The Great Oscar Baiter

There are two things we seem to be covering more frequently here in our Year in Shorts- Faux instructional videos, and the films of Gene Deitch. And of course, as we’ve seen, sometimes those two great tastes go great together. Today’s short is no different. So let’s take a look at Self Defense… for Cowards. (via Rate Your Music) Anyone watching Self Defense... for Cowards will notice more than a few similarities between it and How to Avoid Friendship. That's hardly surprising of course; they're directed by the same man, have the same style of animation and have the same narrator, Arthur Treacher. Any differences between the two are fairly minor, although apparently this short is based on a book by Alice McGrath, and it came out two years earlier, in 1962. So if you liked How to Avoid Friendship, you should like this one, and which one you prefer will come down to minor details. Which is nice, because that just gives me an excuse to not spend too much time writing today's...

Boy, it’s been a whole week since we last discussed a Chuck Jones short! And we are tackling a weird one today. How weird are we talking? Well try this- it was so weird that even Chuck Jones didn’t understand it. And if the guy who made it didn’t get it, what chance do the rest of us have? Well, that’s the sixties for you I guess. Either way, let’s take a look at Now Hear This, one of the strangest Looney Tunes you or I have ever seen! (via Wikipedia) Released in either 1962 or 1963 depending on who you ask, Now Hear This! (co-directed by Maurice Noble) is an interesting short for a variety of reasons. It doesn't really have any plot to speak of, and is instead just a series of loosely collected gags about the subject of sound. Its style of animation is nothing like the usual Warner Bros. fare, adopting more of a limited UPA style. And while I think the only people who did UPA style animation right were the people at UPA, I think Jones and his team do an admirable job with this...