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ANIMALYMPICS
Rating: 
USA. 1979.
Director – Steven Lisberger, Screenplay – Steven Lisberger & Michael Fremer, Story – Steven Lisberger, Roger Allers & John Norton, Producers – Steven Lisberger & Donald Kushner, Music – Graham Gouldman, Animation Supervisor – Bill Kroyer, Art Direction – Allers, Norton & Peter Mueller. Production Company – Lisberger Studios.
Voices:
Gilda Radner, Billy Crystal, Harry Shearer, Michael Fremer
Plot: Animals come from all over the world to Pawprint Stadium on Animalympic Island to compete in the Animalympics.
This animated film was designed to commercialize on the 1980 Moscow Olympics. This proved to be a gamble that flopped spectacularly when the Olympics were boycotted by most nations over the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. With no plot to speak of, the film is only a series of running skits and gags that lack any connection – the whole film could make do with a quarter of its running time with no measurable difference. It never seems to be much more than a feature-length collation of cartoon shorts. Action slows to a standstill during the insipid, instantly forgettable songs. Although the odd gag is amusing, like the biography of an alligator athlete – “He began life as a handbag – they said he’d never walk again.”
Director Steven Lisberger next branched out into live-action with the excellent cyberspace film Tron (1982) and then his career stalled with the flop post-holocaust film Slipstream (1989).
Copyright Richard Scheib 1999-2011
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