Nudnik #2

Judging by the state of his ramshackle apartment in a condemned building, "Nidnik" hasn't had a job in a while and his only piece of furniture - his bed settee - has a mind of it's own. The roof leeks and the poor man, clad in bright purple pantaloons cuts a sorry sight. He sets about baking his breakfast - flour, water then a dough you could build an house with before a series of horrendous accidents clearly waiting to happen. Yikes, now he's adding yeast - things get well and truly out of control, repetitive and by now have stopped being funny. It's a cartoon catastrophe that's not drawn especially interestingly nor very amusingly and as the joke just becomes a bit too laboured I wasn't really bothered about "Nidnik" at all.

Looking back at the Nudnik shorts from late acclaimed cartoonist / filmmaker Gene Deitch, this series of pantomime slapstick shenanigans were the only notable ones of their kind during the limited theatrical cartoon era of the mid 60s besides the Pink Panther shorts. In order to see how they were shaped from the ground up, the Oscar nominated pilot Here's Nudnik is a very solid frustration short in its own right.

The main premise of the series is that its titular character, Yamaraz Nudnik, goes about life as simply and optimistically as possible in spite of all the obstacles and mishaps he encounters. While this premise could wear thin fast, the genuinely content nature of Nudnik makes the short far more charming than it might've been otherwise. The pacing never feels too dragged out and the ending allows for a solid payoff. In addition, the music score adds a very slow drag blues aesthetic in contrast to the chaos happening around Nudnik. It's almost as if Deitch intended to put the viewers at ease in preparation for all the incoming mess.

As far as art direction is concerned, Deitch's background in graphic cartooning and UPA shines on screen. Even with a limited urban cityscape setting, the muted color palette looks authentically gritty and appropriate for this type of rundown environment. In letting the visual props and Nudnik's misfortunes tell most of the comedy, the facial expressions and gestures of Nudnik make him even more sympathetic than he already is. Living in poverty is one thing, but trying to look on the bright side of life is twice as hard beyond anyone's first thought. Visualizing the potential hilarity in that isn't too bad of a way to go about it either.

After almost 60 years in the spotlight, Here's Nudnik works very well as both a standalone silent experiment and the kickstarter for one of the last recurring theatrical cartoon series in history. It's a shame that the very few theatrical shorts still playing before mainstream cinema are either only one-shots or based off already existing properties. With content like the Nudnik series, one could imagine theaters will possibly revitalize that interest once again.

This short was nominated for an Academy Award. It can be found on Rembrandt Films Greatest Hits. Since it is almost impossible to talk about individual shorts, I'll remark on the Nudniks in general. They are quite short (the ones I've seen are less than 30 seconds in length) and the humor is visual in nature, showing Nudnik in some situation, generally mixing pathos with humor. Nudnik is someone of indeterminate age and gender with a life that runs none too smoothly. The Nudniks are recommended as a class, as describing individual shorts would be self-defeating.

Update: It's been brought to my attention that the DVD release from Rembrandt Films, Rembrandt Films Greatest Hits, didn't include any of the Nudnk shorts in full, but rather had only short clips of 30 or so. The first one, this title, is six minutes long. The DVD is still worth buying for the full-length copies of the rest of the shorts, but the Nudniks are all seriously shorter clips. They're still cute shorts at their proper length.