Based on the graphic novel series by Troy Little, this pilot special features the misadventures of the Canadian cuddle-core punk rock girl band, Angora Napkin, comprised of bubbly Beatrice, bookish Molly, and mute Mallory.
Three young women meet the world head-on in a bubblegum pop explosion of harsh reality. Spinning off from the Eisner nominated graphic novel, this animated pilot was created for Teletoon as part of their Pilot Project initiative.
Hobo Moon Cartoons aims to preserve the beloved Halloween classics of yesteryear for future generations to enjoy!
Witch’s Night Out is a Canadian Halloween cartoon that premiered on October 27, 1978, which is, coincidentally, also my birthday. It was produced in a Toronto studio and featured the voices of Fiona Reid as Nicely and Catherine O’Hara as Malicious, with Gilda Radner as the titular witch.
Witch’s Night Out was produced on 35mm film by Jonathan Rogers (formerly known as John Leach) and Jean Rankin.
A depressed witch is summoned by a pair of children, named Small and Tender, who are upset at not being able to scare anyone on Halloween. The witch turns them into a werewolf and ghost (previously their Halloween costumes), and their babysitter Bazooey into Frankenstein’s monster. The witch then takes them to the Halloween party-in-progress at her isolated mansion on the edge of town. However, the citizens of the town get offended at the thought of real monsters in their town, and form a mob, under the leadership of the strait-laced Goodly. The witch loses her magic wand, which gets attached to a woman named Malicious, and is unable to turn Bazooey and the kids back to humans. The group of supernatural beings is chased through the town and forest by the mob, eventually losing them. Malicious and her partner, Rotten, misuse the wand’s powers, which causes a lot of damage to the town, but also summons the witch and the kids to their location. Regaining her wand, the witch uses its power to turn Malicious and Rotten into monsters (though she turns them back soon after), while turning the Frankenstein monster, ghost and werewolf back into Bazooey, Tender and Small. Eventually, the witch uses her powers to restore everything to normal, showing the town that she is not evil. The town quickly accepts the witch, and she starts turning people into what they want to be for Halloween.
A disco song entitled Witch Magic was sung in this film.
As someone who has struggled with shyness, awkwardness, and social anxiety throughout my life, I thought this was a fun and interesting look into the world of a shy person and how to overcome the anxiety associated with it.
This animated short is a parody of the Frankenstein story. Dr. Frankenstein creates a monster only to find out that his creation is too shy to go out and frighten anyone. The good doctor and his malevolent assistant Trevor try to find ways of helping their creation overcome his condition. A film for anyone who’s ever been shy.
An animated cartoon about a workman who recovers and returns Miss Gotrox’s lost purse containing $10,000, and receives a Canadian dime as a reward.
Here’s a fun and quirky comic-style animated cartoon by famed animator Raoul Barré of Barré Studios who would later go on to direct animated Mutt & Jeff cartoons in the style of the original comic-strip creator Bud Fisher complete with text balloons much like in the cartoon above.
These short satires of contemporary life are based on Tom Powers’ newspaper comics. The comic-strip structure is barely altered in the two “Phables,” from a seven-film series of 1915-16 animated by the Canadian cartoonist Raoul Barré before he moved on to direct adaptations of the Mutt & Jeff strip. Providing odd marginal commentary in each film are the stick-figures Joys and Gloom.
