The Frogs Who Wanted a King

Russian animator and live action director Wladyslaw Starewicz, who made his claim to fame making stop-motion animation with dead insects, could see the Bolsheviks taking control of his county as a game-changer to his career in 1917. Following many of his movie colleagues, he eventually landed in Paris, changing his name to Ladislas Starevich since it was much easier to say in French. Besides performing camera work for several film studios in Paris, he produced several short animated puppet movies. One exceptional work, retelling the Aesop Fable story, was 1922's "The Frogs Who Wanted A King" Starevich created the short as a parable to the situation he had escaped from in Russia. In the film, the frogs are discontented with their leaders and ask the god Jupiter to supply them with a new ruler. Just as the Russians toppled Czar Nicholas in early 1917, the public was unhappy with its new government. The frogs were unhappy with the bland character in the shape of a block of wood Jupiter had given them. They demanded a replacement. The god then gave them a more exciting stronger leader, this time a stork who loved to eat frogs. Starevich drew that analogy with the Bolsheviks and their brutal authoritative force, making "The Frogs Who Wanted A King" one of the earliest political animated commentaries on the current state of the world.