Boundin’ (2003)
Article 5700 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 10-5-2019
Directed by Bud Luckey
Featuring the voice of Bud Luckey
Country: USA
What it is: Attitude adjustment

A sheep loves to dance until he gets sheared, and then he gets depressed. Can someone help him solve his attitude problem?

To be honest, part of me didn’t want to review this one, and since my memory mostly remembered it as a compendium of talking and dancing animals, I thought I could skip it using the excuse that animals of this sort were merely a cartoon convention, and not real fantastic content. However, the presence of the mythical jackalope did nudge it into fantastic territory, so here’s the review.

Why didn’t I want to review this one? It’s because I’m a 1) big Pixar fan, and this short is in the unenviable position of being 2) the first work of theirs that did not blow me away. This is not to say that the animation and production values aren’t up to scratch; they are. It’s just that the story (such as it is) does nothing for me. It’s basically a story about a character who becomes dispirited and is then cheered up and regains his spirit. Now, stories like this can work (and often have), but there’s not enough time here to develop any sort of real empathy with the sheep, and the short ends up being no more inspirational than your average inspirational poster; sadly, the latter leave me cold. Pixar has much better shorts out there, and I look forward to covering them in the future.