The Three Caballeros

(1948)
Directed by Norman Ferguson (supervision), Clyde Geronimi, Jack Kinney, Bill Roberts, Harold Young (sequences)
Starring Clarence Nash, Jose do Patrocinio Oliveira, Joaquin Garay, Sterland Holloway, Frank Graham, Fred Shields
IMDB Entry

How can a Disney animated feature be forgotten? Well, there are several that fit. I'll be covering them in the next few weeks, in reverse order so they show up in the right order when people scroll.

The fact that Disney is an entertainment juggernaut these days makes people gloss over the fact that it was touch-and-go for awhile. In the early 40s, the studio was in trouble. Fantasia, while well regarded, flopped at first release. Bambi did poorly and Dumbo, while successful, wasn't a smash like Snow White.* Furthermore, Disney had got caught up in a strike of the animators and was on financial thin ice due to an expansion of the studio. The final straw was that the war in Europe meant that market was not available.

But there was one lifeline. The government was concerned with what was happening in South America, where Nazi ideology was getting a stronghold. FDR set up the Office of the Coordinator of Inter-American Affairs, run by Nelson Rockefeller, to improve the US image in Latin America. Disney decided to get involved to get the government support. Their first movie under this was Saludos Amigos. The Three Caballeros was something of a sequel and probably the one that holds up best today.

It, like most of the full-length Disney animated films of the 40s, is made up of short subjects tied together to make a feature length film.** The frame tale is that it was Donald Duck's (Clarence Nash) birthday.*** He is sent a box of gifts from South America. They include a movie camera, which shows a story of Pablo, a penguin who wants to move into a warmer climate. After a brief animated travelogue showing the birds of the Amazon,**** there's another short about a boy from Uruguay who discovers a flying donkey.

Next comes Jose Carioca (Jose do Patrocinio Oliveira), a Brazilian parrot who was introduced in Saludos Amigos, who takes Donald to a festival in Brazil via a popup book. Of interest is the integration of the animated characters with actual footage. Not the first time, of course,***** but a good one. As a note, the singer portrayed in the sequence was Aurona Miranda, Carmen Miranda's sister.

Finally, it's Panchito (Joaquin Garay), from Mexico. They sing the title song -- probably the only sequence that most people are familiar with -- then visit Mexico, leading to a surrealistic set of visions, much like those in parts of Fantasia.

The standalone sequences are typical Disney: gentle, mildly amusing, but too bland to stand out.  However, the more surrealistic finale is well regarded as a work of animated imagination. And the melding of animation and live action is technically superb.

The movie was enough of a success to keep Disney afloat.

Read my novel, The Cadaver Princess.

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*It was the biggest grossing film ever prior to Gone with the Wind.

**I suspect this was to allow a fallback; if the feature flopped, the individual sequences could be repurposed as shorts.

***It was ten years after his debut.

****A clear precursor of the true-life adventures Disney featured a few years later.

*****The Out of the Inkwell series was doing in 1918, and Gertie the Dinosaur -- one of the first animated films from 1914 -- had Gertie catch a ball thrown by a person on stage.

Vinland Saga

 

(2019-23)
Directed by Shūhei Yabuta
Written by Hiroshi Seko, Kenta Ihara, based on a Manga by  Makoto Yukimura 
IMDB Entry

I don't watch much manga or anime, but when someone recommended Vinland Saga, I decided to see what it was about. It turned out to be well worth looking for.

It's based on a manga by Makoto Yukimura and follows Thorin, living in Iceland and son of the great Viking warrior Thors. His father is called to join the ruler, but it turns out to be a trap, and Thors is killed while Thorin watches. Thorin vows revenge on Askeladd, the warrior who trapped him and, with nowhere else to go, he is taken on by Askeladd as something of a mascot. The young boy learns how to fight, with an eye to challenging him to a duel and killing him. Askeladd a mercenary, fights for the Danish king Sweyn and the Danish mercenary Thorkell, who is fighting for the English against Sweyn's invasion. There's also the issue of Canute, king Sweyn's son, who plays into Askeladd's plans.

The star of the show is Askeladd. He's a Viking warrior who is smart, treacherous, devious, willing to use anyone to get what he wants. Yet, despite this, he's a fascinating character. Indeed, many of the episodes focus on him, with Thorin, nominally the main character, barely plays a part.*

Thorin is a bit one-dimensional, defined by his revenges, but Askeladd is fascinating, and the story arc of Canute is surprising and emotionally strong.

The show is violent and filled with battle scenes, but the story is compelling from start to finish. It's available on Netflix.

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*Neither does Vinland. It's mentioned early on (by Leif Ericksson) but not much afterwards.

The Illusionist

(2010)

Directed by Sylvain Chomet
Written by Henri Marquet, Sylvain Chomet (screeplay), Jacques Tati (story)
IMDB Entry

Jacques Tati is the last of the great silent comedians.* He started making films long after sound came in, but continued the art form. There was sound, but no actual conversations. They story was told through actions and character reactions. Generally, any speech was short and consisting of a handful of words.  But the visual comedy was top notch,Tati died in 1982. He only directed five full-length features, all of which are gems of comedy. The Illusionist is an animated film that was adapted from a screenplay that he never directed.

It's the story of Tatisheff,** a stage magician. He's good,  but no one is interested in his act, and he keeps appearing in smaller and smaller venues. He travels with his recalcitrant rabbit, to a small village in Scotland for a performance, and sees a young woman, Alice, working as a maid. Feeling sorry for her, he buys her a pair of decent shoes. When he travels from there to Edinburgh, she decides to go with him.

They hole up in a theatrical hotel and he gets work where he can, while she admires him, and they set up a father-daughter relationship.

The gags are funny and, in typical Tati fashion, there are more than one going on at once. It's not slapstick, but about the reaction of the human reactions to the event.

There are plenty of memorable characters, especially in the hotel. There's a ventriloquist who is kind to Alice and never puts his dummy down, three acrobat who are always practicing their art, the hotel owners who are little people and who go in their office by only opening the lower part of a Dutch door, and a rock band that steals his thunder.

The film is visually superb. Backgrounds are filled with details and the portrayal of things like smoke and rain is unsurpassed.

The movie got an Oscar nomination but didn't win. Director Chomet had made a mark with The Triplets of Bellevue, but hasn't been able to do much since, especially since his studio and distributor folded.

There was some controversy over the film. Tati had written it for his daughter, as a way of apologizing her for his being too busy for her. Members of the family didn't like the usage, and objected to changes that Chomet had made, but I think the result is well worth it.

You don't have to know Tati to enjoy this. It's full of charm and pathos and an example of a film that uses animation in a way that is rarely seen.

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*I don't count Mel Brooks, whose foray into silent comedy was a one-off thing. Shaun the Sheep is the only real challenger.
**Tati's real name. The character design is clearly based on Tati, too.

The Sinking of the Lusitania

(1918)
Directed, Written, and Drawn by Windsor Mckay
Wikpiedia Entry
Full Movie on Youtube

Name a shipwreck.

Chances are, you thought of the Titanic. And that’s not surprising, given how it has been talked about and turned into blockbuster movies. But for many years, the Titanic had faded into obscurity, not to be revitalized until Walter Lang had a best seller with his book A Night to Remember in 1955. Up until  then, however, the shipwreck people remembered was the Lusitania.

This main reason was its historical importance. The ship was sunk by a German U-Boat, at a time they claimed the right to sink any ship, passenger or warship, and became a catalyst for the US entering World War I.*

Windsor McKay was one of the great cartoonist of all time, creator of Little Nemo in Slumberland and Dreams of a Rarebit Fiend, both of which are still influential over a century after they were created.  He also was arguably the inventor of the animated film.**

The movie begins with a look and McKay  and his studio looking at photos of the ship and talks briefly of the 25k drawings needed to make the film and the technical issue of creating the look of the sea. It then tells the story of the ship, how it sailed and was hit by German torpedoes. It’s a propaganda film, or course, filled with remarks about the heartless hun torpedoing a passenger ship.***

The images are arresting and the ship was probably a pinnacle of animation in its time, filled with attention to detail. It ran for twelve minutes, making it the longest animated film up to that point. It’s still a powerful statement.

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*It raised outrage at the time. The sinking caused them to back off, but when they tried to reinstate it, the US declared war.

**It’s always iffy to call someone the inventor of an art form, but McKay was clearly one of the first, and the first to make a name for himself doing it. His Gertie the Dinosaur is still listed as one of the greatest cartoons of all time.

***The point of unrestricted submarine warfare was to prevent the allies from sneaking munitions into the UK on passenger ships. Afterwards, the UK insisted there was nothing of that nature aboard, until 1982, when the finally admitted there was ammunition on the ship.

Phantom Boy

(2015)
Directed by Jean-Loup Felicioli, Alain Gagnol
Written by Alain Gagnol
Starring (Original/English) Edouard Baer/Jared Padalecki, Gaspard Gagnol/Marcus D’Angelo, Jean-Pierre Marielle/Vincent D’Onofrio, Jackie Berroyer/Vincent D’Onofrio, Audrey Tautou/Melissa Disney
IMDB  Entry

I’m a big fan of animated films, and this is definitely a golden age for the art. I also like to seek out films that are outside the beaten path. While the US and Japan are the places where most of the best animation is made, there are pockets in other countries. France, for instance.  They produced The Painting, and, more recently, Phantom Boy.

It introduces two characters. Alex (Jared Padalecki*) is a detective who is always getting in trouble when things fall apart around him.  In trouble with his boss, he runs into a couple of criminals and their mastermind/leader The Face (Vincent D’Onofrio) on the verge of committing a major crime.  Alex has his leg broken, and his boss doesn’t believe him, so he ends up in the hospital, unable to do anything. There he meets Leo (Marcus D’Angelo), a boy who is sick with a serious disease and who has a strange power:  he can leave his body and his phantom version can travel around town.  Meanwhile, Mary (Melissa Disney**), a reporter, is interested in Alex’s story.  When the Face threatens New York City, Leo and Alex team up with Mary to thwart his plans.

This is a traditionally animated film that avoids being flashy. The images, while well done, really exist to carry the story along. But the strength of the movie is in its characters. The Face makes a great supervillain*** and the relationship between the three main characters is strong and natural. Leo follows Mary and relays what he sees to Alex, who then tells Mary about them on his cell phone. Mary never understands how that happens until the end..

The movie has a charming sensibility and a sense of humor that makes it all the more watchable.  It manages to balance the crime story (with a hint of superherodom) with strong characterization and a love story.

It’s available on Netflix as of this writing.

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*In the dubbed version. I’ll be listing the US voice actors from now on.

**Yes, a relation (a distant one).

***His name come from the fact that he looks like a cubist painting. One of the nicer things of the movie is that he’s always interrupted when he’s about to explain why he looks that way.

The Critic

(1963)
Directed by Ernest Pintoff
Written by Mel Brooks
Voices by Mel Brooks
IMDB Entry
Full movie

I really don’t have to say that Mel Brooks is a comic genius.  His films are classics, including the first film he ever appeared in, the Academy Award winning The Critic.*

The movie – an animated short subject -- starts with a bunch of abstract designs and a chirpy harpsichord playing the the background.  About 30 seconds in, you hear Brook’s voice** chiming in with “What the hell is this?”

Brooks continues to comment on what is shown on the screen, mystified and disdainful as he tries to puzzle out the meaning of the abstract designs in front of him.  A couple of people tell him to be quiet, but he defends his right to talk about what is happening.

The entire thing was ad libbed.  Brooks, inspired by seeing an old man doing the same thing in a theater, told director Ernest Pintoff to make a film, but not show it to him until he was in the studio.  Brooks manages to be incredibly funny, partly because what he describes really matches what we’re seeing in a unexpected way.  His way of speaking also adds to the humor.

Director/producer Ernest Pintoff had already gotten an Oscar nomination for an animated short subject,*** which may be one reason Brooks chose him.  The film won this time, though Brooks would have to wait a couple of years until getting his own statuette for The Producers.

The film is short and sweet and incredibly funny.  Click on the link and prepare to laugh.

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*Not to be confused with the animated TV show of the same name.

**Far more familiar now than when the movie was shot, of course.

***Narrated by Brooks’s collaborator Carl Reiner.

Mary and Max

(2009)
Written and Directed by Adam Elliot
With the voices of Toni Colette, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Eric Bana, Barry Humphries, Bethany Whitmore, Renee Geyer
IMDB Entry

In the US, animated films are for kids.  Though there are often elements to entertain adults, that’s not their main audience, and the assumption is that it’s best to stick with children’s stories.  In other countries, though animation for adults is accepted and even celebrated. And there are few films more worthy of celebration than Mary and Max.

The film starts in a small dreary brown town in Australia, where Mary Daisy Dunkle (Bethany Whitmore) lives a dreary brown life.  She is an outcast, of course, teased because of a birthmark on her forehead “the color of poo.”  Her father is in a dull job at a tea bag factory and disappears each night to do his taxidermy; his mother is a shoplifter who takes a little too much sherry (well, a lot too much). One day, Mary finds a New York City phone book, and wondering about Americans, picks a name at random and sends a letter.

It reaches Max Horowitz (Philip Seymour Hoffman), a fat 44-year-old Jewish atheist, who lives alone and can’t deal with other people.  The letter frightens him, but he eventually writes back when he sees that they both love chocolate and The Noblets, a cartoon show.  Letter follows letter and the two create a long distance friendship over the years.  But all is not well. One of Mary’s letter, asking if he’s “done sexy,” gives Max an acute anxiety attack, and he’s hospitalized for eight months and diagnosed with a newly categorized disease:  Arnsparger’s syndrome.

Mary grows up (Toni Colette) and marries the boy next door (Eric Bana), but all is not well both between them and especially between her and Max.

The ending is extremely poignant, but I won’t spoil it here.

The movie is certainly dealing with dark themes:  depression, Arnsparger’s, loneliness, death, and even suicide.  But it’s also extremely funny.  Max’s letters have a wonderful deadpan black humor.  Mary’s are filled with the misunderstanding that a young child trying to figure out the world. 

The story is narrated by Barry Humphries, best known in the states as Dame Edna Everege.  It’s also dry and funny and anchors the story.  Hoffman, unrecognizable in a New York accent, shows why he was so highly regarded as an actor.

The design is also wonderful.  First of all, it’s all made with the most painstaking of animation techniques, stop action.  All the scenes in Australia are done in sepia tones, while New York is black and white.*  Other than a few dashes of red, there are no other colors in the film which gives it a unique look.

The film opened the Sundance Film Festival – the first animated film to do so – but never got a US distributor.  I would think that was because of some of the dark elements and the fact that the story is really one for adults, not children.

It’s available on Netflix.  Watch it and get a real treat.

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*Probably influenced by Woody Allen in Manhattan

The Book of Life

(2014)
Directed by Jorge R.  Gutierrez
Written by Jorge R. Gutierrez, Douglas Lansdale
Voices by Diego Luna, Zoe Saldana, Channing Tatum, Ron Perlman, Kate del Castillo, Christina Applegate, Ice Cube
IMDB Entry

This is the golden age of film animation.  Studios have found that animated films are relatively cheap to make, and can make a hatful of money. Of course, the assumption is that animation is for children, and films are usually aimed at that audience, with some hints to keep their parents amused.  But sometimes a film comes along that aims at a slightly older audience, and last year, this brought the delight that is The Book of Life.

The film leans heavily on Mexican mythology. A museum tour guide takes a group of unruly children to see the Mexican town of San Angel, whose story is in the book of life.

It starts out with a wager.  La Muerte (voice of Kate del Castill0), who rules the Land of the Remembered (basically, heaven) joins in a bet with Xibalba (Ron Perlman), ruler of the Land of the Forgotten (the opposite).  In the town, there are three children:  Manolo, Joaquin, and Maria. The bet is as to who will marry Maria when they grow up.  La Muerte picks Manolo; Xibalba, picks Joaquin and, of course, cheats by giving him a medal that will make him invulnerable.

Years later, Manolo (Diego Luna) becomes a musician, against the wishes of his father, who wants him to join in the family tradition and become a bullfighter.  Joaquin (Channing Tatum), aided by his magic medal, has become a war hero.  When Maria (Zoe Saldana) returns from several years in Spain, they both woo her, and when it looks like Manolo is going to win, Xibalba kills him.  But that’s only the beginning…

The plot is filled with nice twists and surprises and never goes exactly where you expect it to.  The visual style of the film is striking.  Director Jorge R. Gutierrez uses bright colors and Mexican motifs through out.  One subtle conceit is that many of the characters are made to look like wooden dolls, like the dolls in the museum.  The design is awash with color and the characters are like nothing else in film.*  Guillermo del Toro produced the film and you can see how he would have liked the style.

The movie did OK, but was not a massive success.**  Certainly it wasn’t something that aimed directly at kids (though certainly kids could enjoy it), and, unfortunately, adults are reluctant to go to animated films alone. At this writing, I don’t know if it’ll be an Oscar contender (but, in any case, it won’t win), but you’d be hard pressed to find a better movie this year – animated or not.

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*I had caught a few ads for it, then forgot it. When I saw the title in a theater (second run), I didn’t place it, but one look at the movie poster and I knew exactly what it was.

**Possibly the title hurt; for most Americans, it doesn’t evoke anything.

Hoppity Hooper (TV)

(1964-56)
Produced by Jay Ward and Bill Scott
Written by Bill Scott and Chris Hayward
Starring  Chris Allen, Hans Conreid, Bill Scott, Paul Frees
IMDB Entry

Jay Ward and Bill Scott were superstars of Saturday morning cartoons.  Ward helped produce the first TV show to feature original animation, Crusader Rabbit, and he and Scott were the creators of Rocky and Bullwinkle* and its spinoffs, plus also George of the Jungle.  But their most obscure work was the short-lived series Hoppity Hooper.

The show recounted the adventures of the title character (Chris Allen), a young, somewhat naïve frog from Foggy Bog, Wisconsin.  In the first episode, he runs into a couple small-time con animals, Waldo Wigglesworth (Hans Conreid), a fox, and Fillmore (Bill Scott), a bear.  Waldo manages to convince Hoppity that he’s his uncle, and the three go off on various misadventures.

The stories are reminiscent of those in Rocky and Bullwinkle, the adventures shown in multi-episode pieces filled with puns, wordplay, and silly satire.  Unlike Rocky and Bullwinkle, the adventures were short:  usually four parts.  The Hoppity Hooper cartoons were the first and last of each half hour show, with other Jay Ward cartoons like Fractured Fairy Tales rerun to fill out the time.

Hoppity was very much like Rocky – cheerful, friendly, but not quite as alert to what was going on.  Fillmore was a dumber version of Bullwinkle; his signature was to blow a loud, flat note on his bugle.  Paul Frees handled the narration and any stray characters who came along.

But it was Uncle Waldo who was the centerpiece.  Hans Conreid was at his best in the role, hamming outrageously and having a lot of fun. 

The show ran for two seasons, then was in syndication for some time.  Ward continued with Rocky and Bullwinkle for a few more years, until that sort of cartoon became passé. 

But if you love the Moose and Squirrel, you should see their Frog, Fox, and Bear counterparts.

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*People don’t realize how long a run Rocky and Bullwinkle had.  It lasted almost to 1980 on NBC’s schedule, though in the last few years it ran at 1:00 pm, when most local affiliates switched to other shows.

Arthur Christmas

(2011)
Directed by Sarah Smith, Barry Cook
Written by Peter Baynham (screenplay), Sarah Smit (story)
Starring:  James McAvoy, Jim Broadbent, Bill Nighy, Imelda Staunton, Ashley Jensen, Ramona Marquez
IMDB Entry

I mentioned recently that I was a big fan of Aardman Animation. But one problem with Aardman is that they’re partnered with Sony Pictures; thus it wasn’t obvious to me that Arthur Christmas was their work.  I fixed that problem and discovered what is probably the best Christmas film since A Christmas Story.

The story is set at the North Pole, where Santa Claus is actually a job description, passed down from  son to father for centuries.  The current Santa (voice of Jim Broadbent) has been modernized by his oldest son Steve (Hugh Laurie) with a giant hi-tech sleigh, the S-1, and thousands of elves on board.  Arthur (James McEvoy), his younger son, is a gung-ho Christmas enthusiast, but far too clumsy to do anything other than answer children’s letters, most notably one from Gwen  (Ramona Marquez), who has many questions about Santa and to whom he writes a personal assurance that he exists and that Gwen will get the present she wants.

The high-tech delivery goes off without a hitch – except one.  Gwen’s present remains on the S-1, undelivered.  Arthur insists it has to be, but Steve and Santa are tired and missing one child out of billions doesn’t seem like a big deal.

But to Arthur, it is.  Joining up with his Grandsanta (Bill Nighy), they saddle up the old sleigh*, get some reindeer, and head off with the stowaway Bryony (Ashely Jensen), a wrapping elf** with the same sense of duty as Arthur.  Naturally, things don’t go very smoothly.

The film is very funny, with gags coming fast and furious without a stop. But the film had a heart, and isn’t afraid to show it.  I also like the fact that there really isn’t a bad guy.  Steve has his shortcomings and is clearly not the ideal choice for Santa, but he isn’t a bad person at heart, and his methods are essential.  The film also avoids showing people teasing Arthur for his clumsiness; though they make comments behind his back, you don’t see any out-and-out cruelty as the elves and family try to indulge him and get him out of the way.

The cast is stellar.  Jim Broadbent and Bill Nighy have never appeared in a bad movie and they bring the characters to life.  Hugh Laurie has a lot of fun as Steve and James McEvoy is wonderful as Arthur, putting across his crazed, sweet idealism.  Imelda Staunton is a subtle delight as Mrs. Claus, who is clearly where Steve gets his organizational skill.  And it was great to hear Ramona Marquez.***

The movie suffered the fate of other Aardman films.  With the name “Aardman” obscured, people might not realize who made it, and the film was, like most Aardman films, more interesting in interesting and quirky characters than recognizable stereotypes.  It did adequately, but got a bit lost among bigger names.  It probably got hurt the most by opening the same week as The Muppets, which aimed at a similar audience but was a known quantity.

Luckily, it’s out on video.  Get a copy and see a real Christmas classic.

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*Named “Eve.”

**Whose job it is to wrap presents.

***An amazing child actress.  She is a regular in the UK TV series Outnumbered, which depends on her ability to improvise a scene.  I suspect that her letter to Santa was at least party written by Ramona herself, who is was natural comedian by the time she was seven

The Great Mouse Detective

(1986)
Directed by Ron Clements, Burny Mattinson, Dave Michener, and John Musker
Written by a whole bunch, based upon novels Eve Titus
Starring voice of Barrie Ingham, Val Bettin, Vincent Price, Susanne Pollatschek, Candy Candido, Alan Young
IMDB Entry

Strange as it may seen now, by the mid-80s, Disney animation was in trouble.  The market for animated films seemed to have dried up, and Disney hadn’t had a big hit in years.  The pace was slowing:  only four animated films in the 70, and the two in the 80s were the bland The Fox and the Hound and the flop The Black Cauldron.  Disney seemed content to make their money by rereleasing their classics to new audiences.

This was unacceptable to new studio heads Jeffrey Katzanbach and Michael Eisner, who gave the green light to The Great Mouse Detective, probably the second most important animated film in Disney history after Snow White.

The story was based upon a Sherlock Holmes pastiche, Basil of Baker Street, by children’s author Eve Titus.  In the movie, Hiram Flaversham (Alan Young) is (like most of the characters) an anthropomorphic mouse, and a famous inventor among mousedom.  He’s captured by the bad Fidget (Candy Candido) and taken to the mad genius Professor Ratigan (Vincent Price), who wants to use his discoveries to take over the world. Hiram’s daughter Olivia (Susanne Pollatschek), seeks out Basil of Baker Street (Barrie Ingram) to find her father.  With the aid of Dr. David Q. Dawson (Val Bettin), they try to thwart Ratigan’s fiendish plan.

Ratigan is one of the great Disney villains, and perhaps the first to have an established name playing the character.  And who could be better for it than Vincent Price.  He has a perfectly entertaining bit of hammy menace, gloriously evil and insisting above all that he’s a very large mouse, not a rat.

In many respects, this is minor Disney, but it was something very important for the studio:  a hit.  And it encouraged Disney to think that maybe animated films could still be their bread and butter.  The faith was paid off three years later when The Little Mermaid (also directed by Clements and Musker) became a smash hit.

Fantastic Planet

(Le Planète sauvage)
(1973)
Directed by René Laloux
Written by René Laloux and Roland Topor, from a novel by Stefan Wul
Voices: Jennifer Drake, Eric Baugin, Jean Topart, Jean Valmont
IMDB Entry

While fantasy films are the major part of the animated feature canon, it's strange that there is so very little science fiction in animated form. It would seem to be an ideal medium:  space battles are cheaper to film when their done on celluloid and paper.  Yet there have been relatively few of them.  Wikipedia lists 74, any many of those (and nearly all of the ones worth watching) appeared in the last 15 years.  Of those created before 1995, one stands out as the best:  Fantastic Planet.

It's set on the world of Ygam, a world populated by the Draags, creatures hundreds of feet high. Also on the planet are the Oms,* brought from their home planet, living wild, and considered vermin by the Draags.  Except for the few they capture and use as pets.

The movies follows the life of Terr (voice of Eric Baugin), who is orphaned as a baby by a bit of random and unthinking cruelty by some Draag children.  He adopted by Tiwa (Jennifer Drake) as a pet.  As he grows up, Terr finds a Draag learning headset and begins to learn about the world.  He eventually escapes from Tiwa and finds other Oms living wild.  But the Draags decide to make an effort to wipe out the wild Oms once and for all, and Terr must help lead the Oms to escape.

The concept for the movie was not new at the time,** and the plot alone is not the strength of the movie.  It survives on the visuals, portraying a truly alien world, with strange creatures and events that a visually stunning.  In a way, it reminds me of some of the creatures in Yellow Submarine -- just as imaginative and far more sinister.  Here's a sampling:

The film was from the vision of French director René Laloux, and was animated in Czechoslovakia, where the metaphor probably hit home pretty strongly.  It won prizes at Cannes and other film festivals, and critical acclaim in the US where it was distributed by Roger Corman.

The film does have flaws.  The ending is very rushed and cuts away from what should have been some very dramatic issues and simply says, "everything's solved now."  But the movie still does have emotional appeal, and the situation helps to overcome the problems.  The possibilities of animation and science fiction have rarely been better served.

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*A pun in French on the word "hommes," meaning "men."  European science fiction has a strong tendency to be didactic.

**William Tenn's Of Men and Monsters had exactly the same setup, and was far more subtly handled, and with more character depth. 

Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse (TV)

(1960-1962) Created by Bob Kane Wikipedia Entry

Courageous Cat was a costumed crime fighter, who, based in his Catcave, fought strange super villains while driving in his Catcar, or flying in his Catplane, assisted by Minute Mouse.

Sound familiar?

The similarities to Batman a pretty obvious, but no one at DC complained, because the cartoon was created by one of Batman's creators, Bob Kane.*

Courageous Cat and Minute Mouse was a series of syndicated five-minute cartoons that were sold to individual TV stations across the county, who would then run them during their local kid's shows. Since they were short, they could fit in anywhere.

The stories were pretty much the same. A villain -- the Frog (an Edward G. Robinson pastiche), Professor Shaggy Dog, The Black Cat, and many others -- would start committing crimes, and the Chief (a dog) would call on Courageous Cat for help. Courageous Cat would drive around in his Catcar, and shoot his Catgun (which could do anything except shoot bullets) until the bad guy was stopped. Minute Mouse was there to add comments and drive the car while Courageous Cat stood up to fire the gun.

In the short time frame, there wasn't a lot of time for characterization or anything other than the simplest of plots. Usually, the villain starts his nefarious scheme and Courageous Cat shows up. The villain then sets traps for him, which the Catgun always allows Courageous to thwart. Then the villain is captured.

But one element of the show was truly great -- its theme song. Written by Johnny Holiday, it's reminiscent (i.e., a rip off) of Henry Mancini's Peter Gunn Theme, but is the jazziest cartoon theme song ever. Here it is (and take a look at the Catcave, while you're at it).

They cartoons were repackaged into full-length shows, but vanished from the airwaves by the mid-60s. And political correctness kept them from coming back. The Catgun was no longer considered appropriate for a kid's show, even if it never shot bullets. Plus the Frog -- the most important recurring villain -- always smoked a cigar. That made it even worse.

The cartoon shows up occasionally and a DVD set is out. It's pretty simple by today's standards, but its had gained a bit in silliness over the years, so it's still fun to watch.

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* Kane gets all the credit, but Bill Finger was just as important. Finger changed the look of Kane's original concept to the Batman, adding the cape, cowl, and gloves and removing the red color from Kane's original concept. Finger also wrote the first few Batman stories, while Kane supplied the art (and quickly hired Jerry Robinson to do that for him).

Inki and the Mynah Bird

Created by Chuck Jones
The Little Lion Hunter (1939)
Inki and the Lion (1941)
Inki and the Minah Bird (1943)
Inki at the Circus (1947)
Caveman Inki (1950)

Chuck Jones is a legend in the world of animation.  Ten of his cartoons listed in the book The Fifty Greatest Cartoons, including four of the top five. But in the early years, he was feeling his way and his creations were of characters that are not part of the Warner Brothers canon any more.  And while Sniffles the Mouse is pretty forgettable, one of his creations is a forgotten touch of absurd greatness.  That character is the Mynah Bird.*

The bird first appeared in The Little Lion Hunter, as something of a supporting character.  The title character -- later named Inki -- is an African boy who is sort of an Elmer Fudd wannabe.  The plot of the cartoon involves Inki's encounters with a lion (and other creatures), but what makes it work is the presence of the Mynah Bird.

The Bird is introduced with Inki following his tracks into some bushes, which begin to wave violently.  He retreats, thinking it's a larger animal, but out of the storm** comes a small, black bird, like a crow only rounder, and with a yellow beak and legs.  The bird walks across the forest to the time of Mendelssohn's "Fingal's Cave/Hebredes Overture"*** in a peculiar gait that part walking, part hopping, moving in a perfectly straight line until he vanished into a hole or another bush.  He ignored everything going on around him -- until the right moment, when he would wreck havoc on those who got in his way (usually a lion that was out to get Inki). 

Inki usually started hunting the Mynah Bird, who was always two steps (and hops) ahead of him, but, at the end, the bird would come to his aid. They were friends, in a way, though the Bird refused to acknowledge that.

Jones continued the series sporadically as he moved on to other things.  For awhile, it was regularly shown on Saturday morning TV, but then vanished.

The reason was simple:  Inki.

As our racial attitudes changed in the 60s, the character became an embarasment.  Jones was one of the nicest guys in show business**** and Inki was never ridiculed due to his race.  He acted just the way he was:  a young boy playing at hunting.  But the character design was unacceptable, with the typical traits of the comic Negro that were offensive in so many other contexts.  It was impossible to look at Inki without seeing the racism (not to mention the racism in his name).

By the 70s, it was impossible to find the cartoons.  Though they have made something of a comeback (some are on youtube), the long gap has made them forgotten.

It's too bad.  The Mynah Bird is one of Jones's great creations; it's a shame he only appeared with Inki.

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*Sometimes spelled "Minah Bird."

**Which got bigger in subsequent adventures.

***You can get a great familiarity with classical music by watching Warner Brothers cartoons.  Carl Stalling, their musical director, seemed to think they worked well -- and he was right.  In addition to "Fingal's Cave," he also loved using "The William Tell Overture," "Poet and Peasant," and, of course, the work of Raymond Scott.

****Read his autobiography, Chuck Amuck.

Raymond Scott (music)

(1908-1994)
Official Website

You probably don't know his name, but you certainly know his music. His most famous piece, Powerhouse, is one of the most familiar pieces of film music ever (especially the second section). 

Scott was something of a pioneer. He came to prominence when jazz was king and he got a job working for the CBS radio house band. There, he formed his own jazz group, the Raymond Scott Quintette** and began following his one idiosyncratic path.  Scott worked with his musicians to compose his music, but once they came up with something he liked, they were supposed to stick with it (a practice jazz purists, who favored improvisation, did not like).  He also pissed off traditionalists by the whimsical names he chose for his music:  " Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals," "Reckless Night on Board an Ocean Liner," "New Year's Eve in a Haunted House."***

Scott was a restless soul and rarely stayed with the same type of music for long periods.  The Quintette only existed from 1936-1939, whereupon he moved on to other forms of music. And, in 1942, he made the decision that made his music ubiquitous:  he sold it all to Carl Stalling at Warner Brothers for use in Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies.

Stalling made the most of the purchase. Scott's music was used in over 100 Warner Brothers cartoons, including many classics. "Powerhouse" became the theme for whenever some sort of factory machine was shown, but many others appeared in the background.  Scott, if known, is often referred to as "the man who made music for cartoons," but that was never his intention.  It was not even a sidelight to his career, just a side effect.

As time moved on, Raymond Scott moved on, too.  He did a Broadway score, TV show music, and popular jazz.  But his main interest after the 40s was in electronic music.  He was a pioneer of the form, a man who influenced and taught many others.  Just about all electronic musicians in the 50s and 60s paid a visit to Scott's labs to learn of his innovative ways of creating music.

Scott faded out from the industry in the 70s, becoming an obscure, forgotten figure (even though Powerhouse has become part of the popular culture).  But he's a name that fans of music and cartoons should cherish.

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*And for the same reason.

**Which started out with six members.

***This , of course, has disadvantages. It's hard to remember the names of his songs. And since they were instrumental, that makes it even harder.

Space Angel (TV)

(1962-64)
Produced by Cambria Productions
Created by Dick Darley
Voice actors:  Ned Lefebvre, Margaret Kerry, Hal Smith
Wikipedia Page

If you've ever seen it, one of the most memorably bizarre animation techniques in early TV (or ever) was Syncho-Vox.  Cambria Productions invented the technique because it was a cutting edge way to ... oh, hell -- they did it because it was cheap.  It's expensive to animate lip movements, so Cambria came up with the next best thing:  live action lips superimposed over a cartoon face. To save even more money, many scenes hid the characters mouths completely.

The effect was bizarre. Not only were the lips coated with dark lipstick to make it stand out, but the actors spoke with exaggerated lip movements so the audience could see the technique.  Of course, the name most closely associated with this was Clutch Cargo. It was a big enough success to spawn Space Angel.

Space Angel was a code name of Scott McCloud, a square-jawed and eyepatched astronaut and investigator for the Earth Bureau of Investigation.  With his crew Crystal and Taurus**, they faced threats throughout the solar system.

The science fiction angle caught my attention, of course, but the show also looked better than most cartoons of the time.  Oh, the animation was lousy and the Synchro-Vox just plain weird, but the drawings had a look to them unlike anything else.  And for good reason.  The show was an early assignment for Alex Toth.  Toth was very important both in comics and animation, and his designs for the show really stood out.

The plots were standard science fiction, with each adventure running five minutes a day for five days.  Stations would run it Monday through Friday on their kid's shows; the Friday show would resolve the story. 

The show ran for a couple of years before moving on. To a budding science fiction fan like me, it will always be a fond memory.

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*With his pals Spinner and Paddlefoot.

** Whose accent is quite reminiscent  of Scotty's from Star Trek.

Roger Ramjet (TV)

(1965-??)
Produced by Fred Crippen
Written by Gene Moss, Jim Thurman
Voices by Gary Owens, Dave Ketchum, Dick Beals, Gene Moss, Joanie Gerber, Bob Arbogast
Toontracker Page.

It's hard to find a 60s kid's TV show that can't be aired in the 21st century (at least, not for children). By the time TV came along, the out-and-out racism of early cartoons was seen for what it was and didn't get into the shows.  But Roger Ramjet probably couldn't be shown as a kid's show today.

Which is a shame.  The cartoon was very similar in tone to greats like Rocky and Bullwinkle and Beany and Cecil. 

It really wasn't a show. Roger Ramjet was marketed as very short episodes, about six minutes long* -- including about two minutes of opening and closing credit -- designed to be shown on local TV shows.  Your local Colonel Clown Show** would buy the episodes and run them during their show.  Times, obviously, varied from market to market, and often they'd move around within the show. So unless you spent a lot of time watching Colonel Clown or your local equivalent, you had a hard time following Roger.

But when you caught it, the show was a delight.  Roger (voice of Gary Owens) was your standard big, dumb lug superhero, who took a proton pill, which gave him the power of twenty atom bombs for a period of twenty seconds.*** With his American Eagle squadron of Yank, Doodle, Dan, and Dee, (three boys and a girl) he fought threats to our country, taking the pill at the end to save the day.

Like Rocky and Bullwinkle and Beany and Cecil, the show was packed with jokes for adults and references to political and social events. Anything was fair game.   In addition, the cartoon was incredibly fast paced, fitting in all the action and jokes in a small space.  It also had the same cheap animation of Bullwinkle, which makes it even more endearing.

Most memorable, of course was the show's theme song. Evidently, they couldn't afford to pay a composer for the music, so they just used "Yankee Doodle" with new lyrics:

Roger Ramjet, he's our man
Hero of our nation
For his adventures just be sure
And stay tuned to this station.

As for the talent, Gary Owens gained fame a few years afterwards as the announcer for Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In.  But Dave Ketchum -- the voice of the narrator -- has also be very successful (if more low-key).  He starred in Camp Runamuck -- a universally despised sitcom -- but is more memorable as Agent 13 in Get Smart, who always was hiding away in ridiculous places, like a mailbox or in the walls.

About 120 episodes were made, and they remained syndicated wherever TV stations still ran kiddie show.  However, the theme of the show probably led to its dying off. With the War on Drugs, a children's show that has someone taking a pill to get super powers is bound to stir up more controversy than a 40-year-old cartoon is worth. It shows up from time to time, but not where it can be mistaken for a children's show.

Which, of course, it wasn't. That's part of the fun.

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*Including about two minutes of opening and closing credits.  I always wished they'd cut out some of the credits to get more story in.

**An actual show out of New Britain, CT.  Sources say he was originally "Happy the Clown," but I remember it as "Captain Clown."  In any case, he became the Colonel, a change that seemed so arbitrary to my ten-year-old mind that I surmised someone had told him he couldn't use the original name.  Turns out, I was right.  In any case, I don't think they ran Roger.

*** It's amazing what phrases stick in your mind.

Beany and Cecil (TV)

(1949-1955, 1959-1967)
Created by Bob Clampett
Toontracker

One of the most charming things about 1950s TV was its children's programming. Maybe it was the innocence of the time,* but it produced kid's shows that favored humor over violence and puns over putdowns.  Bad guys were never truly bad and good guys were always truly good.

And there was a fascination with puppets.  Nowadays, Howdy Doody is still remembered, but there was also Kukla, Fran, and Ollie, and puppeteers and ventriloquists like Shari Lewis and Paul Winchell were all very popular.*

Beany and Cecil were one of the first, starting broadcasting in 1949, and also one of the most long lived, simply because they switched to cartoon form when puppets became passe.

The characters were -- as the theme song kept singing -- created by Bob Clampett. Watching it as a kid, I had no idea who Clampett was, and wondered why it mattered.  But later, I learned why.  Clampett, along with Chuck Jones and Friz Freleng, was one of the "big three" cartoon directors at Warner Brothers.  Clampett was responsible for such classics as Porky in Wackyland, A Corny Concerto, Horton Hatches the Egg, Coal Black and de Sebben Dwarfs***, The Bashful Buzzard, and The Great Piggy Bank Robbery.  Clampett left Warners (or was fired; accounts vary) in 1946 and when TV came along, he jumped right in.

The original show with puppets was Time for Beany, and was a smash at the time.  The basic cast was set:

• Beany, a smart kid who wore a helicopter beany hat.
• Cecil the Seasick Sea Ser-Pent (as it was introduced).
• Captain Horatio Huffenpuff of the Leakin' Lena, Beany's uncle.
• Dishonest John, the villain (of course), dressed in black and with a long black mustache.  His catchphrase was a villain's "Nyah-ah-ah" laugh.

Beany and the Captain went on adventures, usually running into some scheme by Dishonest John.  Cecil -- your typical big, dumb lug -- would get fooled, of course, but, in the end, he'd save the day, crying out "I'm coming Beanyboy!" as he swam to the rescue.

The show was surprisingly sophisticated. There were topical and political references in among the bad puns.  Like many good children's entertainment, the writers were writing for themselves, not kids, and the humor shows it.

 

In many ways, the show was much like another great -- but not forgotten -- cartoon of this vintage:  Rocky and Bullwinkle.You can even see some similarities in characterizations (Beany = Rocky, Cecil = Bullwinkle, Dishonest John = Boris Badenov).  Rocky and Bullwinkle is overall better, but it owes a lot to the original.

The show also was notable by the use of the voice talents of Daws Butler and Stan Freberg.

By 1955, puppets had lost their appeal, and Time for Beany ended.  But Clampett was able to use his cartoon background to move on to the next thing in kid's shows.  In 1959, he created a half hour version of Time for Beany called simply Beany and Cecil (with different voice actors).

This is the version I remember, as part of Mattel's Funday Funnies. Clampett was hindered by bad animation, but the show kept the same sharp humor that would surprise you (like Cecil calling a bird a "Robin Redvest," and turning to the camera to say, "I'm too young to say 'redchest.'")****  I also remember Cecil singing "Ragmop" whenever he was in a good mood.

The show ran throughout the 60s, rerunning the same few episodes. It has been tremendously influential in almost the same way Rocky and Bullwinkle was; word has it that Albert Einstein was a big fan of the original puppet version. But, eventually, humorous cartoons vanished from broadcast, and Beany and Cecil vanished.

It hasn't gotten the attention of other cartoons, but was one of the bright spots of kid's TV.

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*It helped that they were cheap.  Actors could play two roles at once, and you can create any set you want with just sets could be created with

**A cliche, I know, at a time when people were seriously worried about Nuclear War.

*** Not easy to find, because of how it portrays Black characters.

**** And, obviously, the censors wouldn't let him say "Robin Redbreast," either.

The Space Explorers

(TV) (1958) (Animated) Produced by: William Cayton

Directed/Written by: Fred Ladd

Starring Cliff "Ray" Owens, Jimmy Perry, Francine "Sonya" Owens.Official Space Explorers Web Page

I have to admit, it's been awhile since I saw this one. Quite awhile. It's possible that it's not as good as I remembered (I was only six at the time). But that doesn't matter. The Space Explorers was probably the most influential TV show I ever watched.

It was originally created as a movie, but was broadcast as a series of cartoons, syndicated throughout the country. The show owes its life to totalitarianism: when Sputnik went up, American panicked and tried to find ways to get kids interested in science. William Cayton and Fred Ladd, who had been working on a feature version of the show, teamed up with the Hayden Planetarium in New York to create a cartoon series for syndicated TV.

The situation in the show was basic. Commander Perry (voice of Cliff "Ray" Owens) has taken off in a new spacecraft and . . . vanished. His young son Jimmy (voice of Kerry Mark Joels) joins Professor Nordheim (Owens again), his female assistant Smitty, and a neighbor, Nancy Williams (both women voiced by Francine "Sonya" Owens) to search for the missing ship.

In each episode, the explorers would travel through the solar system, looking for Commander Perry and, incidentally, stumbling upon some sort of astronomical phenomenon that Professor Nordheim would explain. The science predominated over the adventure, but the show was very exciting to kids of the time.

Oh, and remember my mention of totalitarianism? It wasn't just the Communists that supplied the impetus. In order to make the show work on a low budget, Cayton and Ladd used footage from earlier films. And the opening sequence of the spaceship lifting off was taken from Weltraumschiff 18, a film made in Nazi Germany in 1939.

The show was broadcast in 6-minute segments during children's programming, so broadcasting was spotty. I can't say where I saw it -- it was shown in the New York City area with Officer Joe Bolton, but we couldn't get New York stations in 1958, so it was more likely from WNHC in New Haven or WTIC in Hartford.

A second series, The New Adventures of the Space Explorers went on the air in a similar format in 1961, and it's possible that's about the time I first saw it (especially if they reran the first series). Ladd went on to be involved in the first invasion of anime in the US, producing Astroboy, Gigantor, Kimba, Eighth Man (a favorite of mine) and Speed Racer.

As for me, this was my first introduction to science fiction. It brought me a real love for the genre, which eventually manifested itself in a mildly successful attempt to become a science fiction writer. Without the Space Explorers, it's possible I'd be writing historical fiction, and what fun would that be? (As John Barth once pointed out, "Science fiction authors aren't like you or me. They have more fun.")