Night is a great time to rummage in the dump of consciousness. Last year’s delirious delirium, images of a three-day binge, unspoken idiotic jokes – there is a use for everything, you just have to trim, wipe with alcohol and look through a magnifying glass. Drawing abilities will help to capture the found details. The presence of paper and film in large volumes – and the world will shudder! This is how small masterpieces like “Santa: The Fascist Years” appear, where Santa zig-zags with his hood, the elves assemble tanks for Weihnachten Reich, and only the allied forces of the rest of the holidays, with the support of Cupid aviation, manage to overcome the unbridled Christmas regime. The creator of this pencil-animated madness is Bill Plimpton, a native of Portland, Oregon, United States (that’s what Wasserman said) America.
On April thirtieth, the first year after the war, when Bill was born, it was raining graphite clouds. “I hope you become a lawyer,” Mother Plimpton said right away. “By God, it’s ridiculous to offer such a thing to a newborn, maman,” the newborn replied, “I’ll probably become a cartoonist!” Having slightly matured, Bill caricatured The New York Times, Rolling Stone, and other publications. But he started animation in earnest only in 1985, taking up the task with the same energy as Ligachev for vineyards in the same year. Great fame is enjoyed, in particular, by a series of short films about a Dog (“Hot Dog”, “Fire Dog”, “Horny Dog” etc …), a kind of bastard Cerberus and Pluto.
Rod and Cherry: The Champion and the Queen
Plimpton’s style is extremely characteristic, since he works with a single assistant. Where Fortune and fashionable festivals shun other “lunatics” from animation, Bill is being dragged by success: two Oscar nominations, Cannes, all those tuxedo butterflies-fake smiles. He had seen enough of this grotesque for a hundred cartoons ahead. Matt Groening, a native of the same Portland and just a sidekick, asks to remove the introduction to one of the episodes of The Simpsons. Quid pro quo: Matt voices a small role in Plimpton’s big movie, which will be discussed.
So, “Hair High” (Hair High)! “Cheese fusion of two flies,” so you can christen the one-minute prologue. Favorite flies of the owner of the diner. A young couple of visitors, much more annoying than Spud and Cherry crushed by them. What? Have you given the flies names? Yes, son. And now listen to the story of two teenagers of the same name.
The Coward's Game
Rod is the alpha male of the school with two jackals on the hook, the captain of the team playing that nonsense they call football. Cherry is his princess, the future prom queen. The backgrounds are only slightly marked, the hairstyles (in the yard around 1957) are hypertrophied. The Car of the Genus is painted with a mixture of a megalodon and a hearse. On his scooter, a beginner is in a hurry to attend classes – Spud. Rejoicing in the weather and new meetings, he slightly touches the “megalodon” of the Genus. For the first time, the newcomer rakes in quite deservedly.
"Hush, little baby..."
Bill Plimpton surreally, but very accurately plays with the size of the characters, portraying Spud as a midget when he first enters the classroom, shrinking under the appraising gazes of the students. Non-standard, sometimes balancing on the edge, techniques depict school life and the place of a beginner in it. Each frame breathes, allowing you to observe the smallest stroke laid by the artist.
Spud will make a mistake again, after which he will be recorded as a kind of “slavery” to Cherry. From now on, Spud will drag textbooks after her, bending under a pile of paper and humiliation. The indispensable football match will be held to the accompaniment of Hazel Adkins’ “Chicken Walk”, reminiscent of Rodriguez’s “Racers” and Bocaccio’s “Decameron”. From the garbage of the subconscious, Bill will drag, slightly wipe off and dump in front of an innocent viewer a series of images that the viewer himself tried to hide deep into his dusty skull. The lines will wobble vulgarly, the story will rush from S. King to V. Irving, while remaining harmonious. Specially written and performed by Hank Bones and Maureen Mceleron, the music is deep, appropriate and really rockabilly.
Download the soundtrack:
Pestilence and Abuse
In addition to Matt Groening, David and Keith Carradine, Dermot Mulroney, Justin (Not-So-) took part in voicing the roles.Long and other relatives and acquaintances of the Rabbit. The story of growing up, teenage cruelty, school love was played to the greasy gloss of a horde of barbarians… Sorry, the authors! But never has this story, repeated from generation to generation, been depicted with such a sub-twist, where an ordinary toad becomes Frankenstein’s monster, while “Frankenstein” himself, having eaten horse aphrodisiacs, dies having intercourse with an advertising chicken. How can you not love animation?
And although it’s worth keeping immature offspring away from this picture, the remaining Disney-Miyazaki fans will get experience and pleasure from getting to know a master named Bill Plimpton. The mascara of the night was diluted by the carmine of the dawn, Moon Dogs!
PS: In 2014, Bill Plimpton visited Yekaterinburg as part of the International Cartoon Festival, where he captured the square smile of the journalist who interviewed him. Not in vain I flew, fruitful. And he will draw you! He will draw us all…
Guys, the Hair High cartoon is just amazing! It looks great in one go. Sometimes he is crazy and phantasmagorical in a good way, but he is also beautiful and kind-romantic. Plimpton’s style is truly unique. I am surprised that there is no reaction from the audience. Apparently, the abundance and accessibility of any content is already causing boredom and apathy for everyone. This is wrong.