The Animation Pimp: Animation To Get Off To?

Illustration by Andreas Hykade. Courtesy of Chris Robinson.

Okay Ill be nice this time. Unless youre very liberal -- and I dont mean liberal as in voted for Ralph Nader -- I mean liberal in the sense that you: like Mr. Show; appreciate the humour of Tenacious D; dont necessarily like, but dont really have a problem with fisting; and/or dont think getting a handjob from a Vietnamese masseuse is a bad thing -- you probably wannaumm...bring down your favourites page and go visit one of your super groovy bestest Websites like http://www.ivanfarberspeaking.com or my friend Haydens favourite, http://www.schuminweb.com/

Festivals (Cardiff, Annecy, Stuttgart, Spike and Mike) are always showing so-called erotic animation programmes. Not really erotic per se: the mating habits of animals (Beastly Behaviour), Betty Boop, the Avery red head (Red Hot Riding Hood) are not erotic to this here cat. And Buried Treasure? That ol' perverted black & white film about the guy backdooring barn animals and chasing his wee wee around the farm is DEFINITELY not erotic. This is typical given the G.W. Bush dressed as A. Gore reality of the animation community. These sex programs are damn tame my friends. To me erotic means I will be arousedstiffhard....umm...alert.. if you will. But hey, okay so they're not erotic, they are called sex programmes on occasion. And who said sex has to be erotic? StillI beg to differ here because these so-called sex programs are like non-cable TV porn, just a lot of tease. You never get to see pubes in teeth, milk on lips, just a series of corny, obviously faking it, tableaux -- hell, correct that...you don't even get 'faking it'...cause faking it involves two people and few of these programmes ever show two beings doing it, let alone faking it.

So I figured there must be some pretty hardcore work out there and I called up my friend Lee and sure enuff he had three full cassettes of animation porn. I vaguely recall that he and I did a porn cartoon night at a local bar years ago, but I was too drunk to remember the details which I hope is why he has three volumes of animation porn OTHERWISE.

Settlin' Down For Some Good, Ol' Fashioned

Tape 1 appears to be a series called Filthy Funnys, Vol 4. The films also appear to be German in origin but have been re-dubbed by some L.A. hipsters, whove also decided that they must improvise and inject some occasional self-reflexive commentary. First film is called Bungle in The Jungle -- native theme. Two broads (isnt that what theyre meant to be here?) and a professor-type land on a native island and basically start stick shifting with everyone in site but the sex scenes are far too brief to get me aroused at all and the animation makes DIC cartoons look like ummwhomever you think is the best in animation. Oh and jeepers, they make the native fellas look like monkeys, which aside from YOU KNOWis weird cause heck why do these big bosomed women wanna play around with monkeys? Monkeys transmit lots of nasty diseases too. I hope the women and the prof (whose busy banging some BIG MAMA) got shots cause they ain't wearin' contraceptives. Hey, thats a funny bitthe prof is tied to a tree and the BIG MAMA swings on a rope to and fro on/off his willie. Hardy HAR. The animation looks like a 70s Sheridan College productionbut thats not possible because Sheridan College is in ONTARIO.

Next up is Fucks Pause, Faux Pas and Fox Paws. A fox wakes up, sees a hottie and tries to bang her (hes also got a HUGE willie), she flees to the rabbits house (bring on the Groucho-inspired voice actor) and after the rabbit saves her from the lecherous fox, she and Bugs do the meat dance on every piece of furniture in the house. The fox observes from a window and is somewhat miffed and hey, I dont blame him. Why is the bunny getting rewarded with the same damn thing the fox wanted? Fox decides to blow the house up with a cannon but bunny blocks the hole with his willie, and shoots his sneeze all over the fox. Out of nowhere the fox turns to a machine for "I Cant Get No," and then the bunny rides off with the girl. So okaythe animation (low grade Warner style) is passable, even pretty good, but the sex scenes are too fast, performed coldly, frantically and with no love. On top of that, the ink and line GIRL is screwin a rabbit. Who finds cartoon bestiality erotic? Not me.

Next is Buggery on the High Sea (I give the L.A. hipsters credit for their imaginative titles). This one's got, let's see, a bunny, pig and mouse on a pirate ship. They see an island ofyou guessed it!...hotties. But before they can say land HO, some other band of devious cat pirates are already diggin for oil. So a fight ensues and the pigs crew thrashes the cat pirates and boy, its nasty! Some sharks bite YOU KNOW WHAT off the cat pirates. Meantime the pig and his pals take a stab at the gals -- who dont seem to care who their dancin with

HEY, a see saw ride. WOW! Thats not how I remember it.

Meanwhile, the pig and pals roam around the island some more and find dark meat. "Yo ho ho and a bottle of rum." But replace the "r" with a "c." Jesusthis is gettin' weird. Suddenly Dumbo is givin' a gal a hell of an enema. The cat pirates end up in a pot gettin' cooked. I dont know, this whole animal thing is weirdin me out, and the sex scenes are just too brief to give me time to feel anything. THERE IS NO LOVE HERE and Christ, these voice over actors make it worse 'cause theyre tryin to be stand ups and they ain't funny in that "laugh WITH us dont kill us" way. Animation is bearable.

Bowery Boys Meets The Bimbo s. Oh boy, the v.o. gang really gets to spread their acting chops but hey, get a load of this technique. Its silhouette. Looks like a lost Lotte Reiniger film. This is almost festival worthyand I swear that one of the Mr. Show cast members is doin a voice here. Hes almost managing to parody the overacted parody of the other actors. And how's about this for improv: "What I see gives my tongue an erection."

Okayso four guys stumble (of course) upon a sorority house where four girls are sittin' on a bed scrubbing the garden. OhgeeI think I felt a tinglin' here. But I am not sure if it's for potential real girl-girl action or for the orange hued vaguely Fantasia inspired expressionistic backgrounds. Okay so a gang bang ensues and the boys leave. End. Best of the lot so far.

Tarzan Swings Again, not a very inspiring title. Blonde arrives on a native island and the "coons" (their words not mine) want some trim but as the hostile "coons" (their words not mine) approach, Tarzan swings down, grabs their dicks and beats them. No, not the dicks. The "coons" (their words not mine). Jane rewards Tarzan for his bravery withwhats thisa hand job! Jesus, thats IT? Frosty the...oh wait...okay no. Theres more and wow, hes using his rod as a fishing pole, and hey, theres a big queen mama arrivin. Tarzan drops Jane and moves onto the Queen, so Jane gets pissed off and starts sharing with the "coons" (you know), which is pretty silly since she didnt want them to touch her from the beginning. Jesusfinicky beech. Oh and yeahno arousal here and animation is quite sub-parlots of cycling.

Arabian Delight s: a sheik has gee, a harem. Oh hey...great finally some girl-girl action. Not only does this momentarily arouse me, but it triggers the rest of the harem to pounce on the sheik. Oh damn gee, thats terrible. Happened to me during my first dance at 15. The tents collapsed. Okay so he sees a doc, who gives him some tonic. HA HA HA. Hes growin boobs. Oh dear, he drank the wrong potion. Now he finds the male drink, gulps it down and goes nutsso nuts that he starts shaggin' his male butler. So this works for a while. But now hes overwhelmed by his task. He can't possibly fulfil the needs of all these women. So he builds this contraption that stimulates all the erogenous zones at once (plastic dildo, nipple puller, gardening glove, back door key).

For umm whatever reason the film has cut off and now were watching Sexrise in the Orient. Hmmtitle isn't so hot. Oh, I see this is part two...maybe this was a Weimar period serial. Okay, so the machine has blown a fuse and the sheik has do his own dirty work again. But then his willie starts talking to him and it collapses. Doc tells him to sleep and then builds a super computer that will replace this old contraption. But hey, whats this? It turns out that the doc is hiding in the machine and hes the one doing all the pleasuring. OH THAT DOC! Hes a sly one. Heh heh. So then as a punishment, sheik makes the doctor take the harem in exchange for a "young hairless boy" (this seems like clever ad-libbed dialogue from those L.A. hipsters). The animation is so bad I think I saw the transparencies moving like in that Coldplay video, but accidentally (and I bet that Coldplay video didnt even USE cels to begin with).

MEANWHILE my brain is startin' to go numb. Memories of Ottawa selection. Im not getting aroused at all from this and its almost giving me a headachemaking me dizzyeverything happens so damn fast. These actors (more like bored studio basement dwellers) just keep overplayin it. But hey to give them some creditI can't imagine these films working in German either but maybe the L.A. hipsters have cut these films to pieces.

Where are we nowDracula Sucks. Dracula wakes up and is spankin' the mic. Goes out apparently still hot and bothered (gee takes me a least 15-20 minutes sometimes to get all goin again) and he sees this gal walkin' along the roadso he, I guess he knows her, goes into a barn, jumps inside the cow's mouth and then inserts his mic into one of the cow's uttersoh okay I see where this is goin' and sure enough, the gal enters and starts milking the vampire. So okay.Then Jethro comes in and says, "Sweet Analisas getting porked by a vampire." He saves her, takes her home, and then wellyou know. (I dont understand this rewarding someone with the same prize that the apparent villain was trying to give the gal in the first place specially since the villain seems to have just as fine equipment as the hero.) Okay...this is dullDracula somehow ends up in a meat grinder after trying for another gal. Animation isn't even high schoolishbut the vamp sorta looks like Count Chocula.

No title on this onecouple are lying in bed -- looks like a normal festival film so far -- and the woman seems eager to go at it, but hubby is lethargic could this be a serious expression of suburban alienation? Well sort of While hubby's at work, wife amuses herself with the chimney sweeper, milkman and postmanoh and shes got a maid tooand so these two just walk around butt naked either taking care of their gardens or assisting the servicemen. Damn, they dont appear interested in each other thoughoh, and man whats this? Jeepers, a pop bottle and then a cactus plantoh, its a set up cause the TV repairman arrives and he gets pricked when he enters the wifes garden. HA HA HA HA

Best one yet is Pimper Power. It starts off like it's gonna be a suburban swing fest and then dissolves into some strange sort of non-narrative piece depicting all sorts of sexual shenanigans. Design ranges from that sort of Playboy illustration to UPA and even some bits that seem out of 50-60s Polish animation (Jan Lenica). Top marks for keeping it human and aside from willie coming out of a woman's mouth a bit (that is very tired), tain't bad.

Cyber Porn

This is stupid. Lets see what's online? Found this site called Jumping Jokes: Home of Bizarre Animation. Nothing goin' on herejust found some interactive stuffconceptual-gag-dada agenda dont get me wrong! I AM looking for something interactive, but I was thinking of something more ummintimate touchy feely like. NEXT! Disney Sex Worldthat should be plenty interestingoh dear page not foundit was there last week...at least thats what my friend told meI guess Michael got his legitimate goons on this onedamn I was hoping for some Minnie-Daisy action. Okay this looks hopeful. Its called Hot Cartoon and theres a menu of links ranging from Lora Croft sucks and phuks to Scooby phuks, Spiderman, Mickey, Xena and holy...even cute innocent little Casperalthough not sure how ghosts do it...well jeepslets check it outOH DAMN all these pop up boxes sheeeitSTOPcrazy help invasionokay.calm downsalright just close 'emcrap, more openingUGH ARGH...damn friggin' techno jerkshold on.

Okay. Under controlclosed the boxes. Just leading me in circlescouldnt find Casperokay...well somehow I stumbled onto something, but this isn't animation...its just colour drawings of Scooby, Shaggy and Fred having a whirl with that non-glasses galokay there seems to be some bizarre limited motion pieces involving the Simpsons, Jetsons (George and I cant tell if thats the missus or the daughter) and other assorted cartoonies doing naughty things but looks like I gotta pay a fee to watch, and that ain't gonna happen. Would have been interesting I guessbut do I really wanna see Bart and Lisaumm...never mind. Seems to be some pretty realistic 3D stuff too.

This toon sex ain't for me. Too cold and weird. Even the worst live-action porns at least TRY to create a friggin' story line to get you all hot and lathered and anticipatorybut hey thats okif you wanna get off with this stuff, thats coolsome folks like sharing spit with animals, food and inanimate objectsso why not animated versions? And heck there seems to be a lot of this stuff out there, so surely more than a handful of people are INTO it.

The Point Is?

So why arent the festival programmers getting off their place that ain't their mouths and showing this really outrageous stuff? Even Spike seems to ignore hard core ani porn although he doesnt mind hard core ani violence.

But heySmut duck. Its all part of animation historythese contributions are just as valid, legit, REAL as legit soft porn like South Park, Beavis and Butthead, Ren and Stimpy and Plympton, or even artsy fartsy artists like Wayne Traudt, Suzan Pitt and Erica Russell. All of these works (from Fucks Pause to Buggery on the High Sea) are legitimate forms, expressions, reflections, imaginings from REAL guys and gals like me and you.

Im guessing this part of animation history got brushed aside PARTIALLY because of morality and taste (and lets not forget that these aint films youre gonna find in the Whole Toon Catalogue, so this requires a historian to delve into the secret, lurid world of ADULT ENTERTAINMENT) and that seems to be an illegitimate excuse given that I can argue that some of the stuff that the current group of historians lapdance over is quite politically and socially, to use the original meaning of porn, "disgusting and obscene."

For e.g., Karl Cohens book only really deals with lurid underground films in the context of the legitimate world -- which is important -- but we need someone to go down into the sewers and find the stuff that doesnt surface. And what about ol Bendazzi How can he justify excluding the makers of Bowery Boys Meets The Bimbos? Why arent these German creators in his encyclopaedia?

Where are the historians uncovering the Golden Shower era? Who made these films? Who distributed them? Why do these films exist? What does the creation of, and apparent need for, these films say about our view of sex? Was there a stag party circuit? Did these toons play before live-action porn features? Lets not limit our definitions of unsung and overlooked figures in animation history to storyboard artists, voice actors and layout men above groundcause thats cow chewthats just another case of blatantly subjective and repressive readings of history.

That being saidwhat I SORTA dont get is why someone wants to spend so much time creating this sexual world -- whether writer, painter, etc? I can understand an artist wanting to capture the essence of some great lay they just hadbut isn't it easier to go and meet someoneor hellits prolly cheaper to BUY someone. I guess film-video-digital is a better long term investment but just seems kinda sad 'cause theres no real human. Not touching is like living inside a bubble or being a writer. Course if we didnt deem aspects of sex between consenting adults IMMORAL, unnatural yadda yadda yadda, we wouldnt need porn and advertising (isn't that just soft porn?) in the first place and wed all prolly be a lot happier and satisfied. And who the hell wants that?

Chris Robinson is but a man. His hobbies include squirrel taunting, goat thumping, meat dancing and elderly peeping. You can find the results at http://asifa.net/robinson

A well-known figure in the world of independent animation, writer, author & curator Chris Robinson is the Artistic Director of the Ottawa International Animation Festival.