the producers' intended order by NBC, leading to significant continuity problems with the series. Most notably, the eighth episode was shown as episode 2. As broadcast, succeeding episodes ping-ponged between Skip being the show's producer, and Skip being the show's low-ranking apprentice animator, with no explanation as to the reason for the constant change of status. As well, what was clearly meant to be the second episode was shown as the thirteenth; Mrs. Winkler was the receptionist in second episode as broadcast, and then in the fourth episode she becomes the receptionist, etc. The show changed timeslots in June, moving to Wednesdays at 9:30. The last original episode of The Duck Factory was broadcast on July 11, 1984.
In 1995, two VHSvideocassettes were released in the United States, one containing the first three episodes, the other the last three episodes. The two volumes were released in the United Kingdom in 1997, slightly expanded to the first four and the last four episodes of the series. A full-season DVD set has yet to be released.
