Fantastic Planet
Fantastic Planet is the ultimate animation of craziness that deeply impacted my adult life.
To summarize, it is 1973 French experimental independent adult animated science fiction art film (that is a mouthful). The films is an allegorical story about humans living on a strange planet dominated by giant humanoid aliens who consider them animals. The allegorical concepts consist of animal rights, human rights and racism. My personal impressions when I first watched it was that it was disturbing, eerie, surreal, trippy, and mind-bending; all qualities that I pursue in film watching. In 2016, it was ranked the 36th greatest animated movie ever by Rolling Stone. The aliens and the planet’s landscape are otherworldly and extremely inventive. The music is psychedelic. I love the concept of the movie, which is based on a book from the 1950s. It has a compelling statement against conformity, intolerance, and violence, which I see all too much in all films nowadays. I detest violence, yet, it is found in so much media that I cannot avoid it. |
The Ren & Stimpy Show
In my childhood, The Ren & Stimpy Show was my favorite animation. It was weird, creepy, and surreal especially for a Children’s show. There are scenes from the show that still form a strong visual memory in my mind like Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy, and Don’t whizz on the Electric Fence. Such strangeness to these characters. The emotions of these characters were real and distinct, which opposed many of the other idyllic, educational cartoons during the 80s like Care Bears, Smurfs, My Little Pony, or Muppet Babies.
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Salad Fingers
Another incredibly eerie and uncanny animation is Salad Fingers. This is definitely the trippiest, dystopian, disturbing animation I have ever seen. It still creeps me out when I think about it, like a bizarre nightmare.
It is a British animated web series created by David Firth in 2004. It is an unsettling narrative about the main character, Salad Fingers, a mentally disturbed individual who often hallucinates and indulges in self-harm. Despite this, he means well and is friendly to everyone he encounters, though at times he absent-mindedly causes unintentional harm to them. It is shown that he enjoys the sensation of rubbing his fingers on rusty objects, such as spoons and taps. The music adds even more creepiness to this animation. |
Spirited Away & Princess Mononoke
I also must mention the two animated films that I can watch over and over are Princess Mononoke and Spirited Away (Studio Ghibli). These two films are unmatchable in scope of storylines, epic characters, and the animation itself. After watching these, I had an obsession with Japanese anime shows for a long while.
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Very Basic Storyboard Sample for Animation