Antique Animal Antics! - Fri. April 22nd - 8PM

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Oddball Films presents Antique Animal Antics!, a program of vintage 16mm films full of adorable, hilarious and anthropomorphic animals from the 1940s-1970s. Decades before youtube, CGI, and the Buddies franchise, these furry film stars were doing tricks, wearing clothes, talking, singing and raising hell! This time around we've got singing bears, car-racing capuchin monkeys, hibernating hamsters, daring dachshunds, a talking horse (of course) and so much more. Find out whether a bear or a hippo might be the perfect pet for you - and hear it from the hippo's mouth - in the Speaking of Animals short: Your Pet Problem (1944). Tiny capuchin monkeys zoom around the track in tiny little race cars in Monkey Go 'Round (1961). Otto the German dachshund runs away from home rather than take a bath and sets off for adventure in A Doggone Story (1940s). Hollywood primate Zippy the Chimp hits the big top in Small Fry Circus (1956). Two bear cubs head out for some mischief and tangle with ants, bees, and bacon before destroying a campsite in Black Bear Twins (1952).  In Carroll Ballard's bittersweet The Perils of Priscilla (1969), a neglected pussy sets out on her own and hits the big city. The sexy siren Mae West sets a date with the world's most famous talking horse in an extremely bizarre slice of television history in Mae West Meets Mr. Ed (1964).  Hammy the Hamster is back and learning all about Hibernation (1961) from his talking animal friends. For the early birdies, The Blackbird (1979) is a bizarre live action tale of a bird wreaking havoc on a whole house and its inhabitants from Hungary. 

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Featuring:

Monkey Go 'Round (B+W, 1961)

Tiny monkeys in tiny racecars! A retired circus performer in Germany falls on hard times. His family is made up of little capuchin monkeys, whom he can’t afford to feed anymore and is thinking of sending to a zoo. The monkeys repair the mini cars they had used in their old circus act and perform in a new act racing the cars on a mini race track. The crowd loves them. They sign a contract to start performing their show around the world. 

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Small Fry Circus (B+W, 1956)

Zippy the anthropomorphic, clothes-wearing chimp is back and he's ready to help out the kids who have gathered together to put on a circus.  With Zippy as the main attraction, it's sure to be a hit!

Your Pet Problem (B+W, 1944) 

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See if a non-conventional animal could be the pet of your dreams (or nightmares) in this bizarre Jerry Fairbanks “Speaking of Animals” series short features singing bears and talking cows, hogs, hens, baboons and hippos!  Fairbanks created a technique to achieve the appearance of talking animals that blended real animals with animation, rather than filming the animals chewing gum or peanut butter. 

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Mae West Meets Mr. Ed (B+W, 1964, excerpt)
The 1960s were a hard time for many of the great stars of the 1930s and 40s. Joan Crawford made a turn towards schlocky horror and Mae West headed for the horse stables of Television. In this bizarre episode of the classic TV program, Mae West sweeps into town and requests that Wilbur redesign her horse stable, with all the luxury fit for a Hollywood Queen. Ed overhears the conversation and begins to resent his own surroundings, shabby by comparison, but soon realizes pampering isn't what it's all cracked up to be.

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Hammy the Hamster in Hibernation (B+W, 1961)

Another chapter of talking rodents from Tales of the Riverbank, otherwise known as Hammy the Hamster, a British children’s television show of talking animals that originated in Canada; created by David Ellison and Paul Sutherland.

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A Doggone Story (B+W, 1940s)

Otto the wiener dog is growing tired of his life on a rural German farm. An unwanted bath is the last straw for Otto- he runs away to the city where adventure ensues. The little country pup gets into plenty of trouble stealing sausages, escaping death, and evading the dog catcher. 

The Perils of Priscilla (Color, 1969) 

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A poor, neglected pussy has to head out on her own when she is ignored and neglected by her family.  This live action short directed by Carroll Ballard (who went on to direct The Black Stallion, Never Cry Wolf, and was 2nd Unit Director of the original Star Wars) features another amazing cat trying to make her way in a tough world.  What will become of the adventurous, resilient Priscilla?

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Black Bear Twins (B+W, 1952)
A delightfully misinformed nature film from Encyclopaedia Brittanica starring a pair of baby bears that can't wait to get away from mom and cause some trouble! They scamper around the forest wreaking havoc and tussling with a beehive. A (human) family spots the cubs' tracks and stupidly attempts to lure the bears to their camp by hanging bacon from a tree (like a hipster Christmas decoration).  The bears come to camp and help themselves to the bacon, then decide to come back later and destroy the entire camp!

For the Early Birds:

The Blackbird (Color, 1979) 

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Bizarre live-action, wordless film from the Budapest Filmstudio in Hungary- a mischievous blackbird gets out of his cage and wreaks havoc on the dog, the room, the mail, the desk, and a little sleeping boy. Revenge for the 4 and 20 blackbirds baked in a pie!!

Curator’s Biography

Kat Shuchter is a graduate of UC Berkeley in Film Studies. She is a filmmaker, artist and esoteric film hoarder. She has helped program shows at the PFA, The Nuart and Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theater and was crowned “Found Footage Queen” of Los Angeles, 2009. She has programmed over 200 shows at Oddball on everything from puberty primers to experimental animation.

About Oddball Films

Oddball Films is a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Black Panthers: Vanguard of the Revolution, Silicon Valley, Kurt Cobain: The Montage of Heck, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.

Our screenings are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educational films, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.