The Decade In Animation (Shorts)

The past few posts have been building to the "decade end" features which will hopefully be arriving here quickly over the next month.. They're all going to be from one person's perspective, but I'll be speaking of Taste My Kids using plural pronouns such as "we" and "ours" to make the lists seem like they're worth more than they actually are (a writing tactic I used often on the old version of this website). Today's list is regarding the decade in animation.. I'm a huge fan of animation shorts, but to be honest I really only know the cartoons that were made from the most well-known animators, and a few from lesser-known animators who were nominated for Oscars.. So this won't be an incredibly huge list..

"I Met The Walrus" (2007)
The audio is taken from a 1969 interview conducted by a 14-year-old Beatle fan who snuck into John Lennon's hotel room.


"Rejected" (2000)
In terms of cult-classic shorts, this is as good as it gets. (Youtube incorrectly labels this as an Oscar winner, although it was nominated.)


"Guard Dog" (2004)
A Bill Plympton short, deserving of a special award for cuteness.
Guard Dog

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"Purple & Brown: Whistlers" (2006)
We love simple and stupid.. It never gets old.


"Broodwich" (2003)
You can probably tell at this point that our knowledge of animation shorts is not especially vast, since it's only short #5 and we're already reverting to clips from Adult Swim. However, we've always preferred actual ink and paper animation (or stop motion) as opposed to Pixar clips or ones that utilize CGI.. which is why clips such as Presto (the short that got played before Wall-E) will not qualify for this list.

In the case of the "Broodwich" episode of Aqua Teen Hunger Force (a series which often utilizes computer effects), this deserves inclusion simply based on its darkness, and the abrupt ending.

NOTE: The embedding from the website I copied the link from sucked dicks, so instead the youtube clip is this "best of" thing someone threw together. Try this link for the full episode...

"More" (1998) & "Hell Bent" (2001)
The 1998 stop-motion short "More" was given a different light in 2001 when the soundtrack was altered to instead include Kenna's then-unreleased new single "Hell Bent." The short was also edited differently in order to synch with the song. Aside from that whole White Stripes/Legos thing, this was probably the best animated music video of the decade.


"The Meaning Of Life" (2005)
Animation shorts built around comedy are normally our favorites. However, there seem to be many (often times those which are nominated for Oscars) which use cartoons or stop motion to express something darker, more thought-provoking, or more artistic. If there's a line between the comedy shorts and the more artistic shorts, "The Meaning Of Life" is probably the line itself. The Meaning Of Life has the ability to blow minds apart, and the seemingly simple pencil drawings actually become somewhat disturbing at parts, so brace yourself if you must. This is Don Hertzfeldt's 12-minute masterpiece, pieced together over the course of 5 years.