Moonbot Crew is Launching New Program on Turner Classic Movies

The directors behind The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore are taking cinephiles to summer camp.

On June 7, Moonbot Studios’ William Joyce and Brandon Oldenburg team up with Turner Classic Movies to open a Sunday evening Movie Camp, which screens a series of legendary films and shorts—including their own moving fable Mr. Morris Lessmore about the curative power of story, which took home the Oscar for best animated short in 2012. Originally known as Essentials Jr., TCM’s all-ages classic film showcase has been rebooted by Moonbot with a new animated opening created with miniatures and 3D prints.

Although it is top-heavy with live-action staples like Steven Spielberg’s Close Encounters of the Third Kind and The Marx Brothers’ war satire Duck Soup, as well as sublime silents like Fritz Lang’s Metropolis and Buster Keaton’s Steamboat Bill, Jr., Movie Camp is also rolling out the red carpet for epochal animated films like Fleischer Studios’ ill-fated 1941 effort Mr. Bug Goes to Town.

Movie Camp will also skew technical, with Joyce and Oldenburg providing insights into the filmmaking process for budding auteurs looking to move beyond the viewing experience. The famed artists will probably remind everyone watching (and learning) that Mr. Bug Goes to Town unfortunately premiered two days before the attack on Pearl Harbor, or that the perhaps accidentally disturbing 1963 bicycle safety short One Got Fat was narrated by Fractured Fairy Tales star Everett Edward Horton and has been extensively sampled in contemporary videos from greats like Boards of Canada and Primus.

TCM’s goal with Movie Camp is to bring some new eyeballs to these old films and shorts across platforms, including mobile apps where many millennials now consume their entertainment. Moonbot has created supplemental online video content and infographics that will accompany each episode on TCM and Moonbot’s social media accounts.