Award-Winning American Animation 1980-1985

Purchased separately, the 12 titles in this animated compilation would cost over $1,000. Here, they're being offered at one-tenth the price. This excellent series of short subjects includes: John Schnall's brooding adaptation of Edgar Allen Poe's "The Fall of the House of Usher"; Maureen Selwood's beautiful adaptation of Edna O' Brien's "The Rug"; Skip Battaglia's impressionistic "How the Frog's Eye Sees"; Sally Cruikshank's spoof of motion picture trailers, "Quasi's Cabaret Trailer"; Valerie Swanson's rotoscoped dancers jumpin' and jivin' to early swing in "Charlie's Boogie-Woogie"; and "Reasons to be Glad", an animator's sketchbook set to the rhythms of Xavier Cugat and Dinah Shore. Three favorites were: Peg McClure's deliciously funny "Housecats" which follows the misadventures of Scratch and Squeak; "Number 2", a pointedly sexual allegory about an unwitting pencil about to meet its doom at the hands of a voracious pencil sharpener; and "Voices", animator Joanna Priestley's self-caricature. An excellent and reasonably priced purchase for public and upper school libraries. (Available from: Picture Start, 204 West John Street, Champaign, IL 61820).