Storytime (1968)

Director:

Terry Gilliam

Genre:

Animation | Short

Plot Keywords:

Christmas Card | Cockroach

Runtime:

USA:9 min

Country:

UK

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Sound Mix:

Mono

Trivia:

This three-segment short accompanied Gilliam's Jabberwocky (1977) upon its re-release to theaters in 2001.

"The animator responsible has been sacked"

I suppose that Terry Gilliam's sense of humour doesn't quite align with mine. To date, I've found two masterpieces in 'Brazil (1985)' and 'Twelve Monkeys (1995),' but have never quite understood the near-universal appeal of the Monty Python clan. I don't want to get into an argument about the merits of the Python series and movies (since there are millions of intense fans out there who would order my assassination), but Gilliam's short film 'Storytime (1968)' displays a similar brand of random, offbeat humour. This nine-minute film is divided into three segments, each of which is similar in that they contain crude drawings, goofy story lines and anti-climactic endings. I can sort of see what the director's doing here, but I'm just not getting very many laughs out of it. After all, deliberately-dodgy animation that deliberately avoids a comedic punchline is still dodgy animation without a comedic punch-line. Watching the film, at the end of the day, felt more like a chore that it should have been.

The first story-time segment is about a cheerful cockroach named Don, who scurries throughout his mansion home, walks beneath the floorboards and does unspeakable things in the darkness of the cupboard, before being splatted by somebody's foot. Yep, that's the whole story, though this cockroach apparently has connections in high places. The second segment is about an ordinary man named Albert Einstein ("the only Albert Einstein not to have discovered the Theory of Relativity") whose hands have a life of their own, staying out late at night, misbehaving and committing adultery with feet. The third segment – and the most creative, I thought – hasn't much story to it at all, and instead concerns the inhabitants of the moving pictures on an over-sized Christmas card, who interact with each other in all sorts of bizarre ways. The funniest example were the Three Wise Men on camels, who are led on a wild-goose chase by the Star of Bethlehem. 'Storytime' is must-see viewing for Gilliam and Python fans, but others should tread more carefully.