Best Animation Movies of 1982

A young boy makes a snowman one Christmas Eve, which comes to life at midnight and takes him on a magical adventure to the North Pole to meet Santa Claus.

A widowed field mouse must move her family -- including an ailing son -- to escape a farmer's plow. Aided by a crow and a pack of superintelligent, escaped lab rats, the brave mother struggles to transplant her home to firmer ground.

From a riddle-speaking butterfly, a unicorn learns that she is supposedly the last of her kind, all the others having been herded away by the Red Bull. The unicorn sets out to discover the truth behind the butterfly's words. She is eventually joined on her quest by Schmendrick, a second-rate magician, and Molly Grue, a now middle-aged woman who dreamed all her life of seeing a unicorn. Their journey leads them far from home, all the way to the castle of King Haggard.

On another planet in the distant past, a Gelfling embarks on a quest to find the missing shard of a magical crystal and restore order to his world, before the grotesque race of Skeksis find and use the crystal for evil.

Two dogs, Rowf and Snitter, stuggle to survive in the countryside after escaping from an animal research laboratory. They are pursued by search parties and then the military after rumors spread that they could be carrying the bubonic plague.

If Bugs Bunny were to direct his signature inquiry--"What's up, doc?"--toward the modern-day Warner Bros. creative team, he wouldn't be far off. For 1001 Rabbit Tales, they've doctored up a batch of classic cartoons featuring the carrot muncher and his bumbling comrades and bundled them, near seamlessly, into a feature-length film. Here's the premise: Bugs and Daffy, both book salesmen, are competing to sell the most copies of a kids' book. Instead of burrowing a beeline to his sales territory (he should have made a left at Albuquerque), Bugs ends up in the castle of Yosemite Sam, here a harem-leading honcho. Sam's pain-in-the-spurs son, Prince Abalaba, needs somebody to read him stories; Bugs, who'd sooner take the job than suffer the alternative, that involving being boiled in oil, signs on.

The realm of magic is being threatened by the realm of logic, so Carolinus, the green wizard decides to shield it for all time. Ommadon, the evil red wizard, stands in his way. Carolinus then calls for a quest that is to be led by a man named Peter Dickinson, who is the first man of both the realms of science and magic. It is Peter's job to defeat Ommadon.

One dark and stormy night, Rupert is called on by a mysterious stranger who gives him a ship in a bottle...with a tiny living man onboard! He frees the man, who turns out to be the evil warlock, Mordo, who kidnaps Amelia and takes her back in time to 1640. Rupert calls on Miss Switch for help in this new adventure.

Ziggy gets a job to be a street Santa on Christmas Eve from a crooked boss, but the magic of the season allows the lovable loser to do more good than anyone expects.

Contains memorable scenes from "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs," "Fantasia," "Lady and the Tramp," "Peter Pan," "One Hundred and One Dalmatians," and "The Sword in the Stone."

A compilation of ten classic Walter Lantz cartoons: Knock Knock (1940), The Bandmaster (1947), Ski for Two (1944), Hot Noon or 12 O'Clock for Surf (1953), The Legend of Rockabye Point (1955), Wet Blanket Policy (1948), To Catch a Woodpecker (1957), Musical Moments from Chopin (1946), Bats in the Belfry (1960), and Crazy Mixed Up Pup (1955). Also includes the interesting documentary short on Walter Lantz's career "Walter, Woody and the World of Animation". Note: This is NOT the 2007 and 2008 DVD collections titled "The Woody Woodpecker and Friends Classic Cartoon Collection" shown as the cover image.

In this timeless Charles Dickens Story, Ebenezer Scrooge, a mean, miserly merchant, lacking in any Christmas Spirit, receives ominous warnings from the ghosts of Christmas Past, Christmas Present and Christmas Future as they each take him on strange and magical journeys to show him that even the poor, the crippled and the sick are rich in love and goodwill at Christmas time - an experience that will change Scrooge forever.

The magic dragon teaches a boy to believe in his own creative abilities.

An outrageous, affectionate look at coming of age in the Eisenhower era in Brooklyn.

"Daina Krumins's 1982 Babobilicons is a spectacular special-effects study of molds, mushrooms and similar vegetation." Richard Shephard

The evil wizard Gargamel--who hates spring because it makes the Smurfs happy, and he hates happy--devises a scheme to put Mother Nature to sleep.

A Disney Christmas Gift is a 47-minute Christmas television special which aired on December 4, 1982 on CBS' Walt Disney Presents television program. It was a Christmas-themed compilation of animated shorts featuring Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck combined with excerpts from Disney feature films, made as a result of Disney being forced to delay the original premiere of Mickey's Christmas Carol due to an animator's strike. The opening and closing numbers, featuring the song "On Christmas Morning", showcased Christmas at Disneyland. The special was nominated for the 1984 Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Animated Program (For Programming Less Than One Hour); however, it lost to Garfield on the Town. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the original full-length and shortened versions of the special were rebroadcast on CBS and the Disney Channel.

When strange accidents happen at the factory where Mr. Monroe works, and vegetables are drained of their juices, the neighbors as well as Harold the dog and Chester the cat suspect that the new-found family bunny is really a vampire.

The Cat in the Hat is all set for a lovely picnic, but the evil Grinch changes his plans by inventing a contraption that captures noise and makes it sound ferocious. The Cat has to save the world from the clutches of the Grinch and the only way to do it is to reach Grinch's soft spot.

Heroes of the Pinball Arcade race to stop the invasion of the Video Game terrors

Yogi escapes from Jellystone and hides out in a department store - posing as the Store's Santa. Along the way, he helps a little girl to rediscover her faith in Christmas.

Several new different Peanuts sketches are featured in this TV special, adapted from the comic strip, including Peppermint Patty's stint at dog training school and Charlie Brown spending time in the hospital.

The first TV special starring the rotund comic strip staple Garfield the Cat. Here, he and his dull-witted canine cohort Odie end up at the pound.

An animatronic talking-head replica of Abraham Lincoln (voiced by Phil Proctor) hosts a tour of what the future will look like.

A jet-propelled white rabbit flies through the vulva of a supine woman into a wonderland where people and objects turn inside out, changing shapes and identities at warp speed. Events roughly follow Lewis Carroll's "Alice in Wonderland." The caterpillar and the queen make appearances, as does Alice. Images and symbols are often sexual. At the end, Alice asks, "Who has had such a curious dream?"

The president of QTTV is thrown out the window since the shows under his reign got nothing but bad ratings. So the executives decide that it is time to find a new president who understands entertainment. That's when they turn to Bugs Bunny. The network calls Bugs Bunny and asks him to be the new president. They also ask him how he came to be and that's when the special shows scenes from What's Up Doc?. Eventually, Bugs accepts the job.

Pac-Man and friends try to help Santa fix his sleigh and save Christmas!

The Smurfs come to the rescue of two children and their grandfather when an evil mysterious stranger shows up and causes their sleigh to turn over, forcing them to seek help and inadvertently bring Gargamel in on the action.

Flash Gordon, Dale Arden and Dr. Hans Zarkov travel to the planet Mongo to fight the evil emperor Ming the Merciless.

Shorts from "The New Adventures of Mighty Mouse and Heckle and Jeckle" Saturday morning cartoon show edited together into a movie. Space cat villain Harry the Heartless holds space mouse Queen Pureheart. Only Mighty Mouse can save her.

The film tells of a music hall impressionist who caricatures personalities from the second world war. Animated by Barry Bruce at Will Vinton Productions.

Orphan Heidi lives with her grandpa in Swiss Alps. She brings joy to all there. However, her aunt takes her to the city to live as a servant girl to a cold rich strict family and their nice but sad handicapped daughter.

This moving film tells the story of Sarah, a little girl who is orphaned by the war. She hides out in the forest and tries to end the war by sabotaging a railway bridge that is used by munitions trains. Slowly and painfully, throughout a freezing winter, she prises bricks from the supporting columns. In a sudden Spring thaw an ice floe crashes into the weakened column of the bridge and it plunges into the river. Sadly, she realizes that the end of the bridge does not mean the end of the war and she rejoins the creatures of the wild, disappearing into the forest forever.

This animated version of the classic Charles Dickens book faithfully follows the adventures of the young orphan Oliver Twist.

Find out what happens when a nice-or nasty-old woman calls on a rat-catcher to catch a nasty-or nice-family of rats living below her floor.

Morris impresses his older siblings when he opens the last box under the Christmas tree... and disappears.

In this adaptation of the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale, Stanley the duck timidly leaves the only home he's ever known -- the egg he hatched from -- to learn more about himself and search for his family. Along the way, he meets Nathan, a happy-go-lucky fox who teaches Stanley not to worry about his exterior, noting that one shouldn't pass judgment on others based on looks alone. Features the voices of Wolfman Jack, Rick Dees and Susan Blu.

The Berenstain Bears Comic Valentine is an animated television special based on the Berenstain Bears children's book series by Stan and Jan Berenstain. Produced by Buzz Potamkin and directed by Mordicai Gerstein and Al Kouzel, the program made its debut on NBC on February 13, 1982.

Uh-oh! That silly monkey's Curiosity leads him on another adventure when he swallows a puzzle piece. Rushed to the emergency room, George soon forgets his fears as he learns how hospitals help people feel better.

A completely original pilot made to test the Space Adventure Cobra franchise for the American market.

A boy wishes on a Christmas Star and finds out that his wish is granted.

A young boy is taken by a train on a mysterious journey. BAFTA-winning 14-minute adaptation of H.R. Millar's 1927 book, 'Dreamland Express.

The Hat is the story of a poor, disabled veteran, named Benito Badoglio, who finds a magical hat (actually, it finds him) and how that changes his life.

This animated short features Leonard, a 6-year-old boy with the unusual hobby of collecting sounds. Transforming household noises around him into exciting fantasies, he creates an adventure story for his older brother in which knights chase away monsters and perform other daring deeds.

A brief overview of the history of the game of tennis from its origin in "4572 A.C." and follows its development through Roman times, the Age of Chivalry and up to the modern game as played today.

The donkey descends from the mountains to the spring, picks up two large jugs of water drop by drop and carries them to the aul to distribute sweet water to everyone who needs it. But his greedy neighbor, the boar, does not allow him to pass, claiming that the path is his, because he passes near his gate. A boar drinks one jug and pours a second one, and the inhabitants of the aul - a rooster, a sheep and a bull-calf - get only drops.

Early computed animation in which two characters meet and fall in love.

Easter is fast approaching, and in this animated primetime special, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids find their efforts to do something nice for Mudfoot thwarted by a practical joke gone horribly awry. The gang is cleaning Mudfoot's place and paying his bills when Rudy plays a prank that quickly backfires. In the aftermath of the botched practical joke, the Cosby kids learn an important life lesson that's sure to stick. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

The vibrant images of this beautifully illustrated animation film will captivate all audiences, and will be particularly useful in the classroom to teachers of art and language arts. In this original fable the world loses its colours when a trout, obsessed by the beauty of the rainbow, steals it from the sky.