Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter bring you Stop-Motion Explosion!, a program of mind-blowing stop-motion animation from the 1950s to the 1980s. In a world saturated with CGI, Oddball Films opens the vaults to celebrate when historical, fantastical and anthropomorphic creatures were hand-sculpted and manipulated into “life.” This program features stop-motion heavy-hitters Ray Harryhausen, Art Clokey, Co Hoedeman, Bretislav Pojar, Jane Aaron, and Istvan Imre with tons of new finds and a few all-time favorites. Gumby and the gang make a spectacle of a pair of glasses in Art Clokey's Dopey… Read more
Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Antique Erotica with the best of the oldest smut, burlesque and erotica of the collection. From the 1910s-1950s, this program of 16mm sinful celluloid includes insane pornographic cartoons, marionette strippers, early stag films, bizarre burlesque, nudie cuties and more! In the early stag film, Getting his Goat (1923), a man is in for a surprise when he propositions sex through a hole in a gate. Eveready Hardon heads to the beach in the outrageous pornographic cartoon Buried Treasure (1928). Nudism: A Way of Life (c. 1950) sheds light on the rise… Read more
Oddball Films presents Film Under the Influence - Vintage Drug Scare Films, a program of mind-expanding, terror-intending and hilarity-inducing short 16mm educational films about the dangers of drugs. These classroom classics from the 1950s through the 1980s were meant to scare the pants off the junior-high set but probably encouraged as many to experiment with drugs and alcohol as it discouraged. Strap in for Subject: Narcotics (1951), a very early drug education film produced for police orientation and training presenting dramatized sequences of addicts in shooting galleries with excellent… Read more
Fall in love with Squeak the Squirrel (1957), a little ground squirrel in search of a nut and willing to perform any number of tricks for those sweet nutty treats. Runaway Ralph (Color, 1988) An all-star ABC Weekend Special adaptation of Beverly Cleary's beloved tale of a rebel mouse and his favorite toy motorcycle. Equal-parts cheese and charming, Ralph S. Mouse is brought to life through stop-motion animation (and it appears as if they used real fur to decorate the puppets) and his adventure is accompanied by a veritable Who's Who of 1980s-90s family sitcoms. Fred Savage ( The Wonder Years… Read more
Oddball Films presents Learn Your Lesson on Mental Health and Hygiene - A Therapeutic Shockucation, the 33rd in a monthly series of programs highlighting the most ridiculous, insane and camptastic educational scare films, mental hygiene primers and TV specials of the collection. This month we're examining the mind with shocking psychiatry shorts, schizophrenic and anti-social teens, and tons of social conditioning shorts to make all of us valuable, well-adjusted and courteous members to society. Behold the marvels of "modern" psychiatry in the 1950s, including an unabashed look at shock… Read more
Oddball Films presents Oh Canada! The Best of Canadian Animation , a program of 16mm cartoons all from Canadians, eh! Clever, hypnotic, mind-blowing, and often politically progressive this program highlights the work of some of the best innovators Canadian animation has to offer. The brilliant experimental animator and director of the National Film Board of Canada, Norman McLaren gives us two breathtaking works of pixilation animation. We'll begin with his Opening Speech . In Neighbors (1952), McLaren presents a much darker world (in beautiful color) where neighbors come to words, then blows… Read more
Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema 95, a monthly screening of new finds, old gems and offbeat oddities from Oddball Films’ vast collection of 16mm film prints. Drawing on his collection of over 50,000 16mm film prints, Oddball Films director Stephen Parr has compiled his 95th program of classic, strange, offbeat and unusual films. This installment, Strange Sinema 95: Experiments in Art and Cinema is a heady, techno-cultural look at the multimedia art forms and cinematic uprisings of the tumultuous 60s and 70s featuring a vast array of evolutionary artists, cultural criticism and eye-… Read more
Ski Whiz (Color, 1972) Kooky skiing and winter sport short by the great Warren Miller, features brisk editing and styles from the era when cigarette pants and wrap-around shades were still the rage. The Fatal Glass of Beer (B+W, 1933) Set in the frozen north of the Yukon territories, where a prospector, Mr. Snavely (Fields), prepares to return home. Before Snavely is able to depart, he receives a visit from an officer of the Mounties, who requests that the prospector sing him a morally instructional song that Snavely has written about his son Chester. Mr. Snavely obliges the officer with a… Read more
Oddball Films welcomes film programmer, archivist, and preservationist Joe Rubin to our Cinema Soiree Series , a monthly event featuring visiting authors, filmmakers and curators presenting and sharing cinema insights and films. Rubin is the co-founder of Vinegar Syndrome, a home video distribution company focused on preserving and releasing rare, underground, and forgotten sexploitation and exploitation cinema. He will discuss his passion for discovering and restoring lost classics of the Golden Age of Sexploitation and share with us some of the most audacious, bizarre, and mind-blowing… Read more
Oddball Films presents Monkey Time, a night of antique 16mm simian insanity from the archive. In this program we examine and explore the hilarious and sublime lengths humans go to entertain us via these proxy mammals. Before the heyday of television and the domination of cinema, vaudeville, theater, circus acts, magic shows, impossible and death-defying stunts were all that amused thrill-seeking audiences across the US. Animal acts were a big hit and monkeys basked in their glory. Hollywood primate Zippy the Chimp almost has his birthday party ruined by a bully, until quits monkeying around… Read more
Oddball Films presents Weird Science, a compendium of eccentric, unknown science films from 60ish years of scientific discovery, all on 16mm film from the archive. From animated TB germs to sequin-clad aliens, to babies in goggles, songs about slugs and even electric shocks from eels, it's a bizarre night of scientific infotainment. An alien and his computer friend land on Earth and seek to classify the animal life they find in the incredibly weird Mission Third Planet: Creatures of the Land (1979). Noir and B-movie legend Edgar G. Ulmer brings us a tale of tuberculosis for the kiddies with… Read more
Oddball Films and curator Kat Shuchter present Learn your Lesson about Stranger Danger: A Predatory Shockucation, the 41st in a monthly series of programs highlighting the most ridiculous, insane and camptastic educational scare films, mental hygiene primers and TV specials of the collection. This month we are looking out for strangers with candy and delving into the creepy world of stranger danger. Shockmeister Sid Davis want little boys to be on the look-out for the ever-present threat of pedophiles and he wants all Boys Aware (1973). Watch out for the "red light" people in the half-… Read more
Oddball Films presents Learn your Lesson from the '60s - A Groovy Shockucation, the 32nd in a monthly series of programs highlighting the most ridiculous, insane and camptastic educational scare films, mental hygiene primers and TV specials of the collection. This month, we're heading back half a century to learn all about sex, drugs and talking cars from the decade of experimentation: the 1960s. "Blast off to Kicksville" in the howlingly-funny drug scare film Narcotics: Pit of Despair (1967). A rabbi, a priest and a psychologist talk about sexual development, masturbation, nocturnal… Read more
Oddball Films presents Tunes and Toons: Animated Adventures in Musicland, a night of charming, ridiculous, stunning, and vibrant animation from the 30s through the 80s - all about making beautiful music and all on 16mm film from the archive. From the classic to the crazy with cartoon orchestras, beatniks, hippies, dancing rutabagas, Gumby, Bugs Bunny and more, it's going to be an eye-popping and knee-tapping night. Di$ney's Symposium on Popular Songs (1962) takes you through the first half of the 20th century of popular music through a mixture of cell-animation, stop-motion and paper cutouts… Read more
Oddball Films presents What the F(ilm)?! 14: Cine-Insanity from the Archive, an evening of some of the most bizarre, hilarious and insane films from our massive 16mm collection. This compendium of 16mm madness is too strange to be believed and too baffling to be forgotten. This time around we've got boxing chimps, boxing robots, burlesque cartoons, mimes, musical promotional films, a John Cleese office training film and even more celluloid psychosis! British comedy legend John Cleese produced, wrote and stars in Meetings, Bloody Meetings! (1976) a hilariously infotaining training film on… Read more
Oddball Films presents Art and the Machine: The Birth of Electronic Arts, a program of 16mm films from the 1960s-1980s on the advent of machine-made art and the impact on not only the art community, but the world at large. From early computer animation to the strobe light art of Yaacov Agam and the machine-made sculpture of Jean Tinguely to the musical world of Moogs and Theremins, it's a night of invention, innovation and artistry. Bell Laboratories brings us Incredible Machine (1968) which previews the latest developments in computer-assist ed imagery, electronic music, and voice processing… Read more
Oddball Films presents Strange Sinema 94, a monthly screening of new finds, old gems and offbeat oddities from Oddball Films’ vast collection of 16mm film prints. Drawing on his collection of over 50,000 16mm film prints, Oddball Films director Stephen Parr has compiled his 94th program of classic, strange, offbeat and unusual films. This installment, Strange Sinema 94: Sex in Cinema is an eye-popping exploration of sex in cinema and all its genres from industrial films, commercials, animated features, amateur films, documentaries and musical shorts. Sex sells, they say and this program… Read more
Oddball Films welcomes famed distributor Canyon Cinema Foundation to our Cinema Soiree Series, a monthly event featuring visiting authors, filmmakers and curators presenting and sharing cinema insights and films. Showcased are a selection of rare films from its vast catalog of experimental and avant-garde works celebrating San Francisco - its makers, landscape, culture and weirdos. This program highlights works made in the Bay Area over a period of 30 years and offers glimpses of beloved artists (such as George Kuchar), subversive behaviour and transformed cityscapes. Presented on 16mm, this… Read more
Oddball Films presents Vintage Halloween Hullabaloo, a program of vintage 16mm films to get us in the mood for All Hallows' Eve with cartoons, ridiculous educational films, giant genitalia costumes, Satanic smut, witches, ghouls and made-for-tv terrors. Di$ney teaches us the history, mystery and danger of this ghoulish night with the narrator from the Haunted Mansion and his classic cartoon pals in Di$ney's Haunted Halloween (1984). Halloween Safety (1985) gives us valuable lessons about awesome robot costumes, horrible face makeup and of course, tainted candy. One man heads out to the… Read more
