The Tune

The Tune is a truly great film for any age. Funny and even (in places) sophisticated for adults, with plenty of wackiness and crazy Bill Plympton stuff. The music is also great, in fact I started out looking for a soundtrack and ended up here bragging on this film. It's silly fun in the traditional 4-frames-per-second that Plympton if famous for, as well at a few bits similar to his famous "How to Quit Smoking" cartoon. A plot synopsis is sort of a requirement to fill enough space here on IMDb, but the plot is really less than half the point. As far as the plot goes, it's pretty thin. A songwriter has a bunch of adventures getting from his home/office to the Mega Music building where evil corporate scumbag Mr Mega waits like a spider in its web. The main character, Del, is a dweeb, and his apple-cheeked girlfriend Didi is Mr Mega's secretary. The point of the movie is to enjoy some crackin' animation, hear some weird but great songs, and in general have fun. The subplot of Del's struggle to gain his lady love by collecting these songs is nice, even poignant in places, but still secondary. Mostly just have fun. My DVD has a weird place near the end where the sound drops a good bit for that last number.

The original songs for this movie are amazing, but not nearly as amazing as Plympton's animation. Well worth shutting yourself in to watch, perhaps with other examples of excellence in feature length, independent animation. This ranks with the work of Bakshi, and it's worth supporting animators who don't work for Disney, simply for the fact that their work is not homogenized or dictated by the studio. Plympton gave us this twelve years ago, and we haven't had many animators of note since who could give us a quality product like his. It begs the question, "why not?" I think this film is a must-see for any aspiring animator, to show them that it can be done, and done well.

The Tune is an animated musical made by Oscar winning animator Bill Plympton (Your Face) who also did every single drawing in this feature. A first for animated movies. With Bill Plympton's drawings and music by the talented Maureen McElheron, The Tune becomes a unique classic. The story follows songwriter Dell on a journey to write a song so he could live happily ever after with the girl of his dreams, Didi, also played by Maureen McEhleron. He travels through the wonderous place of Floobynooby and learns to write songs with his heart, and not his pancreas. Drawn solely in a style that looks like colored pencil, the look of the film tends to be uneven, but Bill Plympton's style itself is so unique and invitingly strange that one tends to ignore the style shift as each song in the story is presented with a unique look. The music is in this movie is what really makes the film. Mauren McElheron juggles so many styles that it's hard to believe that she's the sole composer. We go from Old Broadway to Country, to 60's Beach Rock. We even get some Rhythm and Blues and a Tango Piece. The music in The Tune really celebrates the old American Classics. The Tune really suffers during some long drawn out sequences and songs that do garner laughs, but many might seem to think that they detract from the story. (Namely a scene with a wise man and another scene with two business men inflicting torture upon each other's faces.) Still, even with these scenes, it's very easy for me to recommend a viewing of this film.

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Del (voiced by Daniel Nieden) is a songwriter searching for inspiration, especially because if he doesn't find any soon, his boss Mr. Mega (voiced by Marty Nelson), of Mega Music, is going to fire him. On his way to the Mega Music office, he takes a wrong turn and ends up in a song-filled land that just might provide a muse.

The most frustrating aspect of The Tune is that it easily has the potential to be a 10. The animation is charming and effective, with absorbing surrealistic touches. Writer/director Bill Plympton (along with writers Maureen McElheron and P.C. Vey) has a knack for crafting a disarmingly simple but twisted fantasy tale. However, my initial enthusiasm was brought down a few notches by the songs. And as this is basically an animated musical, if there is a problem with the music, it seriously affects the film.

It's not that the music is bad, although some of the recordings of music are bad from an engineering perspective. Rather, for a work that's otherwise so imaginative--visually and plot-wise--the music and most of the lyrics are boilerplate. The music is like a survey of generic, older pop styles (tin pan alley jazz, 70s country, rockabilly, blues, and so on). It reminded me of a cross between those "rhythm accompaniment" presets on older Casio keyboards and an audition tape for a cruise ship musician (the latter, because quite a few songs had decent guitar work on top of otherwise formulaic music). When everything else about the film is so creative and rule breaking, I want music that's creative and rule breaking, too. Most of the songs follow the same structural formula, and at their worst, slow the film down because they feel like padding.

Still, Plympton and his animation crew frequently come to the rescue during the songs with excellent visuals--the hotel manager's song and the surf/dance song particularly stand out in my mind. The Tune is definitely worth viewing, and I can't wait to see more of Plympton's work. I would just like to see him paired with a composer who is as inventive aurally as he is visually.

A 7 out of 10 from me.

Celebrated cartoonist Bill Plympton's first feature film is a surreal musical fantasy with some inspired animation. He financed it entirely by himself, raising extra money by doing work for a few television commercials (see "Plymptoons: Complete Works" on DVD). He also released early portions of the film as shorts to help generate funds ("Dig My Do" in 1990, "Push Comes To Shove" and "The Wiseman" in 1991), even winning the 1991 Prix du Jury at the Cannes Film Festival for "Push Comes To Shove." Working again with Maureen McElheron (she scored his 1988 Oscar-nominated short "Your Face"), Plympton pieces together the story of a songwriter who, after receiving a 47-minute deadline to deliver a hit song or get fired, finds himself lost in the town of Flooby Nooby. Through the course of ten musical numbers (touching on various popular music genres) and some outstanding animation sequences, he learns to pen songs from the heart rather than by the book. This film is classic Plympton, but the light-hearted theme and often silly songs contrast greatly with the bizarre sex and violence of his second feature-length film "I Married A Strange Person."