Like I said, I caught The Animation Show in Atlanta on July 5. Here's
some random comments about the shorts:

SPOILER WARNING

Opener - A funny stylized opener. They seem to borrowed the plot from
"Young@Heart". :-)

Operator - Eh, why make a cartoon of a realistic looking human doing nothing
but talk? :-( The dialogue is amusing; this could've made for a funny Monty
Python skit. But still, what's the point?

Psychotown - Yuck. Nothing but lame prank gags that stopped being funny once I
got out of grade school. And the film had three of these. :-P

Burning Safari - Yeah, you can't miss with adorable robots. ;-) Said robots
plus funny slapstick and a glowing color pallete made this a very endearing
short. The action scenes were a little messy though.

Yompi, the Crotch Biting Sloup - Er, I usually like Corky Quackenbush's work.
Not this time. :-P Yompi's m.o. of ingratiating himself to his victims was
interesting for only the first short. I really don't want to see this short
series again. :-P

Love Sport, Love Paintballing - This should be a video game. :-D A hilaroius
short that demonstrates how much acting ability you can get from simple shapes.
An inspiring vision of the paintballing game. I sure feel for the little
pixels. :-D Part of a 10 short series.

Mr. Schwartz, Mr. Hazen and Mr. Horlocker - Wow, my favorite of the bunch. A
very imaginative blend of CGI and traditional animation add up to an uproarious
short. I wasn't expecting the playing with the timeline. Some great
exagerrated facial expressions, leading to a hilarious punchline at the end.
:-D

Angry Unpaid Hooker - On the other hand...Bleah, a "Home Movies" style ripoff
that thinks it can pass off bad animation and art as an "artistic style".
Paired with the weasly excuses of the unlikeable lead character, and an
African American stereotype that would embarrass Wanda Sykes. And HBO is
actually making a SERIES out of this?! X-P

Blind Spot - Wow, total silence from the audience. I never saw a film bomb
so badly with the audience. The film lost its viewers at the time of the
murder of the first innocent victim, and never regained them. :-P

Professor Nieto - They got these CGI bugs from Brazil. And so they...play
soccer! And that's it....I still don't get the point of the chimpanzee.
Surprisingly little animation in an Animation Show short. Maybe the second
worst entry.

Voodoo - I liked the angular artistic style. It's a predictable one-punchline
short, but I found the punchline funny.

Cocotte Minute - More slapstick from the "Burning Safari" guys. I found it
less interesting than the former though. Nothing special about it. A
memorable decapitation, though. Yikes. :-)

Forgetfulness - As you grow older, you lose memories. Yeah, whatever.

Jeu - Some imaginative morphing from scene to scene, similar to that previous
short about the man who sold his shadow. But no plot to hold my interest.

Key Lime Pie - My second favorite short. A film noir short, but with nothing
to do with private eyes or detectives. Instead, it focuses on a very
compelling plot: Is there a food you like SO much you'd risk even your life
for it? Wow. I feel that way about Doritos. :-)

Usavich - I had never seen this furry CGI series before. I didn't know until
when I went to the website that they two bunnies were supposed to be escaped
convicts; I thought they were going swimming for vacation. Nonetheless I found
the slapstick very funny. I felt for the pratfalls these poor losers have to
endure. :-D

John and Karen - Now this was a furry cartoon that I really enjoyed. :-) Two
literal polar opposites have a frank talk to heal an argument. This time I
very much got into the conversation, which was realistic but still referred to
the characters' furry natures. I really loved the upbeat ending.

Raymond - Um, did they use CGI for the motion scenes? I couldn't tell if they
used CGI or if they had real humans pose for the camera. The idea is funny,
but the action was too muddled to follow. I couldn't match the guy's movement
with the liquid. And the makers screwed up: the three kinds of motion are
translation, rotation, and VIBRATION: elevation is just another kind of
translation. :-)

Hot Dog - Bill Plympton never disappoints. This short was the flipside of
"Guard Dog". This time the overenthusiastic dog is a very sympathetic
character whom I wanted to succeed. After 2/3 of Plympton slapstick he does
seem to be succeeding. But the short has a sad ending. I'm curious about
Plmypton's outlook on life that he'd end the short this way.

Western Spaghetti - Maybe the most imaginative short in the lineup. I didn't
know what to expect. Indeed, this short took a simple idea of cooking
spaghetti and came up with original ways to use everyday objects to visualize
both the ingredients and the cooking.

This Way Up - Another CGI slapstick short, but at least a very funny one about
a father and son team of undertakers having a really bad day. Very good
craftsmanship leads to a funny short, albeit one I didn't particularly get
into.

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I hope "The Animation Show 4" comes near your town.

- Juan F. Lara