I Go Pogo

Beautiful little animated feature that I was lucky enough to see on HBO during the early days of cable. It has a charm that most films with live actors lack. It's fun and the characters are wonderful. Why this was lost is beyond me. No VHS or DVD. Who is holding it up? Great family claymation film that is tame enough for the kids but adult enough for a few older laughs.

A must for fans of the Pogo comic strip and clay animation. Will Vinton claims his film "The Adventures of Mark Twain" (1987) was the first feature-length clay animated film. "I Go Pogo" pre-dates that film by a full three years. Not the best animation ever done but a lot of fun. Very few feature length clay films out there. Don't let this one be forgotten.

Set during election time in the Okefenokee Swamp, Pogo Possum (Skip Hinnant) is content to fish with Porky Pine (Jonathan Winters), but is routinely hounded by Albert the Alligator (Stan Fredberg), Howland Owl (Bob McFadden), and Churchy LaFemme (Arnold Stang) to run for President despite Pogo repeatedly voicing his desire not to do so. Meanwhile Deacon Mushrat (Vincent Price) and Molester Mole (Jonathan Winters) hatch various schemes to get the results that meet their own ends.

I Go Pogo (aka Pogo for President) is an adaptation of Walt Kelly's newspaper comic strip Pogo which is known for its satirical take on politics using funny animal characters. Marc Paul Chinoy, an animator on Sesame Street and TV commercials, was introduced to the strip by various other crewmembers on Sesame Street who were fans of the comic and Chinoy himself soon became a fan of the strip. Chinoy developed a animation technique called "flexiform" involving manipulation of plasticine figures and introduced the technique to Kerry H. Stowell of Stowmar Enterprises partnering with her on various educational and industrial films. The two decided to do a more ambitious project for Flexiform and decided a Pogo film adaptation was the route to take. With the approval of Walt Kelly's widow Selby Kelly who also served as a consultant on the film, the movie was produced independently on a $2 million budget over the course of a year starting in 1979 with the intention of releasing it in the months leading up to the 1980 United States Presidential Election. This ultimately didn't come about as the distributor reneged on their promised promotions and theatrical engagements and instead released the movie for rental via Fotomat's video rental service. In the time since its release I Go Pogo has been largely forgotten which is a shame because despite not being perfect it's one of the earliest examples of an American feature length stop-motion film.

As the movie was primarily built around adapting Kelly's strips, I Go Pogo doesn't have much of a story to analyze and is really just a series of set ups used for commentary on the political process or the occasional pun. Skip Hinnant is very good as Pogo and is endearing as someone who wants nothing to do with the craziness that's thrust upon him and the cast is filled with all manner of noted comic actors and even features a guest appearance by Jimmy Breslin as P. T. Bridgeport who gets the most memorable line in the movie saying the one word of profanity (assuming you're not watching the HBO or Disney cut). Most of the gags are pretty on point and Vincent Price is quite fun playing Deacon Mushrat, and while most of the humor is pretty timeless when it comes to politics Pogo's final line does kind of have a level of naivety in light of recent developments of people who made it to the seat. The sets and characters are beautifully crafted and you can feel the care that went into making this movie on a purely visual level. The music and certain other technical elements are more hit and miss as the background music playing comedic high register versions of "hail to the chief" can become a little grating at points and the various wipes used (including a star wipe) make the film feel more like it was made for TV than a theater.

I Go Pogo is a strange curiosity. The fact that this was independently produced shows a clear love and dedication to the characters and art form that has to be admired, but even if this had been widely distributed I'm not sure it would've resonated that much with audiences. If nothing else it's a solid showcase for painstakingly crafted stop motion work.

Much as I love the concept of an animated version of "Pogo," this movie falls flat in too many ways.

First, the decision to use stop-motion as the animation technique really doesn't do the characters any justice; the Okefenokee folk were never meant to be rendered in anything resembling 3D, and look very unlike their comic strip counterparts here.

Second, Marc Paul Chinoy made a mistake of just adapting a slew of 1952 strips (from the original "Pogo For President" storyline) and a few 1960 strips to form the bulk of his screenplay, without updating them. (For example, the whole "reluctant candidate" theme was a stab at 1952's Democratic candidate, Adlai Stevenson, who didn't want the job but let himself be drafted. The reluctance jokes didn't translate into 1980, or any election since.) Where he wrote original material (like the fun fair sequence), it became obvious that he didn't really know or understand the characters.

The movie does have a few good things to recommend it. The voice cast is top drawer, with Vincent Price, Jonathan Winters, Stan Freberg, Arnold Stang, Ruth Buzzi, Bob McFadden, and Skip Hinnant all turning in top notch work. The songs (especially Dr. Hook's "Hard To Be A Friend") are pretty good; I almost wish there had been a soundtrack release instead of a video. These two factors alone account for the stars I give this film.

This isn't a good movie, or a good adaptation of the comic strip, but is pretty close. It would be nice to see what it could have become in more competent hands.

I found this animated special on YouTube and decided to give it a look. After all, my father adored Pogo and thought its creator, Walt Kelly, was a genius and I wanted to see this show for myself. But before it even began, I wondered why they made the film at all in 1980? After all, Kelly died prematurely in 1973 and the strip went on only two more years...and Pogo the comic strip had seemingly come and gone. It was, by the way revived in 1989...but why make a 1980 film?

The animation is done using something that looks a lot like claymation...a stop-motion process. I think this was a HUGE mistake, as Pogo was a wonderfully drawn cartoon and the look is lost when converted to clay. That's one strike against the 1980 film and it really should have been hand-drawn. Don't believe me? Look online at some of Kelly's strips...they are works of art.

On the positive side, they were able to get the voice talents of Jonathan Winters, Vincent Price, Stan Freberg and a few other familiar actors.

The plot involves a campaign to get a candidate elected President and they want a completely unelectable sap to run against him...so they pick Pogo Possum. And, the characters of the swamp all get pulled into the hubbub.

So is it any good? Yes...but it's also fatally flawed for some of the reasons I mention above. Additionally "Pogo for President" was actually a 1964 book...and making it around 1964 would have been a LOT more timely. By 1980, its success had come and gone and audiences were not especially excited to see the character this late in time. I think this is why the film never received the widespread distribution that was originally promised. In the 60s, he was, however, one of the top comic characters...a sort of phenomenon...and it would have done great then. As such, it's more an odd curio than anything else.