Frank Zappa presents: The Amazing Mr. Bickford (1987)
Several pieces of Frank Zappa's music are set against clay animation by Bruce Bickford.
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What a waste of my time!!!
It's fun, it's light, [but] it has a hard time when its tries to get heavy.
It isn't all that great, actually. Really cheesy and very predicable of how certain scenes are gonna turn play out. However, I guess that's the charm of it all, because I would consider this one of my guilty pleasures.
While it is a pity that the story wasn't told with more visual finesse, this is trivial compared to our real-world problems. It takes a good movie to put that into perspective.
If you're somebody who considers animation an art form, this short (about 60 minutes)video is for you (happy hunting finding it, 'tho---it's been out of print for years). The video centers on Bruce Bickford, who originally was tapped to produce some animated sequences for Frank Zappa's TV project, 'A Token Of His Extreme' (1975),and later produced the clay animated footage in Zappa's videos, 'The Dub Room Special' (1981),and 'Baby Snakes' (1978). This video includes footage from all of the above,plus some early animated shorts. What makes this video even more desirable is some orchestral Zappa music that was added special for this video project. Do yourself a favour, and avoid any & all psychedelic drugs before undertaking this video (you'll thank yourself afterward). No MPAA rating here, but contains some pretty intense and downright disturbing claymation sequences (including some graphic violence & sexual themes that border on the pornographic)
This clay animation is violent, sexually explicit and disturbing. No wonder Frank Zappa found it interesting. Some of this animation has been seen before in Zappa's "Baby Snakes" and "Dub Room Special". The rest is previously unreleased. Zappa's music provides an eerie accompaniment to Bickford's images. This tape is currently out of print, let's hope that Gail re-releases it on DVD when the videos start coming out again. At just shy of an hour, any more would be overwhelming.