Best Animation Movies of 1972

The Once-ler, a ruined industrialist, tells the tale of his rise to wealth and subsequent fall, as he disregarded the warnings of a wise old forest creature called the Lorax about the environmental destruction caused by his greed.

When Snoopy receives a letter from his original owner Lila, he goes to visit her in the hospital while Charlie Brown and the gang are on the lookout for him. Suddenly, Snoopy feels that he must go live with Lila, but must say goodbye to all his friends. In his adventure to the hospital, he encounters numerous "No Dogs Allowed" signs, an annoying little girl who desires to keep him, and more!

With the school election looming, Linus is talked into running for school president. With Lucy and Charlie Brown as his campaign manager and Snoopy and Woodstock assisting, he stands a decent chance of victory. Soon however, he makes unrealistic promises and learns the hard way that preaching about the Great Pumpkin can not be considered a sound campaign strategy.

After being hunted to near-extinction, the last male Eskimo curlew searches for a mate while making the annual migration from the arctic tundra to the nesting grounds in Argentina.

All of Universal's greatest classic monsters gather at the Transylvania Astoria Hotel for Frankenstein's monster and his bride's Friday the 13th midnight wedding.

A talking squirrel must save the holiday by rescuing a young Pilgrim boy and a young Native American boy that has gone missing in the woods on Thanksgiving day.

Japanese Beetle helps the lonely Blue Racer make friends with humans. Beetle tries everything from making him a pet who can sing and do tricks, disguising him as a dog, and joining a hippie parade. However, all plans fail.

Animator Ryan Larkin does a visual improvisation to music performed by a popular group presented as sidewalk entertainers. His take-off point is the music, but his own beat is more boisterous than that of the musicians. The illustrations range from convoluted abstractions to caricatures of familiar rituals. Without words.

An abstract computer-generated animation set to music by Terry Riley.

Blocks and balls fight simply because they are different, until their battle reduces everyone to the same shape.

“The changing dots, ectoplasmic shapes and electronic music of L. Schwartz’s ‘Mutations’ which has been shot with the aid of computers and lasers, makes for an eye-catching view of the potentials of the new techniques.” – A. H. Weiler, N. Y. Times

The only survivor of a ship's crew, Robinson finds himself alone with his dog, his cat and his parrot on an almost deserted island...

Yogi, Boo Boo and many of his friends including Huckleberry Hound, Snagglepuss, Magilla Gorilla among others decide to build an ark to look for the mythical Perfect Place which is peaceful and hasn't been affected by man and pollution. They hire the Jellystone's janitor Noah Smith to act as captain and travel throughout the world looking for such a place. Even though they think every place they land is a "Perfect place", they soon find out that there is definitely no place like home.

Archive film showing possibly the first example of digital rendering, made by Pixar co-founders Ed Catmull and Fred Parke in 1972, was stumbled upon by the son of Robert B Ingebretsen, who also set up the world-famous U.S. studio. A six minute version shows additional CGI animation of an artificial heart valve, and human heads.

Based on Mussorgsky's Pictures at an Exhibition. This film used two pinscreens. In front of the main pinscreen, they installed a second, smaller one. This second pinscreen could be rotated thus giving more of an illusion of three-dimensionality

An experimental animation for "One of These Days" by Pink Floyd.

This short children's film by Co Hodeman tells the story of 2 children and their encounter with an angry dragon, all represented by colourful building blocks.

The special is set in a town almost like in Disney's Lady and the Tramp, and it was Christmas Eve. In one house, a little boy named Timmy was read a Christmas story and tucked into bed. The resident mouse Gumdrop , while admiring the house all decorated for Christmas, noticed Timmy's letter to Santa on the floor. The letter must of have fallen off the table and never got mailed. So he and the family dog Gobber set outside to deliver the letter to Santa and save Christmas for Timmy.

An animated sequel to the story of "Oliver Twist". Oliver is adopted by Mr. Brownlow. When Mr. Brownlow dies, his will cannot be found so his nephew Sniperly tries to just take the money. Oliver has to stop him. Meanwhile, Artful Dodger now helps children escape from workhouses.

An abstract view of a seacoast landscape, created by mixing original line drawings and rotoscoped imagery traced from live-action footage, presented against a sound track of seaside noises.

John Carradine narrates the Washington Irving story of Ichabod Crane and the Headless Horseman.

The Pink Panther goes hot on the trail of a basketball with a mind of its own. This lands our hero into an assortment of predicaments.

“Apotheosis, which is developed from images made in the radiation treatment of human cancer, is the most beautiful and the most subtly textured work in computer animation I have seen.” – Roger Greenspun, N. Y. Times Award Foothills-1973.

Buzz Buzzard scams Woody into buying a talking dog when actually, it's a mouse under the dog's hat who does the talking.

This is an Australian made-for-television animated film from Burbank Films Australia. The film is an adaptation on Jules Verne's classic French novel, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870).

A dune buggy-riding Woody tangles with Miss Meany and her extremely hot chili and beans.

Woody Woodpecker goes to school with his dog. Mrs. Meany tries to get the dog out of her classroom. The final theatrical Woody Woodpecker cartoon. The last theatrical cartoon released by the Walter Lantz studio.

A woodpeckers take on the Red Riding Hood tale.

Woody Woodpecker in the ol' prospecting days.

Inspired by an Andrew Marvell poem, George Dunning sketched short phrases of animated movement on index cards, which were then stuck to a table top and filmed. Animation bared to the bone, and still extraordinary.

In a Mexican town, The Blue Racer flies in a plane and tries to hypnotize the Japanese Beetle.

While feeling amorous, the Blue Racer hits on what he believes is a fellow snake but turns out to be a tough elephant's trunk. The elephant gives him a pounding but hurts his trunk in the process. Coming upon the Japanese Beetle, the pachyderm asks him to perform a little chiropractic karate on his sore trunk. The Beetle obliges, and in gratitude the elephant promises to protect him from a certain serpent.

The Blue Racer's wife wakes the Blue Racer up and sends him out for food. He encounters the Japanese Beetle, tries to eat and capture the Beetle over and over, but fails. First "The Blue Racer" cartoon.

Blue Racer finds out that the Japanese chicken in the local farm has laid an egg. Blue Racer wastes no time getting it. Unfortunatly, the egg's father is a champion fighting rooster and foiled his plans several times. In his final attempt, he trips the rooster, which, as a result, the egg rolled down to the ostrich farm. The rooster mistakes an ostrich egg as his and takes it home, only, it hatched. The chicken couple argues over it, in Japanese language. Blue Racer, watching the scene, tells the audience that this is the Be Kind to Egg week, "So take your egg out to dinner, or at breakfast."

Buzz Buzzard attempts to con Woody once more, using a fake magic lamp and a mouse as the genie.

Popeye, Olive Oyl and all other King Features comic strip characters are invited on a cruise hosted by Professor Grimsby, a man who hates laughter

The Blue Racer is trying to catch Japanese Beetle. He first tries to catch him by hiding inside a hose, however, plan is backfired when Japanese Beetle turns on the faucet. Then he tries to catch him by hopping, but again, plan foiled because he ran across a rolling roller. While chasing the Beetle again, Blue Racer runs into a venus flytrap, which spits the snake out (the flytrap claims that it tasted awful). The Blue Racer decided he needs to fly in the air to catch the bug and sucks a can of helium, and floats in the air. However, when he opens his mouth, he flys off in the air and falls into a bag of genuine fertilizer.

The Japanese Beetle goes to school to learn to be a photographer. The Blue Racer uses the opportunity to try and catch him.

The Japanese Beetle uses his karate skills to fight The Blue Racer.

This short employs animation and live action to teach young children about their digestive system.

While visiting Shaggy's great uncle Nath, the gang bumps again into the Harlem Globetrotters and a Loch Ness monster.

Based on a 1971 wordless picture book by Pat Hutchins. "The little wooden couple are happy in their building-block house -- until it catches fire. The solution? They transform the house into a fire engine! But then there's so much water that they have to build a boat..." -- Amazon.com

Using a line with disruptions, the artist creates a guy who thinks only of his sexuality.

A child's first discovery of wind--the silent, invisible something that tickles his fancy, ruffles his hair, ripples the grass around him--portrayed here in winsome animated drawings. But the artist also shows the elemental force that carries all before it. Without words but with sound effects, this is a film of universal appeal.

A boy and his dog take a wondrous trip under the earth's crust and through the geological eras of time, introducing children to geology in the form of a musical fantasy.

An animated adaptation of the picture book by Toni Ungerer

A leprechaun, who had changed himself into a pumpkin seed to hibernate for the winter, comes to life as Mr. Jack O'Lantern, who then uses his pumpkin shell to help scare away Zelda the Witch and Archibald the Warlock.

Daffy Duck is in Hollywood producing a movie about King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table.