International Festival of Animation

The TV Guide site for this series includes episode descriptions from the old shows, many of which include film titles. For example, I found out that the mosquito one is called "Self Service," and it's indeed from Italy.

http://www.tvguide.com/detail/TV-show.aspx? tvobjectid=407838&more=ucepisodelist&episodeid=691333

Here are the episode descriptions:

• Cartoons from five different countries include a 1967 Oscar winner about Noah and the ark, and a parody of life in the industrial age.

• Oscar-winning films from Yugoslavia and America and an innovative Canadian cartoon.

• Included: "Self Service," an Italian film about mosquitoes; and "The Shepherd," an American cartoon about a sheepherder in a city.

• Walter Lantz's "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy of Company 'B' " and a Canadian cartoon about bandits who rob Santa Claus.

• A program of cartoons leaning toward the macabre includes "Homo Augens," "The Spider" and "Mr. Hyde."

• A 1911 cartoon by the French animation pioneer Emile Cohl and a 1974 Oscar winner utilizing animated clay figures.

• An animated version of Edgar Allen Poe's macabre story "The Masque of the Red Death" and a tale about a mad baker.

• A submarine kidnaps the Statue of Liberty, a pesky housefly won't stop growing, and insatiable humankind gets its just deserts in the program's three cartoons.

• An all-Canadian program salutes the National Film Board of Canada. Cartoons include "Hot Stuff," about the gods' gift of fire to man.

• Comedies from Hungary, Yugoslavia and Canada look at a ribbon-cutting ceremony, a train ride and evolution.

• "Opera," an Italian satire; and "Bigger Is Better," about the growth of a megalopolis

• The common man is the subject of cartoons from Poland (including the film "Tomorrow"), Hungary, Czechoslovakia and England.

• Cartoons about birds and flying from America's Walter Lantz, Soviet animators and England's Terry Gilliam. Included: Woody Woodpecker as the "Barber of Seville."

• Cartoons about a hot-tempered Italian driver, a daydreaming English couple and an American weight lifter.

• A film of a boy's nightmare about a land where everyone must smoke, a 1908 cartoon and an adaptation of an old song about a logger.

• A cartoon based on James Thurber's "Many Moons," a film about a clumsy magician and an abstract work.

• A 1962 Oscar winner about chance accidents and nuclear disasters, and a film about life in a police state.

• Freedom is the subject of a Yugoslav short and a Czech tale about an artist in a totalitarian society. The program concludes with a 1936 commercial.

• A program honoring Yugoslavia's Zagreb Studios includes an interpretation of Balzac's "La Peau de chagrin."

• Roberta Flack sings in a performance of "The Legend of John Henry"; E.B. White narrates an animated version of his story "The Family That Dwelt Apart."

• Walter Lantz's "Musical Moments," starring Woody Woodpecker and Andy Panda.

• "A Bird's Life," about a housewife who literally takes wing to escape tedium; and "Sisyphus," based on Greek mythology.

• A cartoon based on James Thurber's "A Unicorn in the Garden," about achieving success, a Yugoslav animator's impressions of America.

• A 1960 Oscar winner about a 4-year-old draftee, and cartoons about exploding flowers and a character living in a one-dimensional world.

• "Puttin' On the Ritz," a tribute to Fred Astaire; "Let's Keep a Dog," or 11 reasons not to.

• Seven cartoons include playwright Eugene Ionesco's "Rhinoceros," and "The Critic," a 1963 Oscar winner written and narrated by Mel Brooks.

It amazes me that I remember this series from my childhood. I was in kindergarten when I first saw this series and was haunted by the animations every night. I remember being terrified by the thought of a giant butterfly chasing me down and pinning me. The animations in this series are what made animation it is today. No one ever went against the Disney inspired grain of animation, until this series aired. The shorts all seem to escape me accept for two very vivid ones.

1.) The butterfly collector one gave me nightmares forever. It was beautiful in its animation and I just remember a butterfly collector chasing down butterflies and pinning them to his collection.

2.) This one is still a little sketchy to my memory, it was animated in a similar style as the butterfly one although, it featured a little girl at a table talking to an older gentleman. She would continually talk to the older man and he would continually get more aggravated with the little girl. I can't remember much more about it but it stuck in my mind like glue.

3.) The Hunger about killed me. The thought of it now gives me chills. It had the same theme as the butterfly one. With the main character ending up getting what he was giving.

PBS should really consider giving the kids (and adults) a chance at this series once again. This shows everyone that animation was something to enjoy, without the computer generated characters, the 3d effects and all of the other current effects that people throw together just to make what they think is entertainment for kids.

I have wondered for years what this show was. I had tried off and on for years to find it on Google but did not enter the right key words. I thought Jane Curtain was the host so that messed me up till I stumbled on to the name Jean Marsh yesterday and it triggered my brain. The reason I tried to find it was because of a film on the show about a mosquito who finds a sleeping man and builds an oil like derrick on him to pump blood. He sells the blood and a town is created. Then things go haywire after the gambling and brothels appear. The man stirs in his sleep and the skeeters all run to church. Had a cool ending. Only found two people who saw it but none could remember the name of the show. It was on public TV I believe (Seattle area). Have searched online for that mosquito film with no luck.

This series ran for three seasons on PBS and, like the overwhelming majority of the shows produced for that network, was of excellent quality and had to have been assembled by people who had a love for the subject matter. The shorts that ran on the series ran the gamut from deathly serious ones like Sisyphus (a Hungarian short) to the delightful short Great (a British Academy Award winner) and every possible spot on the line between. Work from all over was featured, from The National Film Board of Canada, the Eastern Europeans, the United States, the United Kingdom, ranging from shorts done for children to things like Closed Mondays by Will Vinton. Different animation styles, from 2-D hand drawn to puppet and Claymation, were featured. The intent was simply to showcase the best short animation available to PBS. The usual suspects-Warner Brothers, Disney, MGM-weren't featured, but they didn't need the exposure. These shorts did and finally found something approaching the audience they deserved.

It's been 25 years since this first came on the air and more than 20 since it ended. Some extraordinary things have been done in the intervening years. It would be wonderful if perhaps PBS or someone would put together a show similar to this in concept to give animation like this more of an audience these days. No matter. Thanks to this show, I discovered a whole side of animation I barely glimpsed before, here and there and for that I'll always be thankful. I wish I could see some of these again,though.

This programme was an always interesting, innovative smorgasbord of international animation. It was my first glimpse of European animation, and made foreign animated films available to a much wider North American audience than would normally have seen them. These are the sorts of movies usually shown once a year at repertory cinemas in the larger cities - for them to come on television regularly was quite an achievement, and an example of public television programming at its best. My favorite films were the Canadian NFB shorts, but there were many other memorable and often disturbing films included. Jean Marsh (along with her partner, Grover the Muppet) was a fine choice as presenter, at the height of her recognition in North America for her recent performance on "Upstairs, Downstairs".