Duck’s Breath Will Retire Its Satire

The Duck’s Breath Mystery Theater, that vigorous and bizarre conglomerate of young satirists who came together in Iowa in 1975 and who suffered too long on beer and pretzels and automotive breakdowns in bleak places before occupying their strategically wry place on the edge of the American mainstream, has expired its last minnow-flavored breath.

More or less. The DBMT is not given to pronunciamentos. They were born without ceremony in Iowa and will die the same way (but not in the same place, having relocated to San Francisco), promising a resurrection or two before the last word on them has been writ. The fact is, as Mel Tolkin observed about comedy success, “what makes you, breaks you.”

The group has dissolved into much more distinguished parts in books, records and memorable radio recordings. Dan Coffey’s “Dr. Science” would be right at home in any stupefyingly earnest educational TV show, unless you’re listening to his answers: “What is dandruff? Dead brain cells.” Merle Kessler has soared to national attention on the heels of his dyspeptic creation, the culture critic Ian Shoales who sneeringly regards critics in turn as “A group of intellectual pinheads and arts parasites who’ve learned how to make a buck out of disguising their destructive motives in the name of cultural commentary.”

Bill Allard’s Mr. Nifty has evolved into the consummate Las Vegas fast-talking hustler. Jim Turner’s spaced-out relic of hippiedom, Randee of the Redwoods, has become an MTV presence credible enough to have actually interviewed a couple of presidential candidates recently in New Hampshire (“Those guys are on a wheel. They seem nice enough at first, but then they go on automatic pilot. ‘Bob Dole would not take this position,’ says Bob Dole.”). They may deserve Randee, but do we deserve them? Leon Martell has gained a reputation as an avant-garde writer and actor (he also writes not-so-avant-garde screenplays).

Together, their act often turned out to be better written than performed, and chances are their collective clout will never bring to the screen “Zarda! Cow From Hell!,” a project they fervently believed in but that has less and less of a chance for mega-success, or any success at all, now that each member is going his own way (as is their behind-the-scenes partner, Steve Baker, who left his job as a crime reporter with the Quad City Times in Davenport to tie in with what surely seemed a brighter prospect).

But their time has come. “It just embarrasses kids to see people clowning around who look like their parents,” Martell observed.

“We’ve spent 13 years together,” said Turner. “Five grown men playing together is no longer in the best interest of the group.”

“I knew I was getting old when I was riding a bus and some kids got on and began to behave,” Martell said. “Like I was somebody you had to behave in front of.”

Turner and Martell, momentarily sole spokesmen for the group in Los Angeles, sat in the backyard of a house south of the Fairfax district on a day, typical of Los Angeles, that couldn’t make up its mind about whether or not to deliver on its threat of rain. Martell was rehearsing a play. Turner was “in from New York,” as they like to say in the trades, and had postponed a pickup basketball game for his visit (he’s tall and thin, with curly hair that extends like a Kirlian aura. Martell is shorter, stockier and amiably circumspect).

The fact is that most of the group came to the University of Iowa as talented postgraduates (only Turner pridefully regards himself as “Iowa’s only Distinguished Alumnus with a 1.6 grade average”). Turner and Martell looked back on the group’s beer hall beginnings, their drives through blizzards, the week where they sold out the Guthrie in Minneapolis and two days later played to an audience of one in Rockford, Ill. (“For the second show,” recalls Turner, “We played to eight people and a dog, which barked all night long at Bill’s pink rabbit suit.”)

“That was actually a good show,” Turner recalled.

“To hang on to something, it’s gotta be fun,” Martell said. “There’s no purpose just to play for money, or to do the same old bits again.”

“I think comedy has changed, but not us,” Turner said (he’s not ready to offer an obit on the group).

“It’s less stupid,” Martell said. “The early Reagan years were terrible. I think people are interested in more thought.”

“In TV, there’s no time to let anything develop,” Turner said. “I think we’re still in the dumb phase of the past six years. There’s something too desperate about the comedy scene.”

“I think we were feeling the danger of what Ken Kesey called ‘Starin’ too long at that spotlight,’ ” Martell said. “Besides, the protagonist position is not the funniest position. Look at how great Alec Guinness was in ‘Kind Hearts and Coronets.’ It was because he played all the victims.”

“We play to the audience, not at them,” Martell added, when asked about the secret of the group’s success.

“It’s a Grateful Dead-ish thing. People feel familial,” Turner added.

“Merle described our act as ‘Parody as done by stupid people,’ ” Martell said. “It’s the audience who lets us figure it all out.”

EXIT LINE: Mort Sahl, quoting the deposed Central African Republic Emperor Jean-Bedel Bokassa, accused of political tyranny and cannibalism: “I must’ve eaten someone who disagreed with me.”