Plasticine Crow


Plasticine Crow is a 1981 Soviet clay animation by Aleksandr Tatarskiy. Animation divided into three independent parts. The film was Russia's first claymation film.

Plot synopsis

Picture

The first part tells kids about the three painting styles – landscape, still life and portrait.
Lyrics for the first part were written by Alexander Kushner and sung by Grigory Gladkov, who also composed whole cartoon.

Game

The second part features the story of grandpa and his nephew playing the children game where the players periodically opens and shuts their eyes. And every time they are amazed with looking to something new in front of them.
This part was based on lyrics by Ovsey Driz and performed by Leonid Bronevoy and Alesha Pavlov.

But maybe, but maybe...

The final part is a parody of The Crow and the Fox, best known in Russian with the version by Krylov. The storytellers can't remember the story plot, and they are trying to recall it.
Thus, instead of the crow from Krylov's story, a dog appears, and then a cow, and even a hippopotamus. The original fox is also replaced by an ostrich and then by a street cleaner.
At the end of the entirely distorted fable, a distorted moral is given: Don't stand and don't jump, don't sing and don't dance where there is construction in progress or heavy load hanging..
The lyrics for the third part were written by Eduard Uspensky.

Voice cast

At the time of release, the Soviet state officials wanted to ban the film because of "ideological nonsense". Nevetheless, head of Kinopanorama television programme Xeniya Marinina and host and film director Eldar Ryazanov managed to show cartoon in one of editions of Kinopanorama on Soviet Central Television, bypassing the censorship.

Production