Fresh From the Fests

Taylor Jesson
Animation World Magazine
April 22, 2005

Meet George. George is just like you and me — he's shaped like a Tylenol, you can see through him when he smiles, and he's wearing a hat. Also, and this is important — God is on his side. So when he runs from an escaping dog and hides in an alley, only to be beaten by three thugs who are also shaped like Tylenols, there's only one thing for him to do — Learn Self Defense!

Chris Harding is the creator of Make Mine Shoebox, which I may have mentioned earlier as an example of the trend of fluffy bunnies being a guarantor of success in the animation industry. Now stop reading this and go watch it. It's at his website.

As you can see, Mr. Harding is one funny human. Learn Self Defense is the artist's reaction to certain recent geopolitical folderol, and it stars — stop me if this sounds familiar — a guy who feels threatened by a third party and so decides to take some lessons in preemptive fighting techniques. Taking the advice of a psychotic yet cordial narrator, George puts on shorts and a helmet, gets in the ring with a heavyweight, and starts to pound the canvas and learn some life lessons. In five short drills — Diplomacy, Planning, Faith, Technology and Preemption — they sort out proper ways and means of settling disputes. Then George shoots the bully in the back.

This could have been very topical and on-the-nose, and like most timely satire destined to fade quickly from memory. Instead Learn Self Defense is one for the ages. In a classic homeroom-style educational film format, he lays out hilariously self-fulfilling arguments for war that would become standard in some alternate-universe, subversive American educational system. Over a graphic of George praying and his devilish tormentor being struck by lightning, the narrator kindly intones “Imagine that you are righteous and good, and your opponent is evil and perhaps less than human. Since God is obviously on your side, it's okay if you bend the rules a little. If you don't have the guts to be more hateful, destructive and cruel than your opponent, then evil wins.” The punch-line is worthy of Terry Southern, but even better is the on-screen caption, which I want on a bumper sticker:

WRONG + WRONG = WRONG
WRONG + WRONG + GOD = RIGHT

Learn Self Defense was animated in Flash and Photoshop in a flatter-than-flat UPA style. The backgrounds have the spongy, splotchy texture of Warner shorts of the late 1940s, with outlines and color fills enjoying wonderfully independent lives. The characters are minimalist capsule-shaped creatures, with tacked-on triangle noses and heads that take up half their height. The minimalism is an aesthetic, as well as practical, holdover from Harding's day job, designing e-cards for Hallmark. (Admire his outstanding “Son of a Bitch” card at his website.)

Harding spent five years in college doing a comic strip called Feet of Clay — and good luck finding it — and while at college met buddies Chad Strawderman and Jeff Barfoot with whom he has teamed to form the production company Goldhouse Creative. Late at night, in three different cities, they struggle valiantly to make tiny pilot episodes for prospective animated series, and their lovely Robot Family recently made the top ten at the Nicktoons film festival, which is a good sign. Learn Self Defense screens in the shorts program at Annecy this June.

GO TO THE LEARN SELF DEFENSE PAGE

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