The Point

I also watched this movie as a kid in the early 1970's. I think I first saw it at home (around '72 or '73) and a couple of years later saw it at school.

I imagine it was used to promote peace and harmony not only among the races, but also among conservatives/liberals, and the like. Oblio was a kid who was born (the only one) without a point on his head. He goes into exile and is determined to find "his point" with his dog Arrow. Eventually, he returns to town to see if they will accept him along with his differences and is stunned to find out he now DOES have a point on his head. The only problem is that the town now has round heads, but they take him in warmly. Excellent movie to teach about racism or how we are all different, but we must all be accepted.

I cast my vote not only for a DVD release of The Point, but also for it to have (a) the soundtrack remastered with the respect it deserves and (b) Dustin Hoffman restored to the narration. I was lucky enough to see it once by accident on TV during the school holidays in the mid-seventies and, over the years, I have proclaimed its many virtues (e.g, the soundtrack, the moral, and the fine use of a real boy, instead of an actress, for the boy's voice).

Any animated movie that comes out can not hold a straw to 1971's "The Point".

Harry Nillson wrote an incredible story, that comes along with excellent, singable songs that will live through the ages. The story is touching and the characters are wild.

The first time I saw it was the first time it came out, with Dustin Hoffman as the narrator. Now that it is on DVD, I wish that he was still the narrator, but Ringo does an incredible job as well and it does not detract from the story.

The point of this movie (no pun intended) is that everything has a point, and if everything has a point than thats rather pointless. You'll have to watch to understand. Every kid should watch it for a wonderful cartoon and every teenager/adult should watch it to learn a valuable, touching lesson.

I kept hearing about this movie a lot for quite some time, and when I saw the video at my local library, I decided to check it out to see if it was any good.

Little did I know what I was in for!

In other words, I loved every minute of it. I have this thing for semi-obscure non-Disney animated movies, and 'The Point' was just adorable. Never before have I seen a lead character quite as endearing as little Oblio, or a cuter dog than Arrow (I just loved his expressions). The Rock Man was just too cool... with that beatnik-like voice and wisdom.

I loved the songs, and there's a very strange one about death, which shows a whale decomposing... it's the weirdest part of the movie, and has to be seen to be believed. The sequences to a few other songs aren't much more normal, actually. But I mean all of this in the nicest way possible.

'The Point' will for sure have a place in my cartoon collection soon. Anyone who loves strange cartoons or Harry Nilsson should see it.

I was not around to witness the time when this animated TV movie first hit the airwaves (that was about fifteen years before I was born), but can recall hearing the album, featuring musical artist Harry Nilsson (who wrote the fable) as the narrator, as well as the songs he contributed to the story, perhaps as far back as I can remember, or close to it. I don't recall seeing this cartoon until I was around seven/eight years old, but after that, it soon became a favourite of mine, and I watched it a number of times for a while. Yesterday, I rented it on DVD to watch for the first time in a while. About fourteen years ago, I would definitely have been able to give it a 10/10, which isn't quite the case now, but I still found merits in the film.

In a town where everyone has a point on the top of their head, and everything is also pointed, something happens that it seems has never happened in the community before. A child is born without a pointed head. He is named Oblio, and during his childhood, he gets a dog with a pointed snout named Arrow and turns out to be quite popular, but one kid who doesn't like him is the nasty son of the evil count! One day, the two compete in a popular game in the town called triangle toss, where the players try to catch a triangle with the point on their head. With the help of Arrow, who can catch it with his snout, Oblio wins. The count wants his son to rule someday, and after hearing about his defeat in the game, he is outraged! He realizes that Oblio is a threat to his son ever ruling, so he tells the king how this boy is an outlaw, due to the fact that he doesn't have a pointed head. Although the king is good, and likes Oblio, he is weak-kneed and gives in to the count's demands. After a trail, the boy and his dog are banished to the Pointless Forest. While there, they find themselves on a psychedelic adventure, encountering unusual creatures they've never seen before, and this journey turns out to be quite educational!

"The Point" is a rather bizarre story, and Nilsson made it clear that it was inspired by an acid trip, but it's also a clever story with a moral. I know I'm not the first to point this out, but it's lesson in tolerance, which I may not have quite understood as a kid, but do now. The animation in this 1971 TV special is sketchy, and not completely coloured, which could disappoint some people, but I think I've always liked it. The story may be touching a times (during the sad farewell scene as Oblio leaves for the Pointless Forest, for example). Oblio meets some very interesting and memorable characters in the Pointless Forest, such as the three-headed Pointed Man (who is ironically quite pointless, though maybe not when he says, "A point in every direction is the same as having no point at all."), the Rock Man, the Leaf Man, etc. There's also humour in the cartoon, especially during Leaf Man sequence, in my opinion, with the first words he says to Oblio and Arrow. I most certainly can't forget the bunch of songs from Nilsson featured in the film and on the album, which are a big part of the both, and ones I've enjoyed many times.

I really don't know what I would have thought if I had just seen "The Point" for the first time at my age. It may have left me confused, though it also may have grown on me with more viewings. It definitely seems more bizarre and a bit less entertaining to me now than it did when I watched it when I was eight years old, but I definitely understand it more now than I did before, and I've never been a stoner, in case you were wondering. Also, I used to always see the TV version, taped off TV, with Dustin Hoffman as the narrator. Renting it on DVD, I finally got to see the home video version for the first time, featuring Ringo Starr as the narrator instead. This was a little different, but Ringo also did a good job, so it was worth hearing his voice in the cartoon. I'm sure kids today could really enjoy this psychedelic cartoon just like I did, and I'm sure many adults can as well, and can have a better understanding of the message. Perhaps the same goes with adolescents. If you like psychedelic cartoons from this era, like, let's say, "Yellow Submarine", there's probably a good chance you'd like this one.