The Loneliest Stoplight

For goodness knows how long, Bill Plympton has been producing, writing, and animating minimalist cartoons -- or, as he calls them, "Plymptoons." He has rarely, if ever, had much of a budget, so they generally fall into the category of "radio with pictures" or slide shows, with movement providing by a technique that looks like someone has been shaking the cel while it is being shot.

Nonetheless, the Plymptoons have been a consistently excellent series, and the reason is, I feel, that animation is expensive, but writing a good story is merely difficult, and Plympton has mastered the technique of writing this story about a stoplight in the middle of nowhere, to his budgets and getting a lot of talented help.

Here it's the narration of Paton Oswalt and a fine musical score, with someone doing a fine Dobro solo. I think that you'll find this typically quirky story of a public-minded object as engaging as I did.

The story is about a traffic light in the middle of nowhere and the life it leads over the years. I am a huge fan of Bill Plympton and this is why this short was such a big disappointment--and I cannot understand why it was chosen as a commended film at the recent Oscar Nominated Shorts program. I have met the man and talked with him about his films...and I even have a nice drawing he made of me....so I am obviously a fan. However, among the several dozen shorts of his that I have seen, this is one of the worst, if not the worst...yet it was inexplicably included in this showing.

Why, exactly, did I dislike it so much? Well, the biggest reason was the quality of the animation. While it looked a bit like Plympton's work, the artwork looked too hurried and lacked the detail and quality of his other films. Oddly, his oldest films look at least as good as this one...perhaps better. It simply looks hurried...very hastily put together. As for the story, it's not much better...uninteresting to say the least.