Do It Yourself Cartoon Kit

It might be another bit of baby-boomer nostalgia, but every now and then bits and pieces of this little gem (a "British film made with British labour") pop into my mind... I saw it, just by chance, on TV in the U.S. in the late '60s (I think 1968). As I remember it, they were showing classical and award-winning shorts each evening (or each week?) after the main movie feature. Anyway, all I know is I wish there had been VCRs back then! It was, I realized some years later, a forerunner of some of Terry Gilliam's animated Monty Python pieces. Delightful artwork and very wacky humor (or should I say "humour"), giving instructions on how to receive your very own mail-order do-it-yourself kit for making cartoons. The constantly changing kit contents, mailing requirements -- from detergent wrappers to soup mix packets to blank cheques to "one genuine Australian wombat" -- and escalating price, and increasingly complicated-to-incomprehensible mailing addresses became more and more outrageous as the film progressed. I was absolutely entranced by the creative absurdity of it all, and even jotted down some notes to make sure I would remember things. I have been wanting to see it again (and be able to show it to others) ever since then.

This is an amazingly clever and unique cartoon that must have been seen by Terry Gilliam (of "Monty Python" fame), as the cartoons he made for the show seemed strongly inspired by this wacky film. Not only is the art style very, very similar (with cut out pictures being animated) but the kooky style of narration and the many oddities about the film were later seen on the Python show. For example, offering an item and giving the price for it and the place to mail it (both changing each time they are shown) was used by the show on several occasions. There also is a very subversive sexuality about it and the animation for the announcer is amazingly similar for Gilliam's work as well.

Overall, an exceptionally funny film and a must-see for fans of the "Monty Python's Flying Circus" show.

Remember when these DIY kits were all the rage. They could turn you into Picasso or Michelangelo or Sir Christopher Wren so long as you sent away for your "free" pack enclosing fifty quid and some Sugar Puff tokens. This one will turn you into Walt Disney, or even Bob Godfrey. Taking a swipe at just about every marketing gimmick from the 1950s, this spoofs not just the whole industry but the gullible public who really believe in these quick fix kits too. It's a quickly paced feature that uses some, admittedly very basic, animation to ridicule using wrongly attributed stock footage and artwork to sell products that could never deliver on their ambitious advertising claims. It's good fun and you can see, quite clearly, how this might have inspired some future artistes.

In a satirical swipe at the long hours spent animating material only for it to be cut or not used at all, Bob Godfrey produced this mock-advert for a do-it-yourself cartoon kit in which a Monty Python style character tells us how to get it, what is in it and just how much fun it can be. The point of the short film is not that well delivered however and it was hard to totally get the handle on who or what he was mocking, or if he was perhaps just frustrated and making a joke out of it instead of just giving up!? The animation is dated of course but it is funny and the upper-class narration adds to the comedy value, a straight delivery of rather comic lines throughout. Rarely seen these days but is still worth a look because it is funny even if the point has perhaps been lost someone; also, with it being a Godfrey short, it is of interest to animation completest as well.