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Director: Alex Lovy
Release date: February 3, 1968
Rating: ★★★½
Review:
The Warner Bros. Studio was in its fifth incarnation and almost at the end of its life (the studio closed down in 1969) when ‘Norman Normal’ was released. The film is one of the most original of the entire Warner Bros. output, and remarkable for being a collaboration with musician Paul Stookey, the Paul of famed folk trio Peter, Paul and Mary.
‘Norman Normal’ knows a pleasant cartoon modern design and there’s no funny animal in sight. Instead, the short is rather puzzling and hardly knows a narrative, but seems to say something about emotional blackmail in society, and how trying to fit in in society can conflict with one’s own moral standards.
Introduced by a colorful beat band, we follow Norman who struggles with an abject order by his boss, while he seems at loss at a party. Especially the party sequence is strikingly modern, addressing the pushy coercion into drinking alcohol, while Norman himself questions a joke on being funny at the expense of a minority group. I didn’t expect such modern stances in a 1960s cartoon, at all.
Unfortunately, the short is too directionless and ends too abruptly to become a classic, but it’s certainly an interesting product of the 1960s, an era of more experimental approach to storytelling, both in live action and animation.
The film’s title song also appeared on Peter, Paul and Mary’s 1966 release ‘The Peter, Paul and Mary Album’. According to Wikipedia more ‘Norman Normal’ cartoons were envisaged, but this would remain the only one.
Watch a video clip based on ‘Norman Normal’ yourself and tell me what you think:
‘Norman Normal’ is available on the DVD-set ‘Looney Tunes Golden Collection Volume Six’
Director: Marcell Jankovics
Release date: 1968
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
‘Dreams on Wings’ is an advertising film, but a most beautiful at that.
All the animation is done in watercolor paintings in very bold colors. Moreover, there’s a lot of metamorphosis, with images hardly staying static for more than a few frames. In one sequence, for example, an image of a galloping centaur changes into an arrow, which changes into a jet, which morphs into an airplane, which form the words Air India, etc.
Also the countries Air India flies to are depicted in the most poetic fashion. For example, Switzerland is depicted by mountains made of chocolate, and Egypt by a camel with a pyramid hump. The colorful images never seize to amaze, and the fun is enhanced further by a lively soundtrack by János Gyulai Gaál.
‘Dreams on Wings’ is available on the Blu-Ray of ‘Son of the White Mare’
Director: Bruno Bozzetto
Release Date: October 31, 1968
Rating: ★★★★
Review:
‘Vip mio fratello superuomo’* is Bozzetto’s second feature, and it a great improvement on his first (‘West and Soda‘ from 1965).
The designs are bolder, the pace is higher, the timing sharper, and the story more original. The film starts rightaway with a hilarious history of the VIP superheroes through time. It then introduces our heroes, the superhero SuperVIP and his weak little bespectacled brother, MiniVIP. They end upon an island where a super-villain plans to turn mankind into brainless consumers.
The result is a very nonsensical superhero story, told to a great effect, with the minimum of means and very limited animation. It also shows Bozzetto’s aversion against consumerism, a theme he would expand upon in his masterpiece ‘Allegro non troppo’ (1976). Unlike that latter feature, ‘Vip mio fratello superuomo’ remains virtually unknown. This is a pity, for this funny film deserves a wider audience.
Watch and excerpt from ‘Vip mio fratello superuomo’ yourself and tell me what you think:
* also known as ‘My Brother Superman’
Director: Raoul Servais
Release Date:1968
Rating: ★★★★★
Review:
In a sinister harbor, where cranes behave like giant dinosaurs and where pterodactyli fly a young flute player brings a mermaid to life. Unfortunately, the mermaid is captured by one of the cranes and dropped to death.
‘Sirene’ is a beautiful, surrealistic film with its own creepy and somber atmosphere. Luckily, there’s also space for some dark humor when the authorities arrest an innocent fisherman and when a zoo and a hospital argue about the mermaid’s body. ‘Sirene’ definitely among Servais’s best films, arguably only equaled by ‘To Speak or not to Speak (1970) and ‘Harpya‘.
Watch ‘Sirene’ yourself and tell me what you think:
Dr. Grob's Animation Review 