Adventures in Plymptoons! (2011, Alexia Anastasio)

I'm a pretty huge Bill Plympton fan. Have been for years ever since I accidentally saw his second feature-length film, "I Married a Strange Person!", late one night on Showtime or some channel years ago. For those of you who aren't familiar with him, Plympton is a renowed independent animator best known for his prolific dexterity and unheard of ability to create hand-drawn features all on his own. His first feature, "The Tune" (1992), set a precedent that rocked the animation scene.

"Adventures in Plymptoons" seemed like it'd be interesting, seeing as how Plympton has come a long way from his breakthrough, Oscar nominated surrealist musical short, "Your Face", having hit the mainstream by doing MTV bumpers and music videos for Weird Al Yankovic and Kanye West, while continually working on his own indie projects and maintaining his sense of artistic pride and unwillingness to sell out. Unfortunately, this documentary struck me as being rather clumsily put together and VERY light on actual information concerning the man's varying artistic styles, influences, personal life, etc. They really just crammed in a bunch of interviews from people continually praising Plympton and contributing basically nothing else. Childhood friends, current friends, grade school classmates, sisters, cousins, former Disney execs, film critics, fellow animators... "Animation Godfather" Ralph Bakshi pops up ever-so briefly and adds NOTHING. Well... he praises Plympton. Other than that... NOTHING. Some assistant producer or whoever from The Simpsons appears a few times playing a tuba and tries to be funny, fails... and adds NOTHING. Lloyd Kaufman (who will make an appearance at your six-year old's backyard birthday party as long as you're recording it on video) is in this and guess what he adds... Even LESS that all of the previously mentioned people! Terry Gilliam has a sarcastic little interview and so does Ed Begley Jr. The guy who does the voice for Spongebob Squarepants does a goofy little comedy bit. In essence, everyone here is just trying to be silly or sucking Plympton's dick with praise. It gets pretty redundant.

Of course, Plympton himself is interviewed throughout the film and, in the end, is the only one I cared about hearing from. Still, he withholds a lot of information. I won't blame him, though. I really think the maker of this doc dropped the ball and fucked this whole thing up. It lacked focus and jumped around way too much. I was hoping for some more details on "I Married a Strange Person!", "Hair High" and "Idiots and Angels" and what inspired these films. They gloss over all of 'em. A little insight into what made him shift over from his rather 'light', almost child-friendly works such as "The Tune" and "One of Those Days" to the heavily violent and sexually themed films he eventually began animating and what triggered that whole phase.

Anyone who has never heard of Bill Plympton and his work will have one hell of a poor introduction to the guy here, if you ask me. I would hope for a follow-up to this, done by a more competent documentary film-maker, that focuses on Plympton as opposed to all of the non-contributing ass-kisser material this fucking thing is padded out with. The DVD for "The Tune" contains a documentary within the special features titled "Twisted Toons" from the early 90s that actually covers the animation genius's up-bringing, early works and creative process better than this. Check THAT out.