Oddball Films presents Baby Animal Bonanza, a night of 16mm short nature films from the 1930s-1970s all starring the cutest baby monkeys, kittens, bears, foxes, skunks, bunnies, otters, puppies and more. After a grim week in American politics and morale, we here at Oddball know you could use a little distraction with an onslaught of adorable baby animals from yesteryear. Two Black Bear Twins (1952) snack on bacon hung off trees and make a mess of a campsite in this misinformed nature film. The depression-era Tiffany Chimps try to sneak their baby into various hotel rooms with a wide array of ridiculous chimp antics in My Children (1931). And while we're talking tiny primates, make sure to meet Rikki: The Baby Monkey (1949), a little rhesus in the wild on his first excursion into the jungle alone. Interspecies parenting doesn't get any cuter than Mother Cat and her Baby Skunks (1958), unless you want to count one of the most outrageously adorable films ever Baby Rabbit (1969) which looks at bunnies and the children who love and care for them. A ranger finds an orphaned otter and nurtures him to adulthood in the precious Hungarian short Forest Fisherman: Story of an Otter (1972). Forest Babies (1959) provides a barrage of babies from fawns to woodchucks. Adventures of a Baby Fox (1955) teaches you in rhyme about not only baby foxes but the flora and fauna in their woodland world. Head to the polar bear enclosure at the zoo for Cheechako's First Day (1978). Then, head to the beach with Doug, Don and over half a dozen Scottish Terrier puppies in Mother Mack Trains her Seven Puppies (1952). Plus more furry surprises for the early birds and everything screened on 16mm film from our massive stock footage archive.
Featuring:
Mother Mack Trains her Seven Puppies (Color, 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!
An incredibly adorable tale of adoption, acceptance and inter-species love. A mama cat finds a trio of orphaned baby skunks and brings them into her own little of kittens. When the baby skunks wander off into the forest, mama cat's got to find them and get them back to the safety of the barnyard before the hungry hawk makes a meal of one of her black and white babies. Try not to squeal when the kittens and the baby skunks have playtime!
Baby brothers and baby rabbits are not so different when you get down to it, although bunnies might be less annoying. Drawing parallels between the love and care parents give their children and the joys and responsibilities of keeping animal friends, Baby Rabbit is jam packed with warmth. Extreme cuteness warning: if the bunnies don’t get you, the darling trio of siblings will! Music by Country Al Ross.
The Tiffany Chimps - My Children (B+W, 1931)
Some chimpanzees (the Tiffany Chimps) dressed in human clothing act out a story in which a couple loses their apartment for trying to sneak their child in. The old man chimp and the maid chimp spy the chimp couple trying to raise the baby chimp up through the window. So they try again elsewhere, hiding the baby in their luggage. No one seems to allow children, as they constantly have to hide the baby. The baby chimp keeps lighting firecrackers in the hotel, and moves around in a suit of armor. The family ends up having to leave again, on each other’s shoulders under a big coat.
Forest Fisherman: Story of an Otter (Color, 1972 cc)
A heartwarming film from Hungary. A forest ranger relates the story of how he raise an orphaned baby otter, observing and examining its habits. At first the otter is isolated in a pen in the garden, but later he is released and quickly becomes friendly with a litter of puppies, teasing, hiding and romping with them. As summer deepens into autumn and the otter grows older, he becomes less interested in his playmates and more curious about things of his otter’s world. When winter comes, he is fully grown, and swims and plays in the cold springs of the highlands, hunting and fishing for himself. When spring arrives, the mature otter returns to the forest lake and to his own natural environment.
Forest Babies (Color, 1959)
Adventures of a Baby Fox (B+W, 1955)
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 250 shows at Oddball on everything from puberty primers to experimental animation.About Oddball Films Image
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.