Monday, March 17, 2014

The Body Electric (Atkinson Film-Arts, 1985)

Recently I discovered an interesting animated special produced up in Canada I never saw before, but only recall the name simply because of some model sheets a kind fellow had sent me years ago.  The special was titled "The Body Electric" and involved a race against time for two inhabitants of an enclosed city trying to escape being killed by the robotic forces that took over their civilization (a la The Matrix I suppose).  It was produced by Ottawa-based Atkinson Film-Arts, who had produced many other notable works in the 80's including the earliest featuring Kevin Gillis' "The Raccoons", "Babar & Father Christmas", several Care Bears specials, the Teddy Ruxpin series and even a Xmas special based on Lynn Johnston's "For Better or For Worse".  The copy was later bought out by another studio and eventually went bankrupt by the end of the decade.

Here's one TV report on the studio from 1986...

Here's the model sheets from The Body Electric for anyone curious into checking them out!






















Here's an animated .gif I prepared of one scene where Woody slingshots a security camera.  This shot was animated by Graham Falk and cleaned-up by Gerard de Souza, who supplied me with copies of the drawings/model sheets from this production so big thanks to him!

And last, the special itself!  It was lucky someone up there managed to record it though I suppose the fact that the music along was by the rock group Rush is the reason for it at all.

4 comments:

Kid said...

Thanks for taking the time and trouble to assemble this post, Chris. I'm sure many people appreciate it, even if they don't comment to say so.

Chris Sobieniak said...

Glad you do at least!

I do have model sheets from "The Raccoons" to share if I care to.

Unknown said...

I've been looking for this cartoon for the last 25 odd years, so thanks for all the info! All I could remember from my childhood other than the twist at the end was the scene where the robot electrocutes then in the water. It was awesome to watch it again as an adult.

Chris Sobieniak said...

Glad to make your day Hollie!