Sundae in New York

Sundae in New York, a great short, using the stop-motion technique, despite being short, it certainly must have been a huge job to produce it, just like Gromit and Wallace who uses Play-Doh to build the films, is memorable available to the producers in 1983 (when they didn't have editing software or super computers) to complete this project.

This claymation short reminded me of a silly impersonation I sometimes do of a nebbish, hedging Woody Allen reciting the incongruously hostile lyrics of LImp Bizkit: "I don't really know why, but I just want to justify, you know, maybe ripping someone's head off, I dunno..." I usually leave it at that.

This short is the same joke, with really nothing else on top of it, stretched out for over four minutes. It's very much a product of its time. I'm not sure if the filmmakers were criticizing Ed Koch, honoring him, or just being silly in imitating him (I get the sense it's the first option?), but whatever they were attempting, what they produced certainly doesn't transcend the political moment of 1983.

Have you ever watched an old Johnny Carson or Dave Letterman monologue--or something along those lines--from a late night talk show twenty or thirty years old? And they're riffing on the headlines from that morning, the current water cooler buzz from that very particular moment? Like, they're talking about Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and gout and the Ayatollah Khomeini and you more or less get what the point is but the context is completely missing and you're not sure exactly what the key word in the punchline is?

Well, that's what this is. How this won an Oscar, I have no idea.

Just a year before SUNDAE IN NEW YORK won the Oscar for Best Animated Short Film, another claymation short was nominated (THE GREAT COGNITO). And while I hated THE GREAT COGNITO though respected it artistically, I felt much more satisfied when I watched SUNDAE IN NEW YORK. You see, it isn't that I hate all claymation--just the horribly fast pace and "in your face manner" of the previous film. So what was better about SUNDAE? Well, the speed was slower and more leisurely--encouraging the viewer to take in all the cute backgrounds and characters (such as Alfred E. Newman standing in a group of New Yorkers). The gentleness of this film was pretty infectious and was significantly more interesting that the standard style of animation that dominated in the early 80s (which was usually very cheap--with a very low cel count). The only negative wasn't even related to the animation and that was the sound of the guy singing "New York, New York"--his voice wasn't close enough to Ed Koch's (who he was obviously imitating) and it was also pretty hard on the ears! Still, a nice effort and a film that is a standout in quality.

I just watched this Oscar-winning animated short on YouTube. It has a clay-figure resembling then-New York Mayor Ed Koch singing his own version of "Theme from New York, New York" while various celebrities and city landmarks also made of clay are jump-cut during the whole thing that lasts little more than 3 minutes. The person who voices the "Mayor", Scott Record, also does Rodney Dangerfield and Groucho Marx here. Another celebrity I recognized was Alfred E. Newman! And, of course, there's The Chairman of the Board himself, Frank Sinatra, to wink at us at the end. Loved when I first saw this Jimmy Picker short on HBO some 25 years ago and still love it now! Well worth a look for fans of animation and all things Oscar.

This short won the Academy Award for Animated Short and probably deserved to win. It shows an Ed Koch figure taking the viewer on a somewhat bizarre, often funny, tour of New York, peppered with familiar faces all done in clay and to the tune, "New York, New York". Glad to see it still available on World's Greatest Animation (excellent compilation-I recommend it highly). Most recommended.