I’m fresh out of Mighty Ducks movies to review this Holiday season, so to make up for that I shall be looking at a logo which originated from the film series instead. A bad attempt at making a generic hockey themed duck logo which was thankfully never used by the NHL team named for the film series. The NHL Mighty Ducks instead went with the iconic duck mask logo as their primary crest (as well as a uniform that was completely different from the team in the movie) which was later introduced to the movies to tie the two together, making the film series feel like a glorified commercial for the NHL team. Or the other way round, if you insist.
Anyway, this thing. In the first film, when Team District 5 was named the Ducks for their sponsor, the conveniently named Mr Ducksworth, the kids were shown their new uniform and their initial reactions weren’t very positive. “The Ducks?” one of them asked, “We’re the Ducks?!” Honestly, for a hockey team, Ducks is a pretty good name. If I were these kids I’d be more concerned about the logo they had to wear:
That is one of the weirdest looking cartoon ducks that I have ever seen. It’s oddly very non-Disney-ish despite belonging to a Disney product (little known fact: they outsourced the team logo designs used in the first film). This duck looks terrified, with his big googly eyes and his beak combined together to pull off a facial expression that says “Ooh err!” as he takes his first step onto the ice. Could this have been deliberate, considering the movie Ducks team were a ragtag bunch of kids who initially couldn’t skate or play properly? Perhaps. But this is still very odd for an animal-based identity, couldn’t the duck at least have had a more intimidating facial expression?
At first glance I can’t tell whether he’s wearing a jersey or they’ve just stuck a D-5 onto bright yellow padding. All of those lines remind me of hockey pads. Or was this foreseeing the future of the NHL, for when Reebok Edge was introduced and a lot of teams went with pointless coloured piping for the sake of it? The weirdest thing is the jersey he wears doesn’t even match the uniform that he’s been stuck on. I understand the need for colour contrast against a green jersey, but did they really have to go overboard with all that green and purple piping?
That’s also the weirdest hockey helmet I’ve ever seen. It looks as if he borrowed a turtle shell from the Super Mario games, painted it purple, and stuck it on his head. But what’s with the bit of red? Why is that there? Heck, why is there any red on this logo at all? The team’s colours in the movie are green, yellow, purple and black. No red. So the red on this logo makes no sense whatsoever. Or was this supposed to be a callback to when the team was simply “District 5” and they were crap? This could also explain the general mismatched equipment look and why the jersey piping makes it look like padding.
I certainly wouldn’t want to see a real life hockey team wearing this logo, and like I said I’m glad the NHL Ducks never had to wear this horrible thing. But, to use an overused hockey cliché, it is what it is. A graphic serving as a fictional sports team’s logo. Regardless of how ugly it is, it was adequate for its purpose. And if you like the movie, don’t let the ugliness of this duck take away from your enjoyment of the film.
I’m Wildwing64, and I declare War on Logos.
