The Street (1976, Caroline Leaf)

Story of the summer grandma lay dying in the back bedroom, as told by the grandson who wanted that room for himself. Brilliant animation, looks like charcoal, with erasures visible under the movement. Internet says it was paintings on glass, lovely. Leaf made a pile of animated shorts – I’ve watched her Kafka Metamorphosis one. Did not win the oscar – the movie that beat it is described by an IMDB reviewer as “eye-gougingly dull”.

Is It Always Right To Be Right? (1970, Lee Mishkin)

A 1960’s political generational-gap movie, also featuring sexual and race differences. “Everyone was right – of course – and they knew it.” Pretty below-average animation with a heavy-handed message, but still won the oscar. the director also worked on Mister Magoo shorts and a 1980’s bionic superhero show, ending up on The Simpsons.

Le Chapeau/The Hat (2000, Michele Cournoyer)

An insane morph-drawing of women, sex and hats. Internet says: “An exotic dancer recalls an incident from her childhood where she was physically abused by a male visitor,” but I was busy being impressed by the animation and missed the point.

Munro (1961, Gene Deitch)

Reminiscent of The Bear That Wasn’t. A four-year-old boy is drafted into the army. He tries to tell everyone that he’s four, but every draftee has an excuse to try avoiding the draft, and that one doesn’t fly. Won the oscar over a Czech film, a Disney short about a tiny elephant, a Sylvester cat cartoon and a Chuck Jones sheet-music sketch. Writer Jules Feiffer had a weird career, including Carnal Knowledge and Altman’s Popeye. The director worked at UPA, did some Popeye shorts and a version of Where The Wild Things Are.

Girls Night Out (1987, Joanna Quinn)

A housewife and her buddies blow off steam by partying at a male strip joint while her miserable-looking husband watches television at home, unaware. Nice Bill Plympton-looking animation, with great flickering shadows coming from the TV set.

Just a Gigolo (1932, Dave Fleischer)

Live-action singer Irene Bordoni intrudes into an unusually short Betty Boop cabaret cartoon to sing her gigolo song with follow-the-bouncing-ball onscreen lyrics.