How's It Hold Up?

It's another Out of the Inkwell short, and this time the clown's family is coming over! What shenanigans do they get up to, and how's it hold up compared to the clown's other adventures? Listen to find out! The Curtain Rises Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Kool Kats Kevin MacLeod...

What happens when you take the inherently absurd premise of 'a woman has kids with a wolf man' and then take it seriously? The answer is you create this Mamoru Hosoda classic from 2012! This is a movie Valerie and Danika have seen more than once, but not for a while... watching it again with Jan and Ryan in tow, what did we all think? Did it hold up almost ten years later? Listen to find o...

It's the early 1920s and Walt Disney has finally entered the animation scene! While this isn't his first short, it's the first starring animals instead of humans, indicative of the sort of cartoons he would eventually become famous for.  But is it any good? Is there a reason to watch Walt's silent era shorts, or should you skip right to Steamboat Willie? Listen to find out! The Cur...

Do you remember that movie? You know, that one you saw as a kid, had cartoon animals and they flew a little ship at one point? Maybe there was a scary scene with humans? You're pretty sure there was an environmental theme. Well, this is that movie! But is this film that's lived on the edge of your memories for years any good? Is it worth revisiting so the vague memory can become clear? Lis...

Another Out of the Inkwell short, this one gets weird, with the still unnamed clown walking on telephone wires, creating a mechanical woman and getting murdered by oil. It's a trip, but is it a good one? Listen to find out! The Curtain Rises Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribution 3.0 License http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/ Kool Kats Kevin Ma...

Though Treasure Planet isn't the movie that signaled the first death of traditional animation at Disney, its box office failure unfortunately led the company toward that inevitable conclusion. On the other hand, the film is a passion project by a pair of directors that gave Disney multiple movies now considered classics. So while it failed financially it was nevertheless adored by those who cr...

The first few Out of the Inkwell shorts were produced by Bray Productions, but soon enough the Fleischer Brothers decided to create their own studio, and this short is perhaps the first one they made! And it certainly feels like they're trying to go all-out, with even more interactions between the animation and live action parts, more rotoscoping and even some claymation! There's a lot goi...

It's time for Japan's first feature-length film, along with the shorter film it's a sequel to. And both of them are overt Japanese World War II war propaganda! As such the viewing was, in some ways, harrowing, especially given the shorter film is literally about Pearl Harbor. But still, the second one is historically important to animation in Japan! So do either of them hold up? Are ei...

We've looked at some of the earliest bits of American and European animation - but what about other countries? What about Japan? We look at the oldest surviving bit of Japanese animation, followed by the oldest surviving animated short. Are they enjoyable to watch in 2021 or later? Listen to find out! The Curtain Rises Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By Attribu...

This particular film is this podcast's second Gulliver's Travels, the first animated telling of the story, and the second American feature-length animated film. It's also one of two feature films by the Fleischer Bros, better known for Betty Boop and Popeye. This movie begs direct comparison to Disney's Snow White, since it was made to directly compete within the market Disney'...

It's time to dive into our first series of theatrical cartoon shorts! We're still a long ways from Looney Tunes and Mickey Mouse, but even back in 1919 characters were being created who are still known today! In this particular case, the cartoon stars a clown who would eventually be known as Koko, and would become best known for being a side character in early Betty Boop cartoons. This tim...

The very first Disney movie, and the beginnings of animated feature films in America is Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Its a film many have seen, but when was the last time they actually watched it and paid attention to it? Is it... worth that? Or is this a relic of a bygone era that's inferior to the vast body of work made in its wake? Listen to find out! The Curtain Rises Kevin MacLeod (in...

Out of all pre-Disney cartoon shorts, Winsor McCay's Gertie the Dinosaur is perhaps the most well known. Today we take a look at it and its predecessor, Little Nemo, based on the comic series of the same name, to examine McCay's best-known contributions to animation as a medium. But, outside that historical context, how are these two shorts as pieces of entertainment? Are they still enjoya...

The oldest surviving animated feature film is actually the third one known to have been made, and even still it is over ten years older than Walt Disney's Snow White. It also does not use traditional animation, but instead a cutout and silhouette animation style hybrid. It's also German, while the story itself is based on the 1001 Nights. So all that said... is it any fun to watch? And doe...

Animation has existed for well over 100 years now, yet in the grand scheme of things, it is a relatively young medium. How long ago did it begin, exactly, and who pioneered it? What of the earliest bits of animation still survives today, and perhaps more importantly - is any of it any good? Like, historically, sure, but is there any other reason to watch these things? Watch to find out! The Curtai...

Our final episode of the year is another Soyuzmultfilm movie! The most well known in the west of the studio's output, actually. This is a film many people might remember from their childhoods, albeit in an English dub form. But how does the original hold up? Do the Russian voices hold up, and does the film itself deserve to be well known? Listen to find out! The Curtain Rises Kevin MacLeod (in...

On the second episode of our 2020 Holiganza, we see the final hurrah of the original Animaniacs run, featuring not just the Warner siblings but practically every minor character that ever appeared in the show. It's a wild ride with cartoon antics and zany songs - but in the year 2020 with an Animaniacs reboot already out, how does the finale of the original series hold up? Listen to find out!...

For our first Holiday 2020 episode, we cover two classic half-hour Mickey Mouse shorts from the 80s and early 90s. The first is one of the many, many interpretations of the classic Dickens tale, while the second is a classic 'two people from different walks of life switch places' type of story. How do these compare, and more importantly, how do they hold up so many years later? Listen to f...

We've arrived at our first Gulliver's Travels movie, but it certainly won't be the last. This is a strange one from 1977 featuring Richard Harris and cartoon Lilliputians. The budget is clearly low, and the video quality on the Youtube copy we watch is poor, but... does the movie hold up anyway? Is this one of the better versions of this story, or is this one best left to obscurity? Li...

The first anthology film this podcast has covered that's more than two shorts, Robot Carnival is a movie created by animators in Japan to showcase their craft. With a unifying theme of "robots", Robot Carnival runs the gamut in tone, length and focus. It's certainly a fascinating film - but is it a good one? Do all of the segments hold up, or is it better to just watch one or two...

Fifteen years after the original, a second Vampire Hunter D movie was made. What had been learned in those years? Would this sequel follow the original's schlocky mold, or do its own unique thing? Ultimately, is it worth watching, or are the Vampire Hunter D films relegated to the niche? Listen to find out! The Curtain Rises Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed under Creative Commons: By A...

In the early days of anime OVAs, a movie based on one of Hideyuki Kikuchi's novel series released, and 35 years later we watched it. Both anime and OVAs have changed a lot since then - how does this early production, which pushed the violence and sexuality farther than it could if it were made to air on television, hold up in the year 2020? Also, since we're in the midst of our Halloween S...

Next up on our 2020 Halloween Spookaloo is an entry that was admittedly shoehorned in, but look this movie kept getting pushed back and needed to be worked in somewhere. Anyway, this sequel to the early-2000's television show was a long time coming, but is it any good? Will Zim fans like it? Will people who've never heard of the show like it? And how's the "lol random" humor...

We're finally touching one of Disney's infamous 1940s package films - the last of them, in fact! This is also the start of our Annual Halloween Spookaloo, even if only half the movie fits the theme! Do either of these half-hour shorts hold up, and more than that, do they hold up together as a complete film? Listen to find out! The Curtain Rises Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) Licensed unde...

The lesser known of the late-70s-early-80s Rankin-Bass fantasy movies, The Flight of Dragons is also the most intriguing one, mostly due to how little was known going into watching it. The Last Unicorn and Tolkien movies might be beloved, but should this one be too? And besides dragons flying, what even happens in this thing? To find the answers, my friend, you must do the logical thing, and give...