Next Tuesday, the CineFamily will present a rare 35mm screening of Chuck Swenson’s Dirty Duck (aka Down And Dirty Duck, 1974). Long before Bill Plympton and Nina Paley, Swenson convinced producer Roger Corman to give him the money to make a one-man hand drawn animated feature. The money he got was so little, the film was originally titled “Cheap” (it was also test marketed under that name). However, like Ralph Bakshi’s Fritz The Cat, the finished film is surprisingly smart, funny and original. Featuring the voices and songs of Flo & Eddie (Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan of The Turtles and the Mothers of Invention), Dirty Duck is a strikingly stylized psychedelic odyssey that perfectly embodies the raunchy American underside of the 1970s. Animation director Charles Swenson will appear in person for a Q&A after the screening.

This will be preceeded by a selection of Turned-On Toons, a pre-show of titillating short cartoons from across the ages, from raunchy XXX-rated revelries of the ’60s and ’70s, up to the perversions of now. All hosted by yours truly, Jerry Beck. The show starts at 8pm, at the Silent Movie Theatre, 611 N. Fairfax Ave. in Hollywood, California. Advance tickets available now.

Jerry Beck

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