Pictured: a Hoofed Mammal. Whale Watch Watercolors!

This almost got lost in the shuffle, and I'd have hated myself if I didn't post anything about it. 

Late last month, my aunt and I went on a whale watch on the Odyssey out of Portland, Maine.  Having followed the New England Aquarium's Twitter, I knew this year was an unusually rich one for whale-watch cruises.  We saw lots of pelagic seabirds, a whole herd of White-Sided Dolphins, and a family of Humpback Whales. 

Here are my artistic impressions (ah, jeez, that sounds so square) of what we saw:











Incidentally, whales = artiodactyls blows my mind more thoroughly than birds = theropods.

Links of Interest - Disney Cruise Recovery Edition!

Well, I just got back from my family's very first Disney Cruise Line experience.  It'll take a while to sort through everything and get the trip report accomplished.  So until then, have a good old Links of Interest post!

* - First off, new "Hobbit" trailer!  New "Hobbit" trailer!  New "Hobbit" trailer!!!

* - Oh dear lord, this XKCD strip...  Don't miss the zoomable version.

* - My Year of Flops takes on the biggest flop of the year and attempts to parse the thinking behind the truly insane "Oogieloves' Big Balloon Adventure".

* - Speaking of insane ideas for movies, Warner Bros. (*sigh*) is going to make yet another attempt (*sigh*) at a Looney Tunes movie (*sigh*...  Believe me, I'd like to be optimistic for this. But after years of "Space Jam", "Baby Looney Tunes", "Loonatics Unleashed", "Back in Action", those recent weird Flash and CGI cartoons, and other, worse things, I'm pretty much conditioned to anticipate any officially sanctioned new thing involving these characters with dread.)

* - If you happen to be at Walt Disney World on the week of October 1, don't miss the special events being held to celebrate Epcot's 30'th anniversary.

* - Passport to Dreams Old and New shares the strange history of the segment of WDW's Magic Kingdom now known as Storybook Circus, observations on it's current incarnation, as well as where the look of Toontown in "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" might have come from.

* - Holy crap, "Saving Mr. Banks" is actually happening!  With Tom Hanks as Walt Disney, yet!

* - Geek Dad reviews the "Chuck Jones' Mouse Chronicles" DVD collection.

* - TetZoo informs us that iguanas may have a far more complicated social life than you'd think.  (Yes, I squeed at the fraternal behaviors.)

* - Emily Willoughby met a Green Heron and pondered the implications of heron necks.

* - Comics Alliance brought attention to concept artist Ashley Stoddard, who in turn came up with an alternate version of "Willow" that would have been fascinating.

* - Tor.com shared another inspirational seasonal art gallery, this one, naturally, themed to autumn (some NSFW images).

* - I'm starting to put together my four-part(!?!) Disney Cruise trip report.  Here's the beginning of a much more cynical (but hilarious) take on one of the newer boats by TeevTee at Parkeology.

* - I finally got to see "Brave" recently.  I was going to write a full review but Lili Loofbourow's essay, "Just Another Princess Movie" expresses my feelings more eloquently than I ever could (my review would have just been, "Y'all are high!  'Brave' is great!" over and over.)  It is by far the most intelligent reaction to the film I've seen.  (Spoilers galore!)

* - Tim Brayton of Antagony and Ecstasy has just launched into his own Disney sequel marathon.  Given his hilarious take on "Belle's Magical World" (oh my God, the whole bit about Crane the writing paper), we are in for a hell of a ride.  I wish him Godspeed, and good luck!

* - If you're a "Brave Little Toaster" fan, you're going to want to see the film's director Jerry Rees' extensive website, filled with memorabilia and information.   Rees also recently hosted an open Q+A with fans.  (LOL at the people who thought Toaster was male...)

* -  And finally, The Rotoscopers/Animation Addicts posted their incredible interview with Don Bluth, in which he talks about his work on "Sleeping Beauty", his surprising new career as a teacher and theater director, and gets downright philosophical about art.  Definitely a must-listen!

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Sketch of the day!

Random 90's Animation Review Index

The full list of reviews of films from a time period where animated features were, to say the least, diverse.  (And yes, we do dip into 2001 a little, but whatever.)

* - "An American Tail 2: Fievel Goes West!"

* - "Cool World"

* - "We're Back!  A Dinosaur's Story"

* - "The Swan Princess"

* - "Gumby the Movie"

* - "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America"

* - "Cats Don't Dance!"

* - "South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut"

* - "Monkeybone"

* - "Osmosis Jones"

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Sadly, a number of intriguing films were not available through Netflix at the time of the marathon. If any such films become available, they will be reviewed and listed here. (And before you cry, "But what about 'Ferngully'/'Pagemaster'/etc.?!?", try searching Nessie's.)

* - "Balto"

* - "Quest For Camelot"

* - "Bebe's Kids"

* - "Happily Ever After" and "The Princess and the Goblin"

* - "Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland"

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More Animation Marathons

* - The Chronological Disney Animated Canon

* - Don Bluth Month

* - Dreamworks' "Tradigitals"

* - The Short Animation Blogathon

* - My Summer of Sequels

* - Random 90's Animation

* - The Princess Project

Random 90's Animation Month: "Osmosis Jones" (2001)

If I am not mistaken, "Osmosis Jones" is the only DVD for a Farrelly Brothers movie that allows fans to skip right to the gross-out jokes (that's what the second option is in the above screenshot).  I should have taken this as a kind of a warning, but we'll address that in due time.

Pity the studio executive.  (Stay with me here.)  This poor creature never knows what movies will be huge hits, and which ones will be colossal flops.  To wit, "There's Something About Mary".  In 1998, nobody expected this weird little B-movie from the Farrellys to be the massive sleeper hit it quickly became.  But indeed, "Mary" became the kind of surprise hit that both changes the game and briefly ruins any future films from the same genre/format (although some of them ruin that genre/format seemingly forever).  There were a LOT of romantic comedies with jarring grossout humor in them for a long time after "Mary".

Let's go on a little tangent about grossout humor.  Now, as I grow older, I find myself becoming more and more sensitive to -and this is a very scientific term here- gross sh*t.  As with "We're Back!", I found myself desperately running for a beer during several scenes in "Osmosis Jones", but for entirely different reasons.  I'll say it right now: if you do not like grossout humor, then today's movie is going to be the worst kind of endurance test.

Back to your friend and mine, the studio executive.  Because "There's Something About Mary" was such a huge surprise hit, you can see where the exec would think, "Oh yeah!  You know what would be an amazing idea?  Let's let the Farrelly brothers direct an animated film!  Our animation studio is pretty dead in the water anyway, so why not let them do whatever they want with it?  It's such a perfect idea, it can't fail!  I think it's the best plan I've ever heard in my life!"

"Osmosis Jones" turned out to be one of the most spectacular bombs in the history of animated films, losing nearly sixty-two million dollars in it's theatrical run.  It was the last significant gasp of the Warner Bros. theatrical animation studio, and therefore was a hell of a note for them to go out on.  It should be noted that in one of the two episodes of "The Rotoscopers" about "The Iron Giant" (tragically, I forget which), it was revealed that Warner Bros. theatrical animation was essentially left to it's own devices and the filmmakers could basically do whatever they wanted.  This does help explain why "Iron Giant" and "Osmosis Jones" are the way they are, though essentially opposite sides of the same coin.

Because what we have here in "Osmosis Jones" is the Farrellys at their most uninhibited.  I remember enjoying this movie the first time I saw it, as a stupid teenager who was distracted by the gorgeous animation and who still thought gross sh*t was funny instead of repulsive.  As an adult... Oh God, Oh GOD, oh God.  I didn't recall this movie being so... graphic.  My good God, that scene with the toenail...  That other scene with the oysters...  That F**KING scene with the pimple...

Here I was watching this movie in the afternoon, and doesn't my family ask me, "Hey, honey, you want to go out to the seafood restaurant for dinner later?"

But to be fair, nearly all the really horrible gross-out scenes are in the live-action bits and perhaps it's time to talk about the very odd format of this movie.  This is the story of a man ruining his life and breaking his annoying and unlikeable daughter's heart -- and well over half of it is told from the point of view of his anthropomorphized immune system.  (This setting was evidently chosen to give the Farrellys the greatest opportunity ever for what the rating disclaimer describes as "body humor".)  Overall, the live-action scenes are annoying, nauseating, and distracting.  Any time the movie switches back to them is jarring as f**k, especially towards the end, so let's ignore them entirely for the rest of the review.  How's the animation?

It's beautiful.  Well, very close to beautiful at any rate, because even disgusting things can be beautiful.  The production design and effects are very imaginative.  Michel Gagne was involved here and his mad genius is all over the place.  The character animation is energetic and I love how they aren't afraid to showcase just how weird the characters are.  "Jones" has a hidden gem of a villain character, and overall it looks like the artists had an awful lot of fun working on this.  It's as if they knew that this was going to be their last hurrah, so they went all out.

Of course, to see all this wonderful and inventive animation, you have to endure the disgusting live-action portions.  And also, this scene right here:



Yup, you guessed right.  Those are animated versions of Kid Rock and Joe C.  Their long musical number has, remarkably, aged worse than the "Ninja Rap" scene in the second "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" movie.  The 90's!

Extremely Delayed Addendum: It could be that I may have the history of this film entirely backwards; that it started as a fully-animated feature with live-action bookends (if even that), and the Farrellys were recruited to film more live-action to edit into the movie because of executive meddling reasons.  Thing is, I have no other evidence that such was the case aside from the comments in this AV Club review.

And so, our Strange Animated Films from the 1990's Made By Random Studios Marathon is in the rearview mirror.  It's been an amazing trip, and I'm glad you shared this magical adventure with me.  Now, with that said, a few very interesting '90's animated films are in the old Saved Queue, and who knows if or when they may pop up? 

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Sketch of the Day!

Ride that Shoopuf!

Random 90's Animation - "Monkeybone" (2001)

Note: I received and watched this movie way out of order too.  In fact, it wound up being the last movie I watched for this marathon.  Who would have ever expected "We're Back" and "Monkeybone" to be so popular?

Okay, technically, "Monkeybone" (alternately "MonkeyBone", but we're not going to be doing that) is a film from early 2001, but I felt it would be silly not to acknowledge it in a marathon of bizarre animated films from random studios.  And anyway, my OCD is sated a little: I think I've now seen all of Henry Selick's features

"MonkeyBone" is the story of a comicbook artist with some issues who has created a bizarre world full of strange creatures including a main character who is basically an unrepressed Id.  Due to complicated circumstances, the artist ends up traveling to the world of his comics which looks like nothing so much as what the director of the movie must have going on in his subconscious at all hours of the day.  There, the artist is haunted by his creations, including the main character, who turns out to be rather unappealing in person and longs to be real and to make out with a human.  Somehow that character turns into a human, and escapes into our world, much to the distress and inconvenience of their creator.  Before the character can cause utter chaos in our world, the comic artist fights to stop that character.  The movie basically just ends when the director seemingly ran out of ideas, but at least the comic character has been thwarted.

For some reason, this story felt a little bit familiar to me...

The good news is that "Monkeybone" is not nearly as obnoxious as "Cool World".  (Then again, few movies are.)  What "Monkeybone" is is basically just what I said: what I'd imagine Henry Selick sees when he closes his eyes.

Therefore, at the very least, "Monkeybone" is worth a look because it does not resemble anything else you have ever seen.  Love it or hate it, it's a singular creative vision that just gets more and more off the wall as the movie goes on.  It has more in common with "Being John Malkovich", say, or "Southland Tales" than it does with most other live-action/animation combos.  And if you are familiar with Henry Selick only thanks to "The Nightmare Before Christmas", man, you don't know how crazy his diamond can shine.

I said in an earlier review that Selick is the kind of director who does what he wants and if other people like it, well, good for them for being able to keep up.  "Monkeybone" is apparently based upon a graphic novel, but it appears as though that source material (which, to be fair, I have never encountered, so I don't even know) was merely used as a stepping-off point so Selick's imagination could fly free.  We get to see every kind of animation technique there is and there are several characters who are brought to life using two or three techniques at once.  The characters themselves are often rather grotesque, and a few climbed right out of the Uncanny Valley.  Only a small handful of characters are anywhere near intentionally cute.  There are some impressively random cameos; the live actors in general are a little iffy, and it's genuinely frightening when they get partially-animated.  The live-action sequences are rather cloying and feel like a different movie entirely, but things pick up once a zombie gymnast played by Chris Kattan shows up.

And we all know what movies with zombie gymnasts played by Chris Kattan are like, don't we?

"Monkeybone" is weird as hell, but it is definitely worth a look simply because it's weird as hell.  Look, most of the films we've seen during this marathon look like they were inspired by powerful hallucinogens; this movie is (at least in part) about a powerful hallucinogen.

Next up, our final Random 90's Animated Film might just make you sick.

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Sketch of the Day!

Randimal Andimals:

Random 90's Animation - "South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut"

You know, reflecting back on the 1990's way, way before the series became the long-running institution it is today, the craziest thing about "South Park" is really the fact that it exists at all! 

Consider: you are the executive of a cable station that's still floundering a little in finding it's voice/main selling point.  These two weird dudes from Colorado want to sell you on a series based off a crude, cut-out animated Christmas card they'd created about Jesus battling Santa Claus as four foul-mouthed little kids look on.  The short had gained some attention on the Internet - but remember this is in the mid-90's.  That's not a pitch for an immediately popular hit television show that would last well into arguable "Jeez, that show is still on?" years, that's a string of randomly generated words!

But "South Park" debuted in 1997 and hit the ground running, becoming an instant sensation.  Since not all cable companies carried Comedy Central back then, a lot of us had to watch third-generation copies of tapes provided by friends who had Comedy Central and recorded the show.  And this was still my primary way of getting my "South Park" fix back in 1999, when the fantastically titled "South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut" debuted in theaters.  As it happens, this would be the first time I'd watched the film since college.

There are parts of this movie that are very of-the-moment and that play very differently now.  As with "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America", I haven't got the slightest idea what a person who isn't old enough to remember the cultural environment in which "South Park: BLU" would make of certain gags.  Furthermore, the show would be utterly incomprehensible to someone not already well-versed with the series.

Overall, "South Park: BLU" plays out almost exactly like a giant-sized early-season "South Park" episode.  The animation is still crude and has not been significantly souped-up for the big screen - save for a few selected scenes that relish in over the top ridiculous CGI effects.  The plot has some satire of real-life as it's hook, but the story progressively gets more and more bizarre from there.  There are random vocal cameos that are funny mostly because they are so strange!  (This is by far the greatest movie ever made where Nick Rhodes blows up David Foley.)

Ah, but then... you have the songs.

Holy sh*t, the songs.

The songs are fantastic.  They are the main reason why I liked "South Park: BLU".  As it happens, Trey Parker and Matt Stone cut their teeth on the insane "Cannibal: The Musical" and have since written excellent, hilarious songs for "Team America" and "The Book Of Mormon".  "South Park: BLU" is the first time they got to really show their songwriting powers in a public forum, and nearly every review from the time cites the songs as the best part of the film.

Now having mentioned those songs, I will say that the best way to experience them by far is in the context of the film and that this is not a film for everyone.  And I say that because there still exist people who can not get over the fact that animation is not always for children.  These people make me very upset, but I'd figure I'd give them fair warning as they will probably have a conniption fit by the second verse of the second big musical number.

Every so often, some wag will write something with the phrase, "The MUSICAL is BACK!!!"  This is in spite of the fact that movie musicals never really went anywhere.  Just ask anybody who grew up with the Bronze Age Disney movies.  And having said this, as someone who grew up with the Bronze Age Disney musicals, I can state that the songs in "South Park: Bigger, Longer, Uncut" are every bit as good as those in "Beauty and the Beast".  Yeah, really!

Next up, we head a little ways into the 2000's with two bizarre live-action/animation combo films.

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A Note: For a few days I will not be able to access my email, etc.  Please be patient with regards to comment approval and such.  (It's cute how I act like this series of reviews has been popular at all.  Oh well.)

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Sketch of the Day!

Truly the most wise of Earthlings.

Random 90's Animation - "Cats Don't Dance!" (1997)

I watched "Cats Don't Dance" the other night with my seven-year-old cousin and my younger sister and -God as my witness- both of them were enthralled for the whole hour and ten minutes.  I am taking this as empirical evidence that "Cats Don't Dance" is so good that if you do not like it, you are not to be trusted.

And "Cats Don't Dance" is wonderful.  The last time I watched it was way back in high school and I only remembered liking it a lot.  Well, upon rewatching it, I had forgotten just how incredibly *good* it is!  This review could easily turn into a gush session, so let's take care of some context first then.

"Cats Don't Dance" was directed by Mark Dindal for Turner Animation.  And as it is, it's the very first and very last Turner Animation film ever.  The studio was consolidated into Warner Brothers Animation thanks to Ted Turner and his weirdo studio politics.  While there isn't much elaboration about this online, I wonder if this is the "Suspended Animation Studio" Brad Bird spoke of in this Los Angeles Animation Festival clip?

In any case, if a studio is only going to end up making one movie ever, it's a big damn miracle if you create something as awesome as "Cats Don't Dance".  It reminded me a great deal of "The Brave Little Toaster" in many ways.  The animation is gorgeous, the characters are well-defined and well-designed and their development is very moving, and all the songs are terrific.  And of course, it's a one-hit wonder that seems to have appeared right out of the blue, in complete defiance of everything we know about mainstream animation, like a gift just to make you happy.

Most of all, "Cats Don't Dance" made me miss the hell out of mainstream American hand-drawn feature animation.  I'm serious.  Like I said, the animation is absolutely gorgeous.  You can tell when the people working on an animated film had a lot of fun doing so because it shows.  If you love 1940's golden age Tex Avery-style animation, this is the movie for you.  There are scenes in this movie that consist of what can only be described as genuinely funny drawings and beautiful drawings and poignant drawings.  The word that came to my mind constantly was, "fearless".

And speaking of fearless, this movie is, when all is said and done, a story about equal rights.  Which is, to say the least, still timely.  And that should depress the crap out of all of us.

But it's never preachy or obnoxious about it, and indeed, I'd forgotten how straight-up hilarious "Cats Don't Dance" is.  The script is so deft and the energy is infectious.  I was catching jokes and gags my little cousin wasn't registering -- but she was also laughing at a lot of the same things I was.  And so help me, when I say that there were gags that only the adults were catching, I mean it in the sweetest way.  No, you won't see anything that pushes the film's G-rating; no fart jokes, no winking "we know you're too cool for this" sarcasm, and no instantly-dated pop-culture references.  Oh, there ARE pop-culture references -- but they are to the golden age of Hollywood and classic theatrical cartoons. You can't even imagine how refreshing this feels!  (As it happens, there are a few more timely references, but they are shunted off to the end credits.  It's amazing how badly some of them have aged in comparison to the gags based off older movies.  For example, there is a "Batman and Robin" parody.  Ouch.)

Speaking of, and I will admit this is why I wanted my young cousin's opinion of the movie too, and am very happy to say that she enjoyed the whole thing.  One of the most consistent criticisms leveled at "Cats Don't Dance" I noticed during research for this review, and I could not make this up if I wanted to, is the assertion that children will hate every minute of it "because it keeps making references to old movies and old movie stars they've never even heard of!  How dare this children's movie even acknowledge that there were things that happened before the children were even born?"  The stupid, it hurts...

If we lived in a perfect world, "Cats Don't Dance" would have been a huge hit and Mark Dindal would have been able to make more movies like this without the higher-ups of a gigantic studio breathing down his neck.  In a better world, "Cats Don't Dance" would have a cult following much like "The Brave Little Toaster" or "The Iron Giant" or even Dindal's own "The Emperor's New Groove" now has.  Seriously, if this review inspires even one other person to check it out, it'll be worth it.  Netflix periodically has it on Instant Watch, so what have you got to lose?

Next week: Our third movie that wound up available for instant-viewing.  As to why I almost left it out, blame Canada!

(Oh ye Gods, that was forced...)

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Sketch of the Day!

More Maine Wildlife Park sketches! These ones include madness overheard at a zoo.

Random 90's Animation - "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America!"

You can say what you will about the 1990's, but one of the best things about that long, strange decade was this: the animated feature films of the time were incredibly diverse, and it was also a fantastic time for boundary-pushing animation

Soon after their debut on Mtv in 1993, "Beavis and Butt-head" quickly became the most-loathed fictional characters in the history of television.  Perhaps it was the fact that the humor and animation wasn't always the most sophisticated in the world.  Maybe it was the taint of controversy: the duo were blamed for inspiring copycats (the stigma still stuck even when it was revealed that the children in question had never even seen the show).  Or maybe it is because we tend to forget or ignore that -and you must trust the person who spent a couple of very long years as a substitute high school teacher- we have all met teenaged boys like this.

Point is, when "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America" (fantastic title, that) arrived in theaters, it meant that a lot of Serious Movie Critics who would have never voluntarily sat down and watch Mike Judge's series would have to deal directly with these characters.  And if you go back and read their old reviews from the time, make sure you take a shot when you run into the inevitable variation of "I can't believe I actually liked it!"

(Side-note: As with "Gumby: The Movie", it's hard to say if "Beavis and Butt-head Do America" is a good introduction to the characters or not, since the format of the film diverges so wildly from what these characters usually do.  A bit of research online reveals that longtime fans of the show are polarized on the feature film, though people who weren't big fans of the series like it just fine.) 

It was hard to watch this movie without all that in my mind, and that's too bad.  Because "Beavis and Butt-Head Do America" is screamingly hilarious.  Honestly, I think it's Mike Judge's funniest feature film.  If you think about it, every movie he has made is like a thesis statement on how obnoxious people are a pain to have to deal with (in particular, "Idiocracy" practically underlines this in red crayon.)  The difference here is that Judge has at least a little bit of affection for Beavis and Butt-head, and it's much more fun to see how the various people they meet deal with two goofballs who are only vaguely aware that they're not watching television than it is to cringe along with the only sensible person in a world of fools.  Dare I say it but there are even a few scenes that are, in their own weird way, downright moving.

The film is a bit episodic but that actually works in it's favor, as Beavis and Butt-head are funnier in small doses.  The guest voices are enthusiastic and very very funny (Cloris Leachman being the top show-stealer), and the songs are terrific.  The animation doesn't stray too far from the television series' style, aside from a fantastic nightmare inspired by Rob Zombie that's over much too soon.

Now with that said, this film is very definitely a product of it's time (it's also, strangely, the first film so far in our marathon I can say this about.)  I found it very very funny, but I can't imagine what a kid who doesn't remember the Clinton years would think of it.  Heck, there are scenes that are strangely poignant simply because they are evidence of a much simpler time; there is no way either of Cornholio's shenanigans would fly today.  I can also see how this would easily be a terrible, mediocre live-action monstrosity if made today, but let's not even go there.

Next, we get to the film that might just be the high point of this entire project!

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Go check out the second Pop Culture Gallery over at "Art Evolved"!

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Sketch of the Day!

Horses at Pineland Farm.

Random 90's Animation - "Gumby the Movie" (1995)

Something fortuitous that happened during this Strange Animated Films from the 1990's Made By Random Studios Marathon: Three significant and -to say the least- diverse animated features from the 1990's turned out to be available for instant viewing on Netflix.  They are not on my list (if anyone was following along), and I wound up watching two of them out of order, but I felt it'd be silly to ignore them if they're that easily accessible.  Today, we'll be watching the first such film and man, leave it to the only G-rated one in the trio to be the most brain-melting.

Art Clokey's original and very optimistic title for "Gumby the Movie" was "Gumby 1".  Weirdly, this title remains in the opening credits for the film.  It's just the cherry on top of the big weird sundae that is "Gumby the Movie".

But just so we're clear, I should emphasize the fact that nothing in the only feature-length "Gumby" film (if you don't count "The Puppetoon Movie", since he's just hosting it) suggests that it was made on drugs.  Look, I grew up with the old "Gumby" shorts from the 50's and 60's and with the more recent (and arguably stranger) "Gumby" television series.  "The Gumby Show", an anthology of Art Clokey's earliest Gumby cartoons, is available on Netflix Instant and is a handy reminder of the weird dream logic -or, perhaps more accurately, weird story told by a very young child logic- that Gumby runs on.  Here, random events plots, bizarre characters, trippy electronic music, shapes casually changing, and storylines wandering off and ending up very far away from where they started is Tuesday.  So again, to clarify: so far in this project the "Gumby" movie feels less like a likely candidate for an animated film made under the influence of powerful hallucinogenics than the "An American Tail" sequel.

But wait, this is a 90's movie marathon, right?  What's Gumby doing here?  Well, seems Art Clokey was determined to make a feature-length "Gumby" movie and that it apparently took him many, many years to do this.  Clokey had good Sticktoitivity, to borrow a phrase, and finally saw his dream project finished.  Just in time to premier in the immediate wake of another strange animated film in an unusual medium that had a long road to theaters... and thereafter turned out to be utterly game-changing: "Toy Story".

In comparison to "Toy Story", "Gumby the Movie" was, to say the least, quaint.  You win no points for guessing which of these two films ate the other alive at the box office.

But with that unfortunate timing far in the past, and with "Gumby the Movie" having since become a cult favorite on home video, how does it play today?  Well, it's still... quaint.  But it's quaint in a good way.  The impetus for the story is a Farm Aid style benefit concert for crying out loud!  The low-tech analogue animation is kind of refreshing to see, and I wish more modern stop-motion films were willing to let the "seams" show just a little bit.  That said, the animation is quite lovely for what it is; many of the animators also worked on "The Nightmare Before Christmas" after all and their attention to detail shows here.  I should note, however, that while the "Gumby" characters look cute and appealing as always, the more "normal" characters don't, and are often weird and scary.  Looking back, though, that's an old problem with the "Gumby" series.

If you're familiar with Gumby, than this is basically everything you might imagine a giant-sized "Gumby" episode would be.  It starts out with a typical TV show plot, and then gets progressively stranger and stranger.  There are a lot of references to classic science fiction films for some reason, but basically if Art Clokey was interested in something at all, it found it's way in here somehow.  (If you aren't familiar with Gumby, I can't really say that this would be a good introduction to the characters.)  It's on Netflix instant, and it's worth a look if you're ready for something very odd.

Next up: Yes, Virginia, Mike Judge did have a theatrical hit feature film.

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Sketch of the day!

More wildlife park sketches!