I like the
Toy Story movies, but I didn't vote for any of them, figuring they didn't need my help (and they didn't). If I
had included them, the third entry would have been higher than the other two on my list. But all three are terrific.
Monsters, Inc. was
definitely on my list! To date it remains my favorite PIXAR film, just ahead of
The Incredibles. Side-splittingly funny and endlessly clever, YES, but of course with that PIXAR heart, as well. Scaring/laughing up a top ten finish works for me.
Since we know what the collective top four are and are only waiting on the order, here are the four remaining titles from
my list that did
not make the top hundred...
HOLDEN'S FULL LIST 1. Waltz with Bashir (#26)
2. Fantastic Mr. Fox (#17)
3. "One Froggy Evening" (1955)
4. The Wrong Trousers (#35)
5. A Town Called Panic (#76)
6. The Lego Movie (#32)
7. The Illusionist (#60)
8. Alice in Wonderland (#33)
9. Persepolis (#28)
10 Akira (#29)
11. Idiots and Angels (2008)
12. Coraline (#36)
13. Animal Farm (#89)
14. Monsters, Inc. (#7)
15. Yellow Submarine (#62)
16. The Incredibles (#11)
17. Harvie Krumpet (2003)
18. The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh (1977)
19. Watership Down (#75)
20. Waking Life (#41)
21. South Park: Bigger, Longer, and Uncut (#25)
22. How to Train Your Dragon (#19)
23. Sleeping Beauty (#54)
24. "How the Grinch Stole Christmas" (#42)
25. Hugo the Hippo (DNP) The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh 1977, John Lounsbery and Wolfgang Reitherman As should be clear by now, I rather despise the compilation
The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie because it takes some of the greatest Looney Tunes shorts of all time and edits them, needlessly. Here, the Disney people blend the three existing Pooh shorts in their entirety, plus connecting material done in the same style, and ending with the emotional final chapter from
The House at Pooh Corner. After Walt Disney acquired the Milne books, he initially wanted to bring them to life as a feature. He ultimately decided that shorts would be a better way to introduce audiences, especially American audiences, to the characters and A.A. Milne’s style. The animation echoes the illustrations from the books, those wonderfully cast voices that became instantly and indelibly linked to those characters, especially Sterling Halloway as Pooh, Paul Winchell as Tigger, and John Fiedler's Piglet, great music and songs, and the spirit of Milne make them timeless. The original shorts were
Winnie the Pooh and the Honey Tree (1966),
Winnie the Pooh and the Blustery Day (1968), and
Winnie the Pooh and Tigger Too! (1974). All of them classics, and all blended perfectly and added to for the 1977 feature.
How this one didn't make enough of your lists really puzzles and saddens me? Oh, bother, Mutherfu*kers.
"One Froggy Evening" 1955, Chuck Jones Speaking of those bastardized votes for
The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Movie, only one individual WB short made the top hundred, and that was the anarchical and fourth-wall destroying
”Duck Amuck”, by the ever immortal Chuck Jones. Chuck had his TV special
”How the Grinch Stole Christmas” make the list as well, and of course he had many of the pieces in
Bugs Bunny/Road Runner. But he could have - and damn well should have - had at least half a dozen of his shorts make the cut. The one I voted for, the one that I think it ridiculously clever and hysterical and weird and perfect, is
”One Froggy Evening” (1955). Debuting theatrically on New Year’s Eve of 1956, it has the wit of an O. Henry story, with the deadpan subtlety and comic timing of the masters, delivers a winning combination of hubris and pathos, that delightful frustration, and all perfectly realized by Chuck Jones, who of course was working here without established and beloved characters or even dialogue, save the singing, but instead created a one-off confection that is surely happily burned into the memories and souls of all who see it.
The United States Library of Congress preserved it in the National Film Registry, deeming it "culturally significant". Steven Spielberg called it “the
Citizen Kane of animated films”. The 1994 survey done for the book
The 50 Greatest Cartoons: As Selected by 1,000 Animation Professionals had
"One Froggy Evening" as number five, all time, behind three other Chuck Jones WB entries and one early Disney.
And did MoFo vote for it? But
NoOooOOooOooo.
Idiots & Angels 2008, Bill Plymton I honestly didn’t expect anybody else to vote for this one, just because it is relatively obscure and relatively weird. But I think it is Bill Plympton’s best, most complete work. Plympton is best known, if he is known at all, for his shorts. He has two Oscar nominations in that category, including for his influential
”Your Face” (1987), which got him a ton of work in advertising and for outlets such as MTV. But he has made features, and
Idiots & Angels is a magnum opus, incorporating all of the best ideas and styles from his work, to that point, and presenting it in one bizarre yet personal meditation on the evil that men do. I’d be happily surprised if it got even two other votes, but I couldn’t keep it off of my list just because it was very unlikely to appear.
Harvie Krumpet 2003, Adam Elliot Unlike the Plympton, I was slightly surprised not to see
Harvie Krumpet make the list somewhere. I do like
Mary & Max very much, and I kind of figured that would place higher than
Harvie, if only because it is similar in many respects, yet is feature length. But I didn’t think little
Harvie would get bumped COMPLETELY! Surprised perhaps because I saw it first (and instantly fell in love with it), and maybe because it actually won an Oscar and should have been a little more prominent on the radar of those unfamiliar with it before this poll? But I really expected this one to show. Oh, well. I hope its exclusion was mostly just a lack of space on lists thing and not a lack of appreciation. And that’s a fakt.
So I had twenty of my twenty-five show. Not bad, and I’ll take it. But I hope some of you check out Bill Plympton’s work, or re-familiarize yourselves with it. And I hope that in the future, wherever it may come up, that not so many of you vote for expurgated versions of classic Warner Brothers shorts rather than the full, perfect originals. Lastly, I really hope a lot of you feel like genuine A-holes for not including
The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh on your lists. Because you are. A-holes.
That is all.
.
.