Sudden Wonder

[mishalak]

A Pointless Story
When I was about 12 or 13 I saw something wonderful on PBS. It came out of no where, a short put on between two other shows to fill up the time. Seven minutes that were among the best on television. It was Next: The Infinite Variety Show, a short of seven minutes of a stop action puppet Shakespeare performing bits from every one of his plays.

It was one of the things that I really liked about Channel 12. That on occasion something brilliant would just happen. They would regularly put on short programs to fill up time.

Now thanks to power of the web I finally know that it was created by Barry Purves of from Aardman Animations. They even have it available on their website, though only in a region 2 DVD. Someday I will own this, because when I saw it back in about 1990 I was totally stunned. I wanted desperately to collect this, and I suppose it is why I sometimes go around the web saving quick time trailers and shorts. I don't want to let something wonderful like this get away.

I would collect certain advertisements too if I could. I just need to figure out a way, since it isn't exactly something one can just go down to the corner Best Buy to get. But I like the quality of sudden wonder that a really beautiful sequences of images appearing suddenly has.

Comments

[mix-o-choc.livejournal.com]

I was kind of like that with Jim Henson's the story teller series but I got over it :) besides I can just walk to my local blockbuster and rent the series if I wanted. I have a convenient excuse too, I tend to babysit the little cousins so whenever I do I go nuts on cartoon and kids videos.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Lucky you. I don't think our local blockbuster carries the series. And I'd still love to get it on disc.

[alias-lilacgirl.livejournal.com]

That on occasion something brilliant would just happen. They would regularly put on short programs to fill up time.
But then you spend your whole live trying to find them again! and OMG I remember that little puppet short! Are we too geeky or what :-)

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Yep. I have dreamed of dressing up like Shakespeare at the end in that Jupiter eagle costume, or else doing a drawing like that. But now due to the power of the net we know both what it is, who made it, and what we would have to do to get a copy. Send away to Britain and hack my computer disc play so it can play any region.

[alias-lilacgirl.livejournal.com]

But now due to the power of the net we know both what it is, who made it, and what we would have to do to get a copy.
Okay, I want to know where my brain was that I never thought of that! Yay!

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

I didn't think of it either until last week.

[thette.livejournal.com]

The best ad campaign ever is out on the web, but without the annoying prices is white text. (It's based on product placing, and so far only available in Swedish, though I can't imagine why the concept hasn't been sold.)

Go to www.ica.se, and click on the red speech bubble furthest down.

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Some of those are pretty good, even if I don't understand exactly what is being said I get the emotional gist of it. Pretty cool. I'm going to have to figure out if I can get 'round the copy protection to save them to my computer.

[bibliofile.livejournal.com]

What a great studio, Aardman! We had all three Wallace & Gromit videos in our house (me, my flatmate, and my spouse) when they became available. I first saw the Shakespeare short and the Creature Comforts commercials on one of those tapes. (Hmm, if Aardman had its own tape, Amazon doesn't list it.) Now all you need to do is find someone local who already owns the tape. Or hack your DVD player so that it can play other formats? (Note that I'm not up on DVD tech.)

[mishalak.livejournal.com]

Well Aardman does list their compellation thing as being out. And it is region 2 only. So that means I would have to hack my DVD player to work with it. The region thing isn't about formats as much as it is about a silly way of locking up markets so discs can't be shipped other places. Most players sold in the UK are hacked so that they'll play any disc, I'll have to see what I can do about this on my computer.