Fiddle-de-dee (1947)
Article 5825 by Dave Sindelar
Date: 8-3-2020
Directed by Norman McLaren
No cast
Country: Canada
What it is: Abstract bluegrass

You can stomp your feet and clap all you want, but there’s no plot.

I must be on an animation kick lately, having gone from Felix the Cat cartoons to a short by Starewicz and now one of those abstract animations by Norman McLaren. Perhaps the most striking thing about this one is the choice of music; it’s a bluegrass tune called “Listen to the Mockingbird” played by an old-time fiddler, and I’m willing to bet that one of the reasons it was done is that it’s such an odd choice for this type of animation. Actually, though, the resulting visuals are fast-moving, colorful, vibrant and lively, and as usual, McLaren finds humor in abstraction (or, at least it looks that way to me – those are chicken feet I’m seeing, right?) I’m covering this one because it’s in the Walt Lee guide, and the only fantastic content is that it’s non-realistic. But I quite enjoyed this one.