Best Animation Movies of 1981

The embodiment of ultimate evil, a glowing orb terrorizes a young girl with bizarre stories of dark fantasy, eroticism and horror.

Bugs Bunny hosts an award show featuring several classic Looney Tunes shorts and characters. This movie was released in 1981 by Warner Bros. and was produced by Friz Freleng. New footage was one of the final productions done by DePatie-Freleng Enterprises (also known as Marvel Productions beginning in the 1980s) and the film was re-released in the USA on April 28, 2009 from Warner Home Video.

The history of American popular music runs parallel with the history of a Russian Jewish immigrant family, with each male descendant possessing different musical abilities.

Charlie Brown suggests Snoopy go down to the library and take out some books. Snoopy gets there and finds only one book he likes; a book on magic. Upon learning enough, he builds a stage, and puts on a magic show as The Great Houndini, enlisting Marcie and Sally as assistants. Some tricks work and some don't (much to the delight of most of the audience either way), but the biggest surprise is when Charlie Brown is brought on-stage for the disappearing act...and the trick works. However, rain forces a sudden end to the show, and Charlie Brown is stuck invisible. Snoopy is now forced to figure out how to make him visible again. Meanwhile, as annoyed as Charlie Brown is at this predicament, he finds his chance to get back at Lucy for all the times she has pulled the football away from him.

The Trolls and the Christmas Express is an animated classic about six roguish trolls who are determined to sabotage Christmas by infiltrating Santa's village disguised as elves. After a week of wreaking havoc but still not completely ruining Christmas, they are about to give up when they get a devilishly clever idea. On the day before Christmas Eve they get the reindeer dancing and singing songs all night long. The poor reindeer are so tired the next day that they cannot find the energy to pull Santa's sleigh. Christmas looks like it has finally been ruined - but everyone knows you can't stop Christmas! The elves quickly devise a plan to link the train from Santa's village with tracks that travel all over the world. Santa can deliver the toys using the Christmas Express.

It is Valentine's Day and the hip feline has no love and no money except for seven cents. He goes to a messenger service for a job but messes his rehearsal up. He then buys a cassette player and pre-recorded cassettes with the seven cents he had left and goes back to the messenger service miming to "Vesti la giubba", an aria from Ruggero Leoncavallo's opera Pagliacci, and gets hired as a messenger on Valentine's Day

For the first time I am animating hand-painted engraved cut-outs on a full-color background. The film is mood-filled: A duel scene in a snowy forest, obviously the morning after a masquerade ball. Harlequin lies dying, while Red Indian walks away with the wings of victory. The woman between them appears, cat-masked. The mask dissolves away. Her spirit passes into the face of the sun upon the sun upon the sun flower. But Harlequin cannot escape death. The blue world engulfs him.

A superb visual trick that will mystify its audience, this animated film transforms the commonplace into magic.

Unico the Unicorn has the amazing power to make anyone he meets happy. Whether it's because of his personality or the powers of his horn, no one knows. However, the gods become jealous of Unico, thinking that only they should be able to decide or allow people to be happy. Unico is banished to the Hill of Oblivion, and the West Wind is ordered to take him there. She can't stand giving this fate to Unico, so Unico's adventures begin, as the West Wind takes him from one place and time to the next, in a neverending journey to escape the wrath of the gods.