Change Your Image
MephitisLotor
Ratings
Most Recently Rated
Reviews
64,000,000 Years Ago (1981)
The epitome of edutainment
A stop-motion depiction of prehistoric times, "64,000,000 Years Ago" doesn't say anything that dinosaur fans don't already know and isn't entertaining in any meaningful sense, but it does a decent job of portraying on film what scientists of the '70s thought life was like late in the reign of the dinosaurs. The stop-motion animation, while not as fluid and lifelike as more modern productions, is good enough to be appealing. On the whole, it's just average both as entertainment and as an educational short, best suited for younger dinosaur fans (old enough to handle a little bit of blood and violence, and a mating scene interrupted just before it gets explicit) and animation fanatics.
Special Delivery (1979)
amusing story, bland execution
Despite a darkly-humorous story and some moderately stylish (if unpolished) animation, 'Special Delivery' has yet to leave much of an impression on me. The main reason is something that's been praised in other comments on this site, the narration: it's so flat and descriptive that it undercuts, rather than enhances, the animation, and yet it's really unnecessary, supplying almost no information that isn't obvious in the animation itself. The character design, staging, and action are all competent, but add nothing to the story. The result is a cartoon which could just as easily have been a live-action short film, or even a short story, without losing anything.
The Dingles (1988)
Silly and sentimental mood piece
There's no story to speak of in "The Dingles", which is about Doris Dingle and her three cats, Donna, Dale, and Deedee, and the time they had to retreat from the backyard into the house in the face of a ferocious storm. Emma Levine's narration is entirely fitting for what amounts to a tall tale, complete with colorful descriptions and impossible events; the three cats are given clear (and very feline) personalities, and the animation, while very old-fashioned, is well-done, and features some good gags and acting. People looking for innovative or raucous animation will be disappointed; "The Dingles" is nothing more than a sentimental crowd-pleaser, and it does its job quite well.
Every Dog's Guide to Complete Home Safety (1986)
Amusingly-narrated edutainment cartoon
What would be another average edutainment cartoon is given a boost by Paul Brown's droll narration as Wally, a "safety dog" who fights a losing battle to eliminate safety hazards from the lives of his new owners. "Every Dog's Guide to Complete Home Safety" does have a few good points to make about home safety; unfortunately, most of the slapstick is predictable and, as a result, not very funny. The animation is, for the most part, smooth and appealing; on the down side, many of the scenes either lack backgrounds or have a white space for the characters to move in. The script itself, except for Wally's narration, is largely shallow and colorless. "Every Dog's Guide to Complete Home Safety" is not really worth seeking out, but it's worth watching if you happen to have it.
Every Child (1979)
Preachy, feel-good tripe
That this short won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short should be conclusive proof that the Academy can prefer political or sociological content over quality. The animation itself is OK, except for ugly character designs and a style that varies inconsistently between sophisticated and childish. The sound is interesting, as Les Mimes Électriques provide all the sound effects in the cartoon using just their voices, and masking anything that might be dialogue as incoherent mumbling. Unfortunately, what passes for the story, however well-intentioned it may be, is both preachy and banal, as a baby is abandoned on a succession on doorsteps, with no one able to find room in their lives to take her in, until she ends up at a dump where a couple of homeless people decide to care for her. Apparently the makers of this cartoon think that simply being in favor of children having good homes is a strong enough social statement to build a cartoon around.
(And while it didn't affect my rating, the obvious subtext that the poor are more humane (or, indeed, more human) than the wealthy or the middle class is annoying, as both a stereotype and a cliché.)