a vision softly creeping
April 27, 2007 10:00 AM   Subscribe

AnimationFilter: Did I hallucinate an animation based on Simon & Garfunkel's "The Sound of Silence"?

I have this vague memory of an animated version of "The Sound of Silence", where the evil ruler bans music (possibly locking it in the basement of the castle?) but someone rallies the people and shows them that they can make their own music. They then collect this music in the form of music note symbols and load it into cannons. They storm the castle, freeing the captive music (and/or instruments?), and there was much rejoicing.

This would have been perhaps the early 70's... in my memory it was stylistically somewhere between 'Yellow Submarine' and 'The Point'. Google/IMDB/Wikipedia/Netflix aren't helping, so it's possible it was just a small animation on some kid's show, or that I fell asleep in front of the 8-track and dreamed the whole thing. Any clues?
posted by foobario to Media & Arts (6 answers total) 5 users marked this as a favorite
 
Hmm. This sounds very similar to a section of the Phantom Tollboth -- the book. Perhaps it was in the film as well?
posted by suedehead at 10:03 AM on April 27, 2007


The loading of musical notes into cannons sounds so familiar, but pairing it with "The Sound Of Silence" doesn't jog my memory at all... I've tried Googling everything I can think of, with no results... I hope someone else comes a long with an answer, otherwise I'm hallucinating too.
posted by amyms at 10:10 AM on April 27, 2007


I don't know if it helps, but the "notes in cannons" theme seems to have been around in animation for many years (see second to last paragraph).
posted by neurodoc at 1:27 PM on April 27, 2007


Was it accompanied by the original Simon & Garfunkel song? Or was someone else singing it? I ask because in the 1970s, it was common on the Sonny & Cher Show for them to sing a popular song and have it accompanied by an animated video (I know they did it for "Bad, Bad Leroy Brown," "Big Yellow Taxi" and "Brand New Key"). Just a thought.
posted by Oriole Adams at 11:20 PM on April 27, 2007


Beautifully chosen title, BTW.
posted by eritain at 6:08 AM on April 28, 2007


Response by poster: Oriole Adams: I think it was Simon & Garfunkel singing, and there was additional prose story development between the verses that might have been spoken by Paul Simon (or someone who sounds enough like his speaking voice, in much the same way that the music in Yellow Submarine was done by The Beatles but the voice acting was done by other chaps). My whole life I have immediately thought of this animation when I hear the song, so I know I was associating it very closely with the original music even when I was a kid.

I don't think it was Sonny & Cher (because I think the music was the original, and according to Wikipedia neither Simon nor Garfunkel was ever a guest on their show) but I do think that it might have been a short animation on a similar variety show or even Wonderama or The Electric Company.

eritain: Thanks... I only wish I remembered enough to have titled it "the vision that was planted in my brain still remains".
posted by foobario at 12:10 PM on April 28, 2007


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