Halas and Batchelor Cartoon Films

The embodiment of ultimate evil, a glowing orb terrorizes a young girl with bizarre stories of dark fantasy, eroticism and horror.

Animals on a farm lead a revolution against the farmers to put their destiny in their own hands. However this revolution eats their own children and they cannot avoid corruption.

Modern advice and old-fashioned values combine in this postwar animated health guide from the makers of Animal Farm.

An animated, dark satire of America's automobile-obsessed, consumerist culture. An anonymous, brilliant scientist toils tirelessly in his ivory tower satisfying the public's ever-increasing demands for novelty and status consciousness, with predictable environmental consequences.

A humorously semi-factual account of the history of cinema.

Examines in detail Pieter Bruegel the Elder’s painting, 'Netherlandish Proverbs', which illustrates over 100 proverbs and allegorises a whole world of sin and folly as relevant today as in the 16th century.

Instructional cartoon for the Admiralty.

A poem of unrequited love: the studio's first puppet production. Based on a poem by Cosbie Garstin, the film tells the story of a carved wooden saint who is painted to look like a soldier and used as a figurehead on a sailing ship. The ship sinks and the figurehead is saved by a beautiful mermaid who falls in love with him. Her love is not returned because despite his dashing looks he has the wooden heart of a saint.

Everyone knows that petroleum comes out of the earth, but the question is how did it get there, and what is it made of? The answer to these questions are given simply and accurately in this animated programme.

The Shorts and the Talls just can’t see eye to eye until a mediating fairy arrives to help them make ends meet.

Meet Charley, your jovial cartoon guide to Britain’s changing towns and cities.

A BAFTA award nominated animation looking at the development of oil prospecting techniques since the 19th century.

An animated visual interpretation of the song "Autobahn," by German electronic pioneers Kraftwerk. A fast-paced experimental film which proved to be a groundbreaking combination of electronic and manual animation. One of the first films produced specifically for video disk.

Football crazy, football mad. Don’t watch this off-beat jukebox cartoon expecting any conventional soccer action. Equal parts Disney, Dali and Duchamp, this abstract mix of black and white photos and alternative comix style animation is accompanied by a medley of doo-wop classics and documentary soundbites. The film is certainly an extreme departure for those familiar with the more conventional output of the Halas & Batchelor studio, best known for their feature-length version of George Orwell’s Animal Farm (1954). Paul Vester was one of a number of sixties art school graduates that brought a mix of pop art and illustration influences to the company whilst it was undergoing a brief change in its ownership. As a warning, in keeping with its progressive, adult style there is some brief nudity at the end of the film.

A BAFTA award nominated film made for the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company charting the history of aviation from Daedalus to jets.

A particularly vicious Father Time with a hit-list in his Book of Doom seeks to wipe out characters brought to life from fabric patterns. This neat concept for a cartoon washing powder commercial can be credited to Alexander Mackendrick, who worked at the J Walter Thompson advertising agency before making films at Ealing and then Hollywood.

A project assembled to musically support William Plomer's (1903-73) book of poems called 'The Butterfly Ball and Grasshoppers Feast'; in which Alan Aldridge had provided the illustrations. British Lion had secured the rights, and commissioned Glover, through Tony Edwards (the Deep Purple manager), to add the musical dimension that it required if it were to be made into a 26-part animated cartoon series, suitable for TV. (Discogs) This is the music video for the song Love Is All, performed by Ronnie James Dio.

One of a humorous series of films devised to explain in graphic terms the concepts of basic mathematical functions.

Set to Gilbert and Sullivan tunes, a musical cartoon attempts to describe the character of the British nation, with occasional interruptions by Prince Charles.

This cartoon propaganda short by Halas & Batchelor sweetens the pill of post-war coal prices by promising jam tomorrow.