Pomporrutas imperiales

Wallace Carlson walks viewers through the production of an animated short at Bray Studios.

The boozy mercenary of the title, based on the actual historical figure of Naoyuki Ban (1567-1615), attempts to rid a haunted castle of spooks.

The Farmer is abducted by a capering Jungle Goddess. As pre-Code as a Terrytoon ever got. Most animation is by Frank Moser; with him are Art Babbitt, Jerry Shields, Bill Tytla and others.

A scarce and seldom seen cartoon from 1937 with excellent hot jazz and containing caricatures of Cab Calloway, Ted Lewis and Bessie Smith.

Bambi is nibbling the grass, unaware of the upcoming encounter with Godzilla. Who will win when they finally meet? Preserved by the Academy Film Archive in 2009.

A series of trick film hallucinations and scary doubling effects result when Patachon smokes an opium cigarette.

My Friend Friedrich opens on awkward, bespectacled Columbia student Nate having a heart to heart on the phone with his mother. Then, in a philosophy class, he almost succeeds in landing a date by lobbing an illustrated invitation at his love interest, Emma. All goes awry when a taller, more confident, bespectacled Columbia student cuts him off at the knees. So far, so very New York student film, but a conceit arrives to distinguish this story of Ivy League dating woes: the ghost of Friedrich Nietzsche appears before Nate to guide him towards self-actualization.

This 12 minute short was released as part of the Choose Your Own Adventure option on the H&K Guantanamo Bay DVD. The blurb is: "Ever wonder what would have happened if Harold & Kumar had not been sent to Guantanamo and simply made it to Amsterdam? Here's a little something director Jon Hurwitz shot guerrilla-style all over Amsterdam in 3 days."

Follow a day of the life of Big Buck Bunny when he meets three bullying rodents: Frank, Rinky, and Gamera. The rodents amuse themselves by harassing helpless creatures by throwing fruits, nuts and rocks at them. After the deaths of two of Bunny's favorite butterflies, and an offensive attack on Bunny himself, Bunny sets aside his gentle nature and orchestrates a complex plan for revenge.

In this animated short, a terrible curse deprives Balthasar's kingdom of its stories. Taking the unicorn's horn back into The Belly of the Earth is the solution. Poppety will lead an expedition, by chance uncovering a hitherto closely guarded family secret.