Cartoonage part Deux.
Thanks to everyone who participated. All 5 of you. Arthur had some great answers but Laura used her witchcraft to dazzle up a pretty good chunk of the answers. Here are the answers to the Cartoonage Challenge. Educate yourself and pretend you cared to begin with.
The Devil and Daniel Mouse by Nelvana. One vignette from my Holy Grail of Cartoons. You’ve got these mice, Dan and Jan. They have a band, but they’re starving artists basically, until Jan sells her soul to Satan to have a hit.
Rose Petal Place. Kind of like Strawberry Shortcake only with flowers, and a pretty bummer story line for it’s premise. I think they maybe had one season before it was all over. I liked it because they were pretty and always having to escape some sort of doom only those who are actually plants could ever understand.
Count Duckula. As with most Nickelodeon cartoons of the 80’s it was ripped off from a British station. Totally rad theme song, very funny, campy characters.
The Elm-Chanted Forest. Yugoslavian/US amalgamation, this one jacked with me because some of the creatures they made look like bad guys (a giant ball of flames that only speaks in harsh whispers anybody?) weren’t really bad guys at all. Lots of weird singing/weird imagery.
Ferdy The Ant…actually featured a sneak preview of Elm-Chanted Forrest at the end. Our Ferdy intake was limited after the epic scene where Ferdy’s friend the spider has a very dramatic “production” of rope out of his back. Sweating, grunting, very graphic. Kristin was caught mimicing it days later, telling everybody “I’ll poop out a rope so you can swing across the sharks!”
The WaterBabies. In the grand traditions of movies that start as live action and morph into cartoon, Waterbabies was awesome! I loved how cutesy all of the singing was, the comradery, the Kraken! When I was in middle school i read the book which is written at about a 3rd grade reading level. It’s rather large but heavily illustrated, then I realized, waterbabies were a group of orphan kids who were bought as slaves and chimney sweeps. They were abused and used until they became “waterbabies” when Mr. Grimes drowned them. Gives it a new spin, eh?
The Last Unicorn. I wont elaborate much, and I’ll assume most of you have watched it. If you haven’t, don’t let the unicorn part fool you. Whenever one of my decidedly masculine friends had to defend having The Last Unicorn in his DVD collection he would say “You don’t even understand how creepy a kids movie about a unicorn can be.”
American Pop by Mr. Ralph Bakshi who is decidedly my favorite animator. Check out any of his films, even if you don’t like the content you’ll atleast find them aesthetically pleasing.
Watership Down the cause for so many emotionally scarred children of the 80’s and early 90’s. This movie is SCARY. I don’t care what anyone says. I rented it a few years ago and it still scared me. Another one based on a kids book and guaranteed to be a mindscrew.
Serendipity: The Pink Dinosaur (Dragon) Anime. I will fight tooth and nail that I am decidedly NOT into anime. It’s cool if you are, but I’m not really the cosplay/reading books backward/watching tons of cartoons with overdub type. Unless the cartoon is Serendipity. In the grand tradition of Anime, the movie inspired the children’s book series. The first book series on our list that did not cause children to start wetting the bed.
Sea Prince and The Child of Fire by Sanrio. Sanrio did a stint where they slid back from going the way of Hello Kitty and Badtz Maru and made some edgy cartoons in the last 70’s early 80’s. Sea Prince and Child of fire is pretty edgy but not totally over a kid’s head. The last scene is absolutely gorgeous.
A Cosmic Christmas very first televised Nelvana animated feature. Little boy brings home aliens for Christmas, badass kid with the switchblade tries to steal kids pet goose. Heartwarming and hilarious at the same time, and part 2 of my Holy Grail of Cartoons.
Metamorphoses/Winds of Change, another film by Sanrio in the 70’s. A bunch of acts all focusing on stories from greek mythology, featuring the music of Joan Baez and The Rolling Stones. I thought this quote from their Wikipedia entry summed it up nicely “Metamorphoses tried to be the rock era’s answer to Fantasia…”
The Maxx I don’t remember whether this was on Liquid Television or Cartoon Sushi I don’t think I really “got it” but I remember thinking it was beautiful and kind of dangerous so I would stay up WAY past Singled Out to watch it.
Somewhere in Dreamland by Max Fleischer. If you have some old VHS recording of random cartoons you picked up for a dollar at Walmart, I’ll guarantee this is on it. One of my favorite animated shorts ever but I can’t watch it to save my life, because it’s so depressing. Little kids during the depression who fall asleep on Christmas Eve in their blankets full of holes, so hungry they dream about a magical world made of food. It’ll take you down a peg.
Gabby another Max Fleischer. You’ll probably remember him as that simpleton who walks around singing a little tune about how “All’s Well!” if you’re going to watch a Gabby short, pick the one where he’s trying to undress the baby. Creepiness will ensue.
Little Audrey by Paramount. If you catch a little Audrey episode where she is spanked by a disembodied pair of hands and a high pitched voice of a female authority figure, jsut know in the original episodes Audrey had a very robust black female who would take care of her. This character has since been redubbed and recolored to an odd stripey white in the new releases of Audrey films.
The Snorks. Smurfish rip off on Saturday Morning cartoons. I always enjoyed the fact that there was a “special” snork with 2 snorks popping out of his head who couldn’t speak and was pretty much there to make the other Snorks look smarter.
Lazer Tag Academy I’m not sure why, but as a 4 year old little lady, I identified myself as the heroine of Lazer Tag Academy. Jamie Jeren held her own with the boys and capped herself some Skuggs. I LOVE IT!
Madballs I don’t mean to brag or anything, but I own BOTH Madball movies my Dad bartered for at a skanky video library in Chicago when I was 19 because he understood the gravity of the find.
Panda and The Magic Serpent. I’ve only recently discovered that this movie was a big deal in it’s own right. The first color Anime feature from Japan. It’s considered by most to be the first piece of Anime in the terms we’ve come to define it. Kristin, Mary and I just enjoyed it because we could sing all of the songs then say “We know chinese!”
Ivan and The Magic Pony anyone who knows my family history a little knows my sister didn’t speak until she was into late toddler hood, and didn’t really exhibit much interest in anything. This movie was the first thing I ever remember her being really excited about. She would watch it obsessively and cry when the Magic Pony gets into sticky situations. This film is kind of like the Russian equivalent of Panda and The Magic Serpent, in that it’s a piece of Cultural folklore that ended up turning into the countries first color animated feature.
The Raccoons The bad guys name was Mr. Cerril Sneer (featured above) and the theme song got your adrenaline pumping. Had a stint on Disney for about 2 seconds.
Beverly Hills Teens kids so rich they become a parody. Like The Hills only Beverly Hills Teens had WAY better dialogue. Nerd brings a smokin’ hot robo girl to his prom and rockstars named Gig and Jett. Golden.
Ant and the Aardvark sister show to Pink Panther, you probably watched it when you were up all night sick with the flu.
Foofur Blue dog who talks like Shaft and has a gang with a gay frenchie dog and a cat that sounds like Anthony Michael Hall when he gets drunk and goes to the blues club in Weird Science, and knows Kung-Fu. I used to think my old dog had a gang and talked like a decidely baritone black man.
