Runaway Robots! Romie-O and Julie-8

This short "robots-in-love" cartoon could've used a big shot of imagination. The only things this cartoon has going for it are disco/pop tunes by John Sebastian and a robot that sounds like Ringo Starr. The rest of it has faded from my memory.

"Runaway Robots" is a very entertaining short film. It never takes itself too seriously, instead focusing on clever concepts and entertaining animation. The quality of the animation is very good (especially considering that it was made in 1979), with a lively squash- and-stretch style; the fluidity of the characters really comes into play with the cartoonishly-massive porcine executives, along with Gizmo, a shifty & devious scrap dealer. Julie-8 is animated with good delicacy and spunk, although Rome-0 tends to be less dynamic in his movement.

The pacing is fast, as is necessary for its short running time, but the film handles it well. Only a couple sequences felt distractingly rushed, but this isn't so much of a problem when the story overall is so lighthearted. Despite the Shakespeare reference in the title characters, you shouldn't expect anything particularly heavy or deep.

My main criticism is the fact that I found the robots' voices too heavily filtered, making some lines hard to catch. I saw the movie on an old VHS though, so the audio could be better on cleaner copies.

If a lighthearted, energetic short film from the '70s sounds interesting to you, "Runaway Robots" is worth checking out. It's too bad it's not available on DVD.