Identify this cartoon and video!

December 30, 2004 2:45 PM

CheatingBarStewardFilter As I'm limited to one posted question a week, I'm, erm, gonna cheat (but both questions are kinda the same sort of thing):

1) Trying to remember a cartoon from the 50s, that I'm pretty sure was called "Bottles". It had a Disney-Fantasia-esque feel, with the medicine bottles in a shop coming to life on a stormy night, brewing up a potion in a standard cartoony chemical set (bottles and tubes and the like)...

2) Also trying to remember a recent Indie video I saw (OK - I saw it recently) where the screen was split vertically throughout the song, and on each side you had a girl going through her day, doing identical things. The clincher was that one of the girls was going backwards, so when one gets out of bed in the morning, the other one is going to bed at night, but backwards - both clean their teeth together (one out of bed, one before bed, etc). They pass at some point in the middle and end up on the other side of the screen getting to the (identical) end/beginning of their days.

So, either of these things ring a visual bell with anyone?
posted by benzo8 to Media & Arts (12 answers total)

The video is Cibo Matto's Sugar Water by Michel Gondry.
posted by driveler at 2:50 PM on December 30, 2004

It's bad enough that you're cheating, but isn't that a bit big without a more inside? ;)
posted by abcde at 2:54 PM on December 30, 2004

Response by poster: Size isn't everything, abcde...

And driveler - amazing - five minutes! Ask.Me is God!
posted by benzo8 at 2:55 PM on December 30, 2004

Wow - a video-palindrome. Beatiful.
posted by BadSeamus at 3:06 PM on December 30, 2004

the great thing about that gondry video is that it's one continuous take, shot on one camera. one half of the screen is playing forwards, and the other half is the same footage, mirrored left-to-right and playing backwards. i think that's my all time favorite video.
posted by cathodeheart at 3:29 PM on December 30, 2004

Response by poster: Yeah - it was so captivating when I first saw it on some late night show here in Spain that I watched it so intently and took no notice of the song or the band - hence needing to ask here who it was! Pretty amazing stuff.
posted by benzo8 at 3:35 PM on December 30, 2004

I believe Miss Kitten & The Hacker (did I get that right) did a similar concept video about a year or two ago.
posted by shepd at 4:24 PM on December 30, 2004

Regarding your first question, are you sure the cartoon is from the 50's? There's an MGM cartoon from the mid 30's called "Bottles" that sounds pretty similar. In it a pharmacist falls asleep and has a crazy dream where everything in his lab comes to life in a Fantasia-esque way. Around that time I think all of the studios made at least one cartoon where inanimate objects come to life (books, magazine covers, and food labels come to mind).
posted by Slack-a-gogo at 7:37 PM on December 30, 2004

shepd: The Sugar Water video has been around for far longer than a couple of years. I remember stealing their cd from a roommate who so didn't deserve to have that good of an album back in 96 or 97.
posted by aspo at 8:46 PM on December 30, 2004

RE: that video, those girls are actually the two main members of cibo matto - that wasn't actually mentioned by anyone else.
posted by puke & cry at 10:52 PM on December 30, 2004

Response by poster: Cool - the addition of the "MGM" information to a google search for "bottles cartoon" comes up with this which is correct, so yep, I was wrong about it being 50s - it was 1936! Thanks Slack-a-gogo - Ask.Me is two for two!
posted by benzo8 at 1:46 AM on December 31, 2004

I heartly recommend the director's label box set for this and other michel gondry (and spike jonze, and chris cunningham) masterpieces.
posted by mr.marx at 2:15 PM on December 31, 2004