Oddball Films Media
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Dec 14, 2014
Oddball Films invites you to Oddball's XXX-mas Spectacular, a program of vintage 16mm weirdness, with a delightful hodge-podge of creepy and kitschy Holiday insanity, seasonal and sexy animation, and bizarro smut all from our massive archive. In Santa's camp, we have the insanely campy Santa and the Fairy Snow Queen (1951) from Sid Davis, the man who brought us such shock classics "The Dangerous Stranger" and "Why Did Sammy Speed?". The National Film Board of Canada brings us two witty animated shorts; the delightfully strange Christmas Cracker (1964) featuring 3 odd Christmas vignettes from the brilliant Norman McLaren among others, and Jeff Hale's The Great Toy Robbery (1963), where Santa is held up by bandits in the Old-West. From Czech greats Borivoj and Karel Zeman, comes A Christmas Dream (1954) the creepily charming stop-motion tale of toys come to life. More Christmas kookiness includes Snowtime Serenade Soundies (1948), Kodachrome oddity Creepy Christmas Basket (1950s), and a few lively Christmas closers by Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby in Happy Holidays with Frank and Bing (1957). And to put the XXX in XXX-mas, we've got the original pornographic cartoon, the infamous Buried Treasure (1924) starring the well-endowed Eveready Hardon; the raunchy cartoon tale of a girl and her vegetable pals in the unforgettable Sandy Sunrise in The Babysitter (1971); the tantalizing new television technology of the nudie-cutie Uncle Si and the Sirens (1938); homegrown homoerotica The Groping Hand (1969); and excerpts of Queen Kong (1970s) and Naked Marching Band (1970s). We'll be staggering the themes and even double-projecting Santa and Smut together! Get your kicks and get your Santa fix because XXX-mas comes but once a year!
Date: Friday, December 19th, 2014 at 8:00pm
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street San Francisco
Web: http://oddballfilms.blogspot.com
Featuring:
Santa and the Fairy Snow Queen (B+W, 1951, excerpt)
The Fairy Snow Queen gives a sort of dreadful life to Santa’s dolls on Christmas eve. Jack-in-the-box, toy soldiers, musical doll, and other dolls dance and sing for Santa to the music of The Nutcracker Suite and Sleeping Beauty. Snoopy the Brownie (Whaa?) tells us he visits toys every night to see if they’re being well treated by the children who own them. Don’t miss the gay uniformed “ toy soldier” and the creepy over-the-top human Jack-in-the box! Proof that Sid Davis - father of the cautionary mental hygiene film- really was the king of childrens nightmares.
Buried Treasure (B+W, 1924)
The legendary porno cartoon with a boogie woogie piano soundtrack depicting the unlikely adventures of the perpetually aroused title character (Eveready Hardon) with, among others, a man, a woman, and a cow. You'll laugh and the guys may even scream!
The artists are unknown, but a widespread rumor states that a group of famous animators created the film for a private party in honor of Winsor McCay. Disn*y animator Ward Kimball gave the following account of the history of the short:
"The first porno-cartoon was made in New York. It was called "Eveready Harton" and was made in the late 20's, silent, of course-by three studios. Each one did a section of it without telling the other studios what they were doing. Studio A finished the first part and gave the last drawing to Studio B Involved were Max Fleisher, Paul Terry and
the Mutt and Jeff studio. They didn't see the finished product till the night of the big show. A couple of guys who were there tell me the laughter almost blew the top off the hotel where they were screening it."
Christmas Cracker (Color, 1964)
A witty seasonal pleasantry consisting of three animation segments, employing tricks in movie magic by National Film Board of Canada artists and animators, including famed animators Norman McLaren, Grant Munro and with specially arranged music. Three scenarios are presented: A jester mimes introductions to each act, the first of which is a play on Jingle Bells in which a boy and a girl of paper cutouts move to the music. There follows a dime-store rodeo -- a whirring, hopping, ballet of tin toys done in animation to jazz composition. The third act is a tall tale of a Christmas tree trimmer who needs a star to top his tree and builds a space vehicle to pluck one from the sky.
Sandy Sunrise in the Babysitter (Color, 1971)
This bizarro Triple xxx short explores the misadventures of a female babysitter and vegetables with a mind of their own! Produced by Warped Imaginations (A Cum Stained Cartoon) featuring music from the classic Beach Boys Smiley Smile album(!) What hath the swingin', sexy 60s wrought?
Creepy Christmas Basket (Color, 1950s)
Married elders dissect selected items from a basket of mundane Christmas gifts-hilariously surreal-in eye-popping Kodachrome!
A Christmas Dream (B+W, 1954, Borivoj Zeman and Karel Zeman)A little girl goes to sleep on Christmas Eve and her toys come to life. Cool/creepy stop motion animation of her favorite rag doll gives this more of Christmas Nightmare effect.Directed and created by a team of two Czech Brothers, Borivoj Zeman and Karel Zeman. Karel Zeman became the director of feature-length movies including "The Fabulous World of Jules Verne" and "Baron Munchausen” while his brother directed titles such as "The Phantom of Morrisville" and "The Young Lady from the Riverside"
Uncle Si and the Sirens (B+W,1938)
An early illicit film in which the recently invented television promises exotic treats. A truly remarkable anticipation of the Internet, drunken Uncle Si escapes to a private room where he turns into a ravenous animal upon seeing the Sirens!
Snowtime Serenade Soundies (B+W, 1948)
Starring Gloria Jean,The Milt Herth Trio, The Sportsmen, Lee, Lynn and Lou, and the Alpine Octet) “Sly Old Gentleman” Gloria Jean sings to her creepy Santa Claus doll where she daydreams a Christmas fantasy in a ski lodge. People merrily dancing to “Jingle Bells” followed by the singing of “Winter Wonderland” by a female trio. Then everyone comes together to sing “Fireside Medley” which is followed by more dancing.
The Groping Hand (Color, 1968)
This bizarre slice of homoerotica was shot in San Francisco’s North Beach in the heyday of free love. A hunky male gets all revved up gazing at the live sex show signs and clubs on Broadway when he’s beckoned in by a female hand. Once inside he cuts loose, “stripping” his time away to down and dirty soul music.
Great Toy Robbery (Color, 1963)
Acclaimed Canadian animator Jeff Hale ascribes a not so fortunate tale of Santa and the Wild West. With a structured and mechanical aesthetic, Hale erects a cartoon world full of good, bad, ugly and in between. A beautiful and sprite sound design completes the work, giving it a quality of magic, kind of like Santa Claus himself. Hale is best known for his work on a variety of animated television programs including Transformers, The Charlie Brown and Snoopy Show, and Stanley, the Ugly Duckling.
About Oddball Films
Oddball films is the film component of Oddball Film+Video, a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Summer of Love, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.
Our films 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.
