Bambi Meets Godzilla (1969)

There's an unpolished quality to "Bambi Meets Godzilla" - the rough draft animation and the hiss-and-pop sound - that keeps your eyes glued until the very end. And by then you realize that the (brilliant) joke is that it's all just series of credits; each more absurd than the last. Something does really happen in this short and there is an actual story to it (threadbare though it is), but it's all about the gag ending. I don't know who Marv Newland is, but I love the guy's sense of humor. And maybe this speaks to a sadistic streak in me, but the idea of Godzilla actually meeting Bambi is an amusing one. How could you not love this?8/10

Bambi, the little deer crying so heartbreakingly over his mother less than 30 years before Marv Newland's approach to the story was released, is standing in the grass. We hear a soft tune and the whole ambiance is just very chilly and relaxing. 45 seconds in and nothing seems to be happening. We were oh-so wrong. Godzilla's foot smashes the poor thing all of a sudden. Traumatizing development. What was Newland thinking. It was certainly two of the most opposed characters meeting in the same film and the outcome is the expected as well, but why? Why? Why, Mr. Newland? The credits roll in from start to finish of the short film. Notions like "Bambi's wardrobe by Marv Newland" isn't particularly funny either. He seems a vile person without a heart. I can't recommend this one.

I first watched this unusual cartoon a few decades ago on a local PBS station program that showed public domain films. I don't remember laughing as much as marveling at the audacity of Marv Newland to put such a shocking image as that of a giant lizard foot going down on the peaceful deer eating grass just after the "Overture from William Tell: Ranz de Vaches" by Gioachino Rossini played during the beginning credits which has Newland's name constantly crawling up during each one and then segueing to the final sound of The Beatles' "A Day in the Life" droning on as that foot stands still on that poor deer with only the nails moving downward. It's still not a laugh-out-loud moment for me but it's still a fascinating and iconic animation moment to look at just the same...

I have made this letter longer than usual, only because I have not had the time to make it shorter. Blaise Pascal Note, that when a sentence is made stronger, it usually becomes shorter. Thus brevity is a by-product of vigour. William Strunk Jr and E B White My liege, and madam, to expostulate What majesty should be, what duty is, Why day is day, night night, and time is time, Were nothing but to waste night, day and time. Therefore, since brevity is the soul of wit, And tediousness the limbs and outward flourishes, I will be brief: . Hamlet, Act 2, Scene 2.All of which is fillup to get to 10 lines so my comment can be posted: BVG encapsulates the Zeitgeist of Nixon I, and succinctly.