"Under the Sea" Cartoon?
March 8, 2012 10:20 AM   Subscribe

I'm looking for the name of an animated short film involving two humanoids (male and female) who live in a bubble house at the bottom of the sea. After a long argument between the two about venturing outside the safety of their home, one of them leaves the bubble, holds his/her breath on an epic journey to the surface, only to find himself/herself floating alone in the middle of a seemingly infinite sea. I think I saw in on TNT in 1991 whilst tripping balls and it BLEW MY MIND. What is this animated movie?
posted by mrgrimm to Media & Arts (4 answers total) 8 users marked this as a favorite
 
My first guess was going to be Heavy Metal, but it's been ages since I've seen the film and after reading the synopsis, none of those scenes seem to fit.

The time frame would be off, but I also thought of Atlantis: The Lost Empire.

Was it a more adult style film? Did it look like anime or more traditional Disney-style animation?
posted by BrianJ at 12:32 PM on March 8, 2012


Response by poster: Neither. This was not a full-length film. It was like 5-10 minutes. Animation style was low-fi: somewhere between Home Movies and Rankin Bass' The Hobbit.

The humanoids were fairly generic alien types. No hair, no real defining sex characteristics.
posted by mrgrimm at 3:23 PM on March 8, 2012


Is it possible this was on a show, like MTV's Liquid Television? If not, it was probably shown as part of a compilation. Possibly an Academy Nominated short? It doesn't strike me as American either. Maybe Canadian? The animation style seems perhaps Eastern European or Soviet, though I might be wrong.
posted by teekat at 5:33 PM on March 8, 2012


Response by poster: First off, the more I think about this, the more I think it was later, like New Year's Eve, 1995. Sorry.

The animation style seems perhaps Eastern European or Soviet, though I might be wrong

That would be my guess as well, but I'm not an expert.

Is it possible this was on a show, like MTV's Liquid Television?

It *is* possible that it was on a show, but my best guess is that was a short between two shows.

It was on TNT. I am almost positive. To be honest, I only gave this question (with all of its vagueness) about a 5% shot of being answered, but wanted to finally get it out because the image of the guy floating in the sea all alone is so haunting. And the twist--i.e. the guy taking the leap of faith is the one who gets screwed--was twilight-zone style fun.

Since I've put half the story out there, I may as well finish, though I swear it was not my intent of this question. ***I would give good money to get a copy of that cartoon.***

Anyway, it was New Year's Eve and I stopped by the party around 11pm. Everyone else had dropped 4-5 hours ago, but I went ahead and took two hits anyway. Of course, after an enjoyable period of infinite time which I won't bore you with, everyone else went to sleep, while I was left alone in the kitchen around 3-4am.

I spent a good hour or so reading the book that comes with Sea Monkeys and becoming more and more infuriated on the massive hoax they were perpetrating. Then I finally gave up and figured everyone who is sleeping is sleeping hard, squeezed in next to a lump on the couch, and turned on the TV. I got this cartoon.

Even better (and this may provide some valuable context in identifying this short film), right after was back-to-back episodes of The Thunderbirds, including a hilarious scene where all the characters are wearing disguise beards.

Does that help?!

If not, how about identifying that Thunderbirds episode with the fake beards? I'll take that as a second prize?

Goddammit, maybe it was just Thunderbirds are GO. I'm getting old.
posted by mrgrimm at 10:14 AM on March 12, 2012


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