Now Hear This

Director: Chuck Jones
Release date: April 27, 1963
Rating: ★★★★
Review:

‘Now Hear This’ is a cartoon on sound. The film is one of the most original cartoons by a major studio of the 1960s, for its ultra-modern designs and idiosyncratic narrative. The film knows a stream-of-consciousness-like way of storytelling, exploiting an inner logic, but with only a dreamlike coherence.

In the film Chuck Jones and his crew only use monochrome backgrounds, with shapes, lines and typography emphasizing both the action and the emotional response. Only the three main characters (a devil, a deaf Briton and a small character dressed in pink) are drawn and animated traditionally, with the Briton being the audience’s connection to what happens on the screen.

Being a film on sound, sound effect man Tregg Brown goes berzerk in creating and combining the craziest sounds, from the decades-old ‘rubber band’ sound snippet to bizarre new sound effects accompanying lines, shapes and words. The result is as mesmerizing as it is rewarding in its originality. It’s striking that the studio could produce such an avant-garde film in its final days, which were mostly populated with much less inspired products.

Watch excerpts from ‘Now Hear This’ yourself and tell me what you think:

‘Now Hear This’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Six’