History of Re-Animation

The Hedgehog in the Fog  released in 1975 by Yuriy Norshteyn appears to be a Russian (Soviet?) animation that has similarities to the  animated bugs of the early age of animation. It's not bad, but some what weird. The face of the hedgehog looks something like the mouths of Clutch Cargo and there's a part where he loses his raspberry jam and uses a glowing fish skeleton to light he attempts to find it. Not to mention a strange owl paparazzi that follows him.  I wonder if something is lost in translation from the initial Russian a dog version of Michael Bolton finds and returns his raspberry jam. He's in the fog because he sees a pale white horse and wonders if it will die if it lies in the fog. Perhaps this is drug themed animation as the hedgehog while in the haze appears to breathing rapidly in various spots. I'm probably not it's target audience.

The Mind's Eye: A Computer Animation Odyssey released in 1990 by Odyssey Productions and Miramar Productions on VHS (this is a medievalish plastic film type of recording medium somewhat akin to parchment and recorded by nerds (a modern sect of monks)) and laserdisc which is the T-Rex ancestor to modern cds and dvds.  Seriously, they were the size of a small house and ancient.  I actually watched this movie on a friend's laserdisc player (it came with the player) because he wanted to show off the "intense resolution of his laserdisc player" and actual laserdisc version of movies were insanely expensive. I remember being not overly impressed, and thinking to myself that computer generated graphics were so inferior to other types that there would be no way this would ever catch on.  In my defense technology greatly improved and the creators greatly improved their skill sets as time went on. I would imagine most people watching this today would be similarly unimpr...

Science Ninja Team Gatchaman  released in 1972 by Yoshida and the Americanized version Battle of the Planets is one of the first two Japanese anime series I remember watching as a kid (the other one being Star Blazers an Americanized version of Space Battleship Yamato). I identified with Gatchaman the most because one of the Americanized names of the lead characters was Jason. So in episode 1 there's this guy who appears to get the team together (it was in Japanese without subtitles so I'm guessing) who looks a lot like Magnum P.I. Science Ninja Team Gatchaman defeat a guy who looks very effeminate (I think the villain was revealed to be a woman later in the series if I remember correctly) and the villain takes orders from a superior whose screen com image looks like a crow (very bird themed animation series). Some of the more unique things I remember about the series was the bird theme, the ship was the Phoenix, could become the Fiery Phoenix and had a solar powered weap...

Abandoned Little Cat Tora released in 1947 by Kenzo Masaoka is a wonderfully cute animation that foreshadows and potentially inspired Hello Kitty. I've never quite understood the Japanese fascination with cats, but I've always liked it. I'm sure there is a reason for it, I'm just not aware of what it is. This animation is very much like the chibi (small body) style and very much kawaii (cute). Although there are parts that are a little disturbing like when the mother cat person pulls the canteen off the child almost breaking it's need until the canteen come free and the cat child drops to the ground. The singing is some what operatic in quality and the animation as whole has a stylistic component very much like the musical movies of Bing Crosby and Danny Kaye. The version was not in English but the story is easy enough to follow through the actions of the various cats, an abandoned cat is found by a mother cat with three kittens, taking home, where one of the ...

Paddington released in 1975 by an avid model train collector was adapted from books, utilized a teddy bear stolen from his daughter's room and a bunch of model train props. When he didn't have the model train props and couldn't afford to buy more, he drew what he needed on poster board, cut it out and folded it for his stop motion animation (not having any friends, no one was able to tell him to seek help and he continued to make more of these).  Disclaimer: I'm not sure that any of that is true, but it looks like it. Paddington was made for the BBC which is notorious for making content to fill its many channels with content good or bad. In the United States it was used as filler when a station had nothing to broadcast that anyone was willing to watch. As a kid I remember this coming on and after a few minutes of waiting for it to become entertaining, then realizing that it would never become entertaining because that was not it's goal, turning off the TV and goi...

Gerald McBoing-Boing was released in 1950 by United Productions of America (UPA) and was produced by Robert Cannon and was adapted from a story by Dr. Seuss. The artistic style is much simpler and more sketch like than the realistic far more detailed animation that the Walt Disney studios were creating. Walt Disney had the multi plane camera and in order to compete and be profitable UPA had been experimenting with different styles.  What the animation lacks in color and details are more than offset by the rhythmic prose of Dr. Seuss, cute word play and intriguing story line whose ending is not so readily apparent. This makes for an animation that is entertaining and cute while not as cinematically beautiful as one of Disney's animated features. I found it to be quite good and accomplishing in it's goal to entertain.  This new look they created would become widely copied and utilized in the coming years. UPA had been founding by former Walt Disney staff members w...