An interlude about furry cult classics

[chipotle]

There were a few formative commercial works in the early years of furry fandom—we’re talking around two decades ago—that took the idea of “funny animals” and treated them in serious, adult fashion. (“Adult” in this case simply means “not aimed at children,” although the arguments about the place of sexy critters in the fandom started, well, before the fandom did.) Mostly, these were comics: “Albedo Anthropomorphics,” “Usagi Yojimbo” and “Omaha the Cat-Dancer.” You’d occasionally hear novels mentioned—Spellsinger, or The Pride of Chanur.

Animation, though, not so much. Fans liked cartoons where lines for the adults were snuck in, too, and found shows that could be appreciated by an older audience, like Disney’s “Tale Spin.” But animation was—and remains—resistant to stories that aren’t aimed at younger audiences, and the idea of using animal-based characters for such a story would likely be laughed out of the studio. (At least for Western studios. And, remember, Japanese animation was still largely unknown here in the mid-’80s.)

The great exception to this: a little-known Canadian film called Rock & Rule.

Rock & Rule can be described, facetiously but not unfairly, as what the Heavy Metal movie might have been like if it had been given a plot. (No, it was a collection of unconnected stories. No, the Great Ball of Evil wasn’t a plot. Don’t even pretend.) It takes place in a dim, grungy future after a great war has wiped out humans, and the Earth is populated with “mutants” who rose from the animals. The storyline concerns an eccentric rock musician staging a comeback concern during which he plans the “effect” of summoning a demon—magic for which he needs to find one special voice.

Yes, this meant it was a musical, but a musical in which the characters were, well, musicians. The songs generally made, y’know, sense. And, incredibly enough, they recruited interesting musicians for this: Mok, the villain, was sung by Lou Reed; the band he pursued was performed by Cheap Trick, with a female lead sung by Debbie Harry. All the musicians wrote their own music, original to the movie.

Now, with dystopic science fiction, mutants, satanic magic, and a quasi-punk soundtrack, how can you possibly vanish without a trace? As it turns out, you can’t even get a proper theatrical release. United Artists, the releasing company, had undergone a management shift, and the new MGM/UA had no interest in the movie at all, performing their duties to the absolute bare minimum of the contract.

So, the last time I saw this movie, it was a third-generation VHS bootleg. That’s the way most fans saw it, if they’d seen it at all. MGM/UA did release a videotape, for an exorbitant price and with a mediocre, pan-and-scan transfer; I’m given to understand there was also a videodisc released in very small numbers.

A few months ago, though, it was released on DVD by a company specializing in cult movies, from a newly restored print, with a remastered digital 5.1 soundtrack. I couldn’t resist buying a copy.

It’s usually the case that things you remember from the past aren’t as good as you remember them to be, and frankly, I didn’t remember Rock & Rule as being that good—I remembered it more as being in the “interesting failure” category. But as it turned out, it’s better than I remember: the script is better and the animation is considerably better than my memory.

This is still the stuff of cult followings: the storyline is downright weird, the soundtrack is not pop radio friendly, and the animation veers more than once to the psychedelic. But if you’re the sort of person who might like a trippy post-apocalypse rock-and-roll fairy tale—with the sexiest mutant mouse girl ever as the lead (granted, there’s not much competition in the field)—it’s definitely worth seeing.

Comments

[kereminde.livejournal.com]

Cult classic? You mean like "Meet the Feebles", also apparently *really* hard to find? Well, supposedly because Mordenheim recently located a copy (recent as in, two or so weeks ago). He claims he's been looking for it for a long time; I rather believe that, considering we had to comb an entire used video store on our first trip there and didn't find it though it was in their counts. The next time we found it just kinda sitting there.

Or are we talking closer to things like "Fire and Ice", which was decent animation that got buried? . . . though I admit it ran a bit long for me at the time I had watched it last. Hopefully I'll be able to run the tape again soon and watch the whole thing.

[sebkha.livejournal.com]

Personally, my favorite lost furry classic has always been Animalymics (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0078780/). The character designs in that always struck me as more attractive furries than Rock & Rule's. Similarly though, it also had a pretty good soundtrack (http://www.kkwow.com/album/).

[twentythoughts.livejournal.com]

This is one good thing about living in Norway: Stuff like that often finds its way on to a DVD release. "Meet the Feebles" was part of a Peter Jackson DVD series, released as the Lord of the Rings movies were making the rounds. For a while, it was pretty easy to find, and cheap as well. Seems to have been a limited release, though, as it's listed as "temporarily sold out" in most places now.

[momentrabbit.livejournal.com]

I first saw R&R when it was broadcast on the CBC - on a black and white TV, which made it a little more surreal. I kept having flashbacks to it when Droids came out, because Nelvana reused the music shamelessly there. And then, the second time I saw it:college.

I believe Sheridan has a print from the original: it didn't have any generative fading when I saw it there. They show R&R to all 1st year animation students... Part of the Animation History class on Nelvana, which is, after all, where nearly all the Animation Faculty came from.

Now, of course, they can show it from the DVD, which is cool. And with a copy of The Devil and Daniel Mouse, no less, in the higher-cost edition.

Groovy. All my childhood influences coming home to roost. Gotta put this on my list of things to get when the finances are under control.

[koogrr.livejournal.com]

Yes, even their desks came from Nelvanna.

I've seen it a couple times on TV. You know, I think one of my friends has a Laser Disk copy. His dad owned a second-run theater, they had a mini-movie theater in their basement, and they had 35mm reels and laser disks of a variety of odd things.

I've got Animalympics on VHS. Official release.

Meet the Feebles was inescapable at one point, strange to think of it as rare and obscure now.

[cargoweasel.livejournal.com]

Rock and Rule failed not only because of marketing, but because its production was a tortured mess, with finished animation done while other scenes were still being scripted, and the whole thing taking over five years to complete. When it was FINALLY released in 1984, the arena-rock stylings of Mok were horribly dated. It would have been the hippest thing ever had it come out in around 1979 or 1980, but the Metal-Hurlant style was something the youth audiences of '84 had very little patience for. Even now it's a gloriously late-70s stadium-rock mess, with a dark, muddy animation style that fits the milieu. And it's furry, but the characters are kind of ugly and square-eyed with their weird muzzle designs.

I saw it one night on CBC when I was 13 or so, aired at midnight and I thought it was some kind of dream, forgetting about it until years later. I do want to get the DVD just to own a clean copy.

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

I'd say it's more like the latter than the former. It's not a perfect movie by any stretch, but it's certainly more than decent animation. It shares that "labor of love" feeling that Bakshi's work has -- although all the complaints that might be made about "Rock & Rule" being quirky and undisciplined go over tenfold for just about anything that Bakshi does. :)

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

I've only seen "Animalympics" once, fairly recently; it was a show I was thinking of but didn't name when referring to shows with lines adults can appreciate. But, despite furry fan protestation to the contrary, it struck me as pretty firmly in the mold of later Warner Brothers cartoons -- designed to be all-ages entertainment. "Rock & Rule" is unusual in that rather than trying for the "enjoy it on multiple levels" approach, it's just not aimed at children; outside of Japan, Bakshi was the only animator consistently trying to do that. (And that's the only sense in which I think anyone could call him "consistent.") While they're both definitely products of their eras, so to speak, "Animalympics" also struck me as not having aged quite as well as Rock & Rule did.

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

I rather liked Rock and Rule. I'll have to look up the DVD. Thanks.

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

According to the production notes (which were surprisingly good on the 'deluxe' edition, which was still only $20, so I figured what the hell) it was three and a half years in production, not five -- but, it definitely sounded like it had some of the same problems Disney's "Black Cauldron" had: over budget, way over deadline, constantly in flux, and a finished product that nobody was quite sure what to do with. The comparison to "Heavy Metal" is pretty apt, as it came out about the same time R&R would have, if it had actually come out. (It doesn't sound like it *ever* actually got a full theatrical release. Apparently, Nelvana was actually approached to do the animation for "Heavy Metal," too.)

The animation was muddier in my recollection than it actually is on the DVD, though, and the music and overall look aged better than you might expect -- the soundtrack isn't quite as stapled-to-the-'80s as "Heavy Metal" is, which I credit to having gotten a few rather quirky artists to do the songs. (The actual score has much more of the late-'70s synth-heavy sci-fi flashback feeling.)

If you want truly dated, the "Devil and Daniel Mouse" short that inspired "Rock & Rule" is pretty remarkable, and I don't mean that in a complimentary way. :)

[maxburn.livejournal.com]

Thank you!
I´m gonna go try to find this now.

[JC]2

[coldfyre.livejournal.com]

Better than you remember, you say? I hope you're right, because my friends are probably going to make me watch the DVD in a week or two. I saw it once on VHS years ago, and have lived in constant dread, afraid to so much as speak its name, lest someone make me watch it again. The name must have slipped out at some point, for my friends have always jokingly suggested renting it. I remained secure in the knowledge that they'd never find it, until last week when it showed up in plain sight on DVD in the New Releases section. Still, it can't possibly have been worse than Wizards, or that animated Lord of the Rings... I hope... o.o

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

Well, I'd say it's better than anything Bakshi's done (at least anything I've seen by him). The "interesting failure" category is where nearly all his stuff goes.

Having said that, I suspect if you watch "Rock & Rule" expecting to cringe, you'll probably get precisely what you're looking for. :) I suspect a lot of anime fans would dismiss it as embarrassingly goofy. But it has some of the same hallmarks Japanese animation does: a weird plot that mixes high-tech and magic in haphazard fashion, a love of visual effects for their own sake, and a tendency for the tone to veer without warning between straight-faced and slapstick in the same scene.

[higginsdragon.livejournal.com]

I think Animalympics didn't age so well because the Olympics don't matter as much anymore. When did that come out, 80 or so? I do fondly remember it from my youth, but really can't stand watching it anymore. I mean, back then, when the Olympics came about, it was all that was on TV. Now, with hundreds of cable channels and zillions of sporting events, Olympics alternating every two years and no more Soviet Union, really, what's to care about anymore? :)

Rock and Rule is neat to look at in one of those 'What the 70's thought the future would be like.' Saw it recently too for the DVD release. The rotoscoped characters were icky, but the more free-style drawn ones showed what it could've been.

[cowboy-r.livejournal.com]

Hey, I'm thinking about putting out a PDF / Dead Tree Edition of Tails of the City, and I was wondering if I could include your FALF review of it, at the end? Maybe selected quotes from it for the back of jacket copy?

[chipotle.livejournal.com]

Sure.