Lessons from Aardman Animation’s “Creature Comforts”

Wednesday, October 8th 2008 by Shanel Yang         Email this article to a friend

Photo by feekster

Aardman Animation’s “Creature Comforts” was made in 1989 and won the academy-award for Best Animated Short Film in 1990. It uses one of my beloved styles of animation since my earliest and fondest memories of holiday TV specials: stop-motion clay animation!

It features interviews with children about their thoughts on animals that live in zoos, elderly persons who live in rest homes about their own living conditions, and one very disgruntled exchange student from Brazil who happened to be living in London at the time, apparently very reluctantly—all to rather comical effect when these taped interviews were tweaked and dubbed to be the voices of various adorable zoo animals.

CONCLUSION

Andrew the polar bear and the mountain lion are my favorites! Maybe it’s their enthusiasm—whether they’re interrupting someone to ask a burning question (Andrew: “Do you like steak and chips with lions with it?”) or illustrating key points with exaggerated hand gestures and hilarious facial expressions (Mountain Lion: “ … that I can just have nice water, you know, to dive, to swim in … ”). They just crack me up! How about you? Did any of these clay critters steal your heart? ; )

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