While the style of this cartoon was unique (enough to help it get the Oscar for Best Animated Short), this cartoon signaled to me the death of animation. It wasn't until the 1980s that a resurrected respect for decent animation occurred and fortunately today animation is once again respectable. In the interim, studios like Hannah-Barbera, Trans-Lux and Lou Scheimer reveled in horridly low frame-rates, cheap repetitive backgrounds and simplistic animation. Heck, to call some of this animation is a joke--it was more like a fast slide show since the frame rates of 24 fps were reduced in half or worse! While I can't blame MOONBIRD completely (after all, Columbia studios, Creston Studios and others produced cheap animation well before MOONBIRD), it is shocking when you compare the ultra-simple Eric Carle-style cartoon here with gorgeous MGM or Looney Toons cartoons in their heyday.

However, MOONBIRD manages to do something these other hack studios didn't. In this film they basically let two toddlers prattle non-stop and they animated it. The problem is that 2 and 3 year-olds aren't that interesting--at least not for 10 minutes straight!! Watching this film is like being locked in a room with an obnoxious small child who has always been told by his parents that he/she is the next Judy Garland or Marlon Brando. To me, this was about as welcome as a year-long migraine. Do yourself a favor and don't watch this film.