It does go against everything ‘wholesome’ people would equate Sharples for!

> You haven’t lived until you’ve seen NORMAN NORMAL. It’s the best cartoon Warners did in the 1960’s, and the most atypical. There is nothing else like it partly because it didn’t have its genesis in the Warner cartoon studio. It was a project brought to them, they did the animation and Warners released it as a one shot special. Few cartoons stand the test of time better than NORMAN NORMAL. The story is about integrity, so of course Warners never knew what to do with it.

Same could be said for another short that was lumped in with WB’s usual cartoon package from Ken Mundie, “The Door”. There was just rather unusual pickings during that time if only more interest had been given to see further projects develop.

Really, thinking of shorts like this kinda made me wonder how this could’ve played out if a thought came to do away with the usual studio system and allow for individual efforts on the same vain as that of the National Film Board of Canada or Zagreb Film or such, leading to more shorts such as the ones stated above to flourish in America into the 70’s. Theatrical animated shorts wouldn’t have to die out the way they had if it could’ve found a new place among the generation of young people who might wanted to see something that wouldn’t just be the same ol’ formulas in favor of more contemporary and social commentaries of their world and themselves.

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Seriously though, until today, I had never seen or heard of this short. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, Jerry. It’s FANTASTIC! Bakshi was definitely ahead of the times.

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I only wish I had that book!

> Even if the script is not terrific, everything works on this cartoon: the characters´design, the backgrounds, the color, the music… and the message. This is truly one of the few theatrical cartoons made in the 60´s which truly catch the spirit of that decade (together with DePatie-Freleng´s HURTS AND FLOWERS and PSYCHEDELIC PINK and probably -I say ‘probably’ because I haven´t seen yet that one- Warner´s NORMAN NORMAL).

Funny you didn’t see Norman Normal yet. It’s a pretty unique film on it’s own, though I felt it was a little too short for the time frame of the story and needed a few more minutes to come up with a closure to that personally, but otherwise, something a little out of the ordinary to what the audience might’ve expected for it’s time.

> Sadly, the Paramount/Famous animation studio closed shop shortly after this, when it had taken a new direction… had it not disapperared, this studio certainly would have offered us many more animated little gems like this one.

If only Gulf & Western didn’t think to close the studio after buying out Paramount, we could’ve have a few more years of this sort of thing before teetering into oblivion in the 70’s.

> Now, everybody shout all toghether with me: We want the Shamus Culhane/Ralph Bashki Paramount cartoons on DVD! When do we want them? Now!!!

:-) I was more interested in a letter-writing campaign myself, but I don’t have much the strength for that.

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