Last week I highlighted some of the 16mm features that were donated by Biograph to our film program. Today I’ll look at the shorts and, again, I’ll cherry-pick the ones I’m screening in the back yard. With an emphasis on fun I’m easily able to whittle the 30-plus shorts down to the following 11 titles.

A Trip to the Moon (George Méliès, 1902, 10 mins.): Méliès is the perfect way to show kids that film history is not a stodgy affair. His work is over a hundred years old, but still powerfully magical and inventive. “A Trip to the Moon is the most popular of Georges Méliès’ many films. The film, which predicted space travel, contains a great number of effects for which Méliès had become famous. The mixing of ‘bathing beauties’ and science fiction is something that the genre has been imitating ever since. In general his style was copied by film-makers around the world.”

Bambi Meets Godzilla (Marv Newland, 1969, 2 mins.): A personal favorite! As with many Biograph catalog descriptions, this one comes with spoilers. But, c’mon! If you couldn’t guess, from the title alone, how this one plays out then it’s time to put down the crack pipe. “Bambi meets Godzilla is a film made up of movie credit titles running over the simply animated form of Bambi nuzzling a clover. The titles all humorously conceived, are credited to Marv Newland, the film’s creator. After about a minute of this pastoral beauty Godzilla’s foot comes into view from above and squashes the life out of the hungry little fawn, Bambi.”

Bass on Titles (Saul Bass,1977, 32 mins.) Opening credits do a lot toward setting the mood for the film you are about to watch and it really does constitute its own art form. Think of the amazing things Pablo Ferro did with Stanley Kubrick, or any of a number of other films. And then, of course, there’s the amazing Saul Bass. “A selection of feature film title sequences presents the work of Academy Award winner Saul Bass. One of the most important and creative graphic designers working in film. In this film, Bass discusses the evolution of his work from the idea through the final filmed sequences. His designs involve the search for the elusive visual statement which instantaneously communicates the film’s intent while generating public interest. Among the film titles included are The Man With the Golden Arm, West Side Story, A Walk on the Wild Side, Big Country.”

Big Business (James Wesley Horne, 1929, 20 mins.) This has got to be one of the most utterly fantastic orchestrations of escalating destruction ever put to film – and I total gut buster. “Stan and Ollie are selling Christmas trees and they run into sales resistance from James Finlayson. They are determined to sell him and he is determined to resist. Soon everything else is forgotten as they battle, destroying all within sight; the customer’s house and their car. The police arrive and the two sides make peace. As a last gesture of new found friendship, Finlayson is given a cigar by Hardy which, of course, explodes.”

Closed Mondays (Will Vinton and Bob Gardiner, 1974, 8 mins.) Nevermind the Night at the Museum, here’s the real deal. “This remarkable clay animation film won an Academy Award. In it a drunk wanders into a closed museum where the art objects come to life. The kinetic sculpture coming to life is one of the most skillful thirty seconds in animation history. This entrancing film also won the International Film Critics Award at the Annecy World Animation Festival and the Media & Methods Magazine Maxi Award.”

Daffy Duck and the Dinosaur (Chuck Jones, 1939, 8 mins.) Oddly enough, this one’s not listed in the Biograph Catalog, maybe because, really, what else need be said? Chuck Jones! Daffy Duck! Done. Bring the kids. This one will pair up beautifully with Bambi Meets Godzilla.

The Doonesbury Special (John & Faith Hubley, 1977, 26 mins.) I’ve always been a fan of Garry Trudeau’s strip, and still have my hardcover book from 1971 which features his very first (very crudely drawn) strips – and it even has a rare picture of Trudeau smoking what looks like a joint! “In a few short years, Garry Trudeau’s comic strip ‘Doonesbury’ has become a part of the American culture. In this ironic look at contemporary society, Zonker Harris and his friends come face to face with shifting values and the conclusion of an era – the age of the activist sixties.”

Easy Street (Charles Chaplin, 1917, 19 mins.) Can’t have a shorts program without The Tramp. “Charlie plays a bum who is reformed and becomes a policeman. The tough guys on Easy Street don’t like cops and Charlie must tame the street on his first day on the job. In the end Charlie saves his girlfriend from the bad guys and they (the bad guys) then become model citizens.”

Moonbird (John and Faith Hubley, 1960, 10 mins.) From the makers of The Doonesbury Special comes this earlier work. “Using the voices of their two young son, Mark and Hampy, John and Faith Hubley created a most delightful adventure of two small boys who go out one night to catch a ‘moonbird.’ This film captures the wonder and mystery of childhood that is lost to all of us before we can appreciate it. It won the Academy Award, plus numerous international film prizes.”

The Music Box (James Parrott, 1932, 30 mins.) Because the world cannot have too much mayhem from these two masters of disaster. “Laurel & Hardy are movers who have been hired to deliver a piano to a house at the top of a very large hill. Once they reach the house they find that no one is home and the only way in is through the second story window. When the owner arrives he doesn’t realize that it is a present from his wife, and he hacks the piano to pieces in an argument with the boys. Their only Academy Award winning film.”

The Tramp (Charles Chaplin, 1915, 19 mins.) “It is almost universally acknowledged that The Tramp is the first Chaplin classic. It is important as it is the first film in which Chaplin uses pathos – an intermingling of sadness over a basically comedic theme – which was to become synonymous with his name. It is also his first film that ends sadly, an unheard of move in those days for a comedy.”

Clearly, I need to have one night devoted to just Laurel & Hardy and Chaplin. But the question then is: is my backyard big enough? Such is the draw of these titans still.