Best Animation Movies of 1961

Simple story about the man who goes to the beach and uses inflatable objects for all of his needs.

Hamilton the elephant is being trained for the circus when he discovers his amazing musical ability; the ringmaster decides to exploit his new-found talent for jazz.

Chilly Willy the Penguin steals fish from a fish market.

Prof. Ludwig Von Drake shares his knowledge on the subject of child psychology. He is particularly studying Donald Duck (whom Von Drake refers to as "Mr. X" to protect his identity) and offers advice on how to handle Huey, Dewey and Louie.

Collection of Computer Graphic effects.

Symmetry is one of five shorts featured in the film "Mathematical Peep Shows." The collection was made by Charles and Ray Eames for the IBM Mathematica Exhibit which opened in 1961. The degree to which an object is symmetrical is illustrated by the number of different positions in which it can fit into a box of its shape.

Bugs and Daffy get lost on the way to Palm Springs and end up in the Himalayas, where they meet an Abominable Snowman who has always wanted a rabbit for a pet.

This newly rediscovered short was created in Jim's home studio in Bethesda, MD around 1961. It is one of several experimental shorts inspired by the music of jazz great Chico Hamilton. At the end, in footage probably shot by Jerry Juhl, Jim demonstrates his working method.

Wile E. Coyote tries to catch the Road Runner using a sling shot, a grenade in a toy airplane whose propeller detaches and leaves the plane behind.

Wile E. Coyote tries and fails to catch the Road Runner using his foot extended to trip, an arrow, a hole in the road.

Bugs battles Wile E. Coyote. A ten trillion volt electric magnet draws everything imaginable.

Daffy Duck vies with Porky Pig in the Western frontier hotel business. Porky has more success, attracting hordes of customers with a live-action saloon party. So, Daffy decides to undermine Porky's good fortune by planting a bomb beneath Porky's inn.

Sea Captain Windwagon Smith hits Westport, Kansas, the starting point of the old Oregon and Santa Fe Trails, and is quickly the laughing stock of the town; instead of traveling in the usual oxen-drawn covered wagon, he is at the helm and wheel of a Contestoga-type wagon with a full set of sails. He plans to go to Oregon by taking advantage of the prairie winds. First, he wins over the town mayor, falls in love with the mayor's beautiful daughter, Molly Crum, and then secures financial backing from the townspeople. He sets sail across the plains, with Molly Crum as a covered-wagon stowaway, and a Kansas twister looming on the horizon. And, then, the wind hits the sails. And the fan, too, if he had had one.

Sylvester the cat imitates the Pied Piper of Hamelin to lure a group of mice into a jug that he seals with a cork. But Speedy Gonzales won't be hypnotized by Sylvester's flute and gradually rescues his friends from Sylvester's clutches.

Sylvester Cat slips when making a grab for Tweety Bird in Granny's flat, and falls dazed to the floor as one of Tweety's feathers lands in his mouth. Tweety runs off. Sylvester comes to and finds the feather lodged between his lips. He thinks he has swallowed and killed Tweety and suffers terrible remorse as an Alfred Hitchcock-like voice-over chides him for his "crime". Sylvester cracks, runs into the streets confessing, and returns to Granny's place, where he finds he didn't eat Tweety after all.

2? is a story about the exponential growth of numbers raised to powers. Part of the Mathematica Peep Shows, one of five films made to accompany the Mathematica: A World of Numbers and Beyond exhibition at the California Museum of Science and Industry and the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago.

Viking Yosemite Sam arrives to storm the castle. But Bugs takes charge of the defenses, and between Bugs' cleverness and Sam's stupidity, the castle is never seriously threatened, even when Sam enlists the help of an elephant.

The Greek mathematician Eratosthenes estimates the circumference of the earth.

The Confederate Army wants to get an important message through to General Lee, but all the carrier pigeons have been shot down. Tweety steps in.

Wile E. Coyote chases the Road Runner with roller skis, a bow, a rifle, a boomerang, an anvil, and several exploding darts let loose from a balloon.

Nelly the Giraffe is discovered in Africa and leaves to begin a singing career, but finds that chasing fame brings her nothing but unhappiness.

Allures is a spectacular sequence of moving figures and points, a film which reaches out to the cosmic and the spiritual, where the spatial dimension becomes transcendental.

Sylvester Cat discovers that his son, Junior, has a new best friend - a bird named Spike. Aghast, Sylvester decides to teach his son the facts of feline life and goes with him on a bird hunt, which, as usual, isn't Sylvester's forte. He is hit with a badminton racket after he mistakenly shoots a badminton birdie and then is blown up when he sends a model plane after Spike and is himself shot at by the out-of-control plane and forced to take refuge in an explosives store shed, with the plane slipping in behind him and firing at the TNT.

Foghorn Leghorn courts Miss Prissy when a foundling is left on her doorstep. It is Henery the Chicken Hawk.

Mr. X buys a boat and inadvertantly enters the water skiing race. With Junior driving, with no experience, he's a bit out of his league.

In Florida, a starving Gabby Gator is fishing in the swamp for his dinner. He only succeeds in catching a news magazine which has an article about movie star.

Speedy Gonzales helps provide cheese for the mayor's reelection campaign (and two hungry friends) by swiping it from the store guarded by Sylvester.

In the French Alps, an out-of-control street-painter's wagon sprays white paint onto a female cat's back.

A four-year-old boy is drafted into the army.

Arthur Lipsett's first film is an avant-garde blend of photography and sound. It looks behind the business-as-usual face we put on life and shows anxieties we want to forget. It is made of dozens of pictures that seem familiar, with fragments of speech heard in passing and, between times, a voice saying, "Very nice, very nice." The film was nominated for an Oscar for Best Live Action Short Film.

An inebriated mouse with a throbbing head takes a priceless diamond, thinking it's a soothing piece of ice. Two policemen, one of them a lunkhead, are assigned to recover the missing jewel.

A pudgy but tough-guy cat recruits Sylvester as his stooge to catch a mouse for his dinner, under the pretense of training Sylvester to be a champion mouser. Sylvester enters a warehouse and runs into the baby kangaroo, Hippety Hopper, and thinks, as usual, that Hippety is a giant mouse that must be fought.

In a thunderstorm, the tree in which Woody Woodpecker makes his home is struck by lightning and utterly destroyed. Completely dazed by his misfortune.

Woody Woodpecker has been a source of aggravating annoyance to a certain householder, due to Woody's pecking the antenna of a TV set, ...

Sylvester Cat and a scrawny bulldog escape from a truck headed for the city animal pound and make like convicts on the lam.

Donald and his nephews are litterbugs: they drop garbage everywhere they go - even when they are out for a drive in Donald's car - until they are stopped by a policeman who makes them pick up everything they have dropped.

As the scene opens, window washer Woody washes the window of Pierre's bakery. His first mishap is to cause Pierre to mess up a cake that he's decorating, and Pierre tells him off. Since this job is finished, Woody gets on a bus with his automatic extension ladder, which keeps hitting the bus driver in the head every time that the bus stops. The driver finally throws Woody off, but Woody manages to get back on. The comedy with the ladder continues, finally involving a traffic cop, a motorcycle policeman and Pierre, as well as Woody and the driver. The story ends with all the participants, on the motorcycle, crashing into a brick wall.

In a Florida swamp, starving Gabby Gator has a little diner. Things are slow; he is just waiting for a good meal to come along.

A father tells his son the invention of the wheel was most important; to prove it, the two hipsters visit the inventor caveman Donald Duck. There follows a survey of the progress of transportation, a digression into the basics of gear ratios, a series of live-action dancers to various styles of music inside a giant jukebox, an illustration of the use of wheels in power generation and space satellites, etc. Ultimately, Donald decides he doesn't want the responsibility, but certainly someone else would take on the task.

It's open season for hunting, and Rocky the Mountain Lion takes refuge from gunfire by sneaking into a cabin owned by Elmer Fudd.

This cartoon opens with a narrator introducing the ancient Greek Acropolis, describing its wealth and beautiful architecture. Tom is depicted as one of these inhabitants, an alley cat who lives in the shadows of Athens searching for food.

Tom becomes fearless when he feels like going into the eerie castle.

Woody is trying to sleep in the middle of the big city but there is way too much racket going on. He decides to vacation at the peaceful Tooti Fruiti Islands but there is even noise going on here...coming from a pirate (a literal "Sea dog") trying to bury his treasure. Craving rest and relaxation, Woody is determined to send the nautical canine on his way, eventually blowing him up with a shore mine. The pirate doesn't appreciate this and forces Woody to walk the plank... but, being none too smart, the old tar often ends up many times in the drink himself and not the woodpecker.

In the ghost town of Spooksville, Arizona, Woody Woodpecker tangles with an outlaw who disguises himself as a ghost to scare Woody away.

The register of the hotel in St. Moritz is receiving its annual "dust off" in prepration for the influx of guests at the opening of the skating season.

Short animated film commissioned by IBM - to illustrate Camille Jordan's concept of topology - the fact that a simple closed curve divides a plane into an inside and an outside.

New Yorkers watch as Norman McLaren's animated promotional film for Canadian tourism plays on the giant pixelboard overlooking Times Square. The caption below the board reads: "Canada... Wonderful World At Your Doorstep". McLaren himself is a member of the crowd.

Tom accompanies his owner, Clint Clobber, who has severe anger management issues, on a fishing trip.