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Terry Hooper-Scharf

Sunday 27 July 2014

(Censored from TV) The Adventures Of Mark Twain (1985) -intended for kids!

10 comments:

  1. Wonderful. Kids should be scared more like this because it has the depth to truely make you think.
    Why was it banned from TV ? Rather violence, mock horror, nudity, sneering mocking 'humour' and crass sensationalism than something which is genuinely thought provoking for kids ? TV and movies. God help us.

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  2. Ah, I think it was a 1980s Canadian(?) animation titled The Adventures Of Mark Twaine. I played this for Mr Brown on Saturday and it scared him! What I wanted to know was WHO wrote that sequence and who commissioned it to be made!!!
    Oh, your letter went off this morning so..

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  3. Just to clarify here - this isn't a TV show, it's a 1985 feature length film called The Adventures of Mark Twain (or "Comet Quest" in the UK), a stop-motion epic from Will Vinton (as in, creator of the California Raisins). This is but a segment of it, and it was never "banned", just omitted from SOME television broadcasts. No different to the shoe-murdering scene in Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

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  4. Thank you for clarifying that - I chose the wrong word there. I simply wish there was more of this quality of material on 'regular' TV ( I understand now that it was a film - and made in 1985 ! ). I do wish that programme budgets were aimed more towards truely artistic works geared towards children, and not simply childish entertainment.

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  5. Ahh, "omitted" is just censoring by another name -though I can see why! Oh, and it was the uploaders on You Tube who said "TV" but that's You Tube! I'm going to look for the movie on dvd!!!

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  6. There was a fancy special anniversary edition released last year (or the year before?) I think, well worth investing whatever the price - one of my all-time favourite animated films!

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  7. Really ? If the whole movie is half as interesting as this, it should be more well known. Something to push on CBO I think, Terry - rather than the next HULK 'stand alone' movie. HULK SMASH RAAR HULK KILL GRAAAGH. Hmmm... not really Mark Twain, is it ? Still, that said, congratulations on calling the new movie. You are the new Nostradamus.

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  8. Ah, TwoHeadedBoy -there seem to be a few people recommending it so I guess I'm obliged to buy iy now! It does look like some fantastic claymation work!

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  9. For the MOST interesting stop-motion film possible (at least in terms of technical achievement), see if you can find a film called The Amazing Mister Bickford (1987) - made completely by one man (Bruce Bickford), with music by Frank Zappa, it's constantly morphing (characters turn into landscapes which turn into different characters and so on), and features the crazy camera angles and "bullet time" stuff that the Matrix would popularise over a decade later.

    It's not available on DVD, but the VHS is easy enough to find, and failing that, the whole film's on YouTube anyway:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oTieNPNNrZI

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  10. Hi. I've heard of it and seen a clip (a LOOONG time ago) so I'll check out you tube!

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