editors
JERRY BECK (LA)
AMID AMIDI (NY)
Balaam’s Ass
June 16, 2009 1:50 pm


Catholic school would have been so much more fun if religious lessons had been delivered via CG animation, like this film about Balaam’s Ass.

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Matthew Hunter says:
06/16/09  1:56pm

God was probably angry that someone would illustrate the Bible with such laughably bad animation!

 
Angry Anim says:
06/16/09  2:21pm

So obviously mo-cap.

 
Mike Fontanelli says:
06/16/09  2:23pm

So God wears a blonde mullet, and once scolded Danny Bonaduce for slapping his ass? Ha ha! (That was the best gallop cycle ever, BTW.)

 
Chris Garrison says:
06/16/09  2:36pm

Hilarious tap dancing horses! Wow. And the angel is deeply disturbing.

The quality of this animation is so poor that it proves that there is no God. I’m definitely sending this to my Christian friends, so they can finally break free and stop worrying so much about eternal hellfire, etc.

 
vzk says:
06/16/09  2:39pm

The Israelites settled in a concrete area covered in feces.

 
robcat2075 says:
06/16/09  2:45pm

It’s really poor of Cartoon Brew to hold this very small hobbyist effort up for ridicule. It doesn’t look like the animator intended this to be on Youtube; someone else seems to have taken it and done that.

Aren’t there enough professional misfires out there to be knocked down rather than this which is basically a home movie intended for the small audience of family and friends? This may be the work of a VERY young novice who wanted to try the process out on some subject matter he found interesting.

What next? Do we start condemning 7th grade plays for not meeting Broadway standards?

 
Jonah Sidhom says:
06/16/09  2:55pm

yikes

Roger Bryson is a brave man for allowing his name in the credits.

 
Moro says:
06/16/09  3:11pm

“The quality of this animation is so poor that it proves that there is no God. ”
One could also argue, of course, that we wouldn’t be able to recognize the crappiness of this animation without some kind of absolute and objective standard of goodness, like God…(Or perhaps ‘Bambi.’)

 
Jez Hall says:
06/16/09  3:15pm

This was way more fun than partly cloudy.

 
Michael says:
06/16/09  4:04pm

Eagerly awaitign the sequel: “Balaam’s Tits.”

 
John A says:
06/16/09  4:04pm

CG Imaging is the devil.

 
god says:
06/16/09  4:25pm

@Moro

Actually no, there is no objective truth or objective standard of goodness. For instance, I laughed all the way through this and thoroughly enjoyed it. I think it is “good”.

In an entirely different domain, I don’t believe Bambi is “good”, and we could both present perfectly valid reasons why that movie is “good” or “bad”.

God was invented for those that can’t handle the subtle nuance of subjectivity. Things are simpler with dualistic concepts like good, bad, right, and wrong.

 
Moro says:
06/16/09  4:34pm

“God was invented for those that can’t handle the subtle nuance of subjectivity. Things are simpler with dualistic concepts like good, bad, right, and wrong.”

And this is….wrong?
(Maybe ‘Bambi’ wasn’t a good example. I’m pretty sure God prefers Spirited Away.=p)

 
Bogswallop says:
06/16/09  4:34pm

That’s special.

 
a reader says:
06/16/09  4:37pm

I think after actually watching this that the makers are in on the joke. No one here was trying to do a “good”/professional or artistic job. It’s obvious that it’s someone’s intent to make the dry if noble bible reading a little bit funny-like using hand puppets or in this case, crude CG.

If it were serious, mocking it it seems a bit like watching the special olympics for laughs, in which case I”m with robcat.

 
TheGunheart says:
06/16/09  4:47pm

Pretty pretentious of you to choose “god” as a user name and ridicule someone else’s faith.

 
Isaac says:
06/16/09  5:19pm

Μaking fun of bad animation is not a goal in itself.

 
Terry says:
06/16/09  5:29pm

Poor AMID doesn’t have anything better to post today so he resorts to this? Bad taste. What a trash post :P — booooooooo

 
Brannigan's Law says:
06/16/09  5:44pm

… made with HASH indeed. The only way I can feel ok with the world right now is to tell myself this was a just a joke made by those crappy Xavier guys on AS.

 
Tim Hodge says:
06/16/09  5:45pm

Almost as bad as this 1999 version of Sleepy Hollow with the voice of William H. Macy, Tia Carrere and Mark Hamill.

http://www.imdb.com/video/hulu/vi2152857625/

 
vzk says:
06/16/09  5:48pm

Now that I think of it, that’s perhaps a prototype version of Donkey Ollie!

http://www.cartoonbrew.com/tv/donkey-ollie.html

 
SlothBob says:
06/16/09  6:02pm

It is really poor of robcat2075 to post such a self-righteous, sniveling rant.

The mods of Cartoon Brew found a video that was highly amusing and shared it. If you’re seeking a source of entertainment/information that suits your politically correct standards, may I suggest that you not look on the internet? Perhaps Sesame Street is more your speed, or maybe one of those 7th grade plays you mentioned.

Cheers.

 
red pill junkie says:
06/16/09  6:28pm

Wait!

Wait. Just. One. Moment.

Are you telling us you went to Catholic school, Amid??

Hmm… maybe there was a mean priest who looked like Shrek and used to beat poor little Amid in the knuckles for making fun of the Bible’s illustrations. Things are beginning to make sense!! ;-)

 
Pedro Nakama says:
06/16/09  8:17pm

Hmmm…
The donkey has the same colors as Pokey.

 
Gene Hole says:
06/16/09  8:32pm

this video seems like the logical way to bring sunday school into the digital age, it’s like a CG animated version of those old Flannelgraphs the teachers used to use as illustrations.

 
Gerard de Souza says:
06/16/09  8:50pm

My gosh! A flannel graph would have been better. The illustrations would have been more direct.
Maybe the church had an animation contest and this was the winner.

 
Nerd says:
06/17/09  12:37am

I think I enjoyed that more than Bolt, Monsters VS Aliens and UP combined!

 
Anton says:
06/17/09  1:30am

This is what Terry Gilliam would have made if there was 3D back in the days of monthy python. Gidiop horsy! hahaaaaaa!

 
mick says:
06/17/09  3:40am

deeply moving

 
B.H. says:
06/17/09  5:52am

This is…like…Charlie the Unicorn goes Christian.

“Oh great…they stole my sin!”

 
James T says:
06/17/09  10:11am

Wasn’t there another post on Cartoonbrew or Drawn! with “good” examples of cartoons with christian messages. Theocratoons, or something. I only saw it once and can’t find it again.

Also, no one can win a religious argument on the internet, no matter what side they take. Quit whining and lets just all revel the hilarity of bad animation.

 
Wonkey the Monkey says:
06/17/09  10:42am

Apparently I missed the verse in the Bible that says “Render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s… but playblast everything else.”

 
some guy says:
06/17/09  10:44am

“clopclopclopclopclopclopclopclop”

best scene ever.

 
Mike Milo says:
06/17/09  11:29am

Oh man that horse scene was HILARIOUS! And the flapping mouths? Priceless. I think that was quite possibly the worst film I’ve ever seen.

 
Hans Walther says:
06/17/09  1:58pm

Finally some serious competition for Pixar…

 
robcat2075 says:
06/17/09  4:05pm

That “sniveling” riposte bit surely put me in my place. Ouch x 1000!

Well, if bad animation is so amusing, one need only go to CGTalk or any user forum for any CG app ever made to find lots of bad animation to chortle away at. There’s NO shortage of it, it is completely unsurprising to encounter beginner projects like this, so I’m disappointed Cartoon Brew would waste any time on it at all.

 
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