"You guys...you're all the same!"

July 19, 2013 9:26 AM

While at Cal Arts, before blogs and websites freely shared content, as animation students we would watch short films in a dark cage like room called the Palace. Projected onto the wall we screened “rare” short films, on bulky ¾ inch video cassettes or on mystical DVDs that a teacher had brought in. Of all the shorts we watched in the dingy palace there was one that was etched in my brain as both brilliant and completely insane. It was called “The Big Story,” and it starred three stop motion versions of Kirk Douglas: one as the young up and coming hero, another as the star in his prime, and the third the wise but curmudgie old man.

The insane thing was there was also a copy of a hand drawn version of the film- not an animatic or story reel but a fully fleshed out animated version of the film. The staging, timing and acting were virtually identical. It was as if there were an alternate parallel universe where a 2d hand drawn version of the film had been made. This short film had a huge impact on me, the animation, design and writing were brilliant yet no one at CalARTS at the time knew who made the film...

posted by timsneezed (10 comments total)

I am Kirk Douglas!
posted by hal9k at 10:04 AM on July 19, 2013 [2 favorites]

Those animations are all the same! (OK, both..)

Great post.
posted by mark7570 at 10:14 AM on July 19, 2013

Brilliant!
posted by black8 at 10:15 AM on July 19, 2013

Watching the video I thought immediately of two things: Spitting Image and The Riddler from the old Batman TV show.

Imagine my surprise on RTFA!

Great story all the way through.
posted by chavenet at 10:50 AM on July 19, 2013

This is brilliant! I guess that's what you make when you have a friend who does a dead-on Kirk Douglas impression, and can't do any other voice.
posted by Kattullus at 11:22 AM on July 19, 2013 [1 favorite]

That was extremely enjoyable, and very clever. Lots of Golden Age of American Cinema tropes.
posted by Sintram at 12:57 PM on July 19, 2013

Hmm. Perplexing, but with a hint of deja vu. Goes nicely with the Timothy Leary post down the road.
("Timothy Leary's brother, Really Leary..." -- George Carlin.)
posted by sneebler at 12:58 PM on July 19, 2013

What an eye somebody has- to even manage a perfect caricature of Kirk Douglas's butt.
posted by Rich Smorgasbord at 2:23 PM on July 19, 2013

No mention of whether John K's fixation on Kirk Douglas is connected one way or the other? Or can they just take it for granted that animators love Kirk Douglas?
posted by RobotHero at 2:58 PM on July 19, 2013

I guess that's what you make when you have a friend who does a dead-on Kirk Douglas impression, and can't do any other voice.

Or you get Frank Gorshin, who played the Riddler in the 1966 Batman series and does All The Kirk Douglas in this short. He was a pretty good impressionist.
posted by Spatch at 3:21 PM on July 19, 2013 [3 favorites]