As a producer of award winning (Chicago International Film Festival) animated music videos, an Animation Industry professional for thirty years and a founding member of the multimedia rock and roll band, The Tooners, I have a very special interest in animated movies that either feature or are inspired by Rock and Roll. They are few and far between and the obligatory “music video” sequence injected into films after the huge success of MTV does not qualify a film as a Rock and Roll cartoon but there are some out there if you know to look. I’m only listing the ones made in 2D traditional, hand drawn animation rather than 3D CGI animation since there not only hasn’t been any great animated rock movies made since the era of 3D arrived, there hasn’t been any great rock and roll music either. Naturally, this is only my opinion and as a former employee of many now defunct animation studios I’m a bit biased but the following movies deserve to be rediscovered.
1. Yellow Submarine – The Beatles lead the way once again, this time taking rock music into the land of animation.
2. Heavy Metal – With stories from the sci-fi / fantasy magazine animated the rock and roll soundtrack seemed more like background music than songs carrying the story forward. But the soundtrack did feature Blue Öyster Cult, Donald Fagen, Stevie Nicks, Journey, Cheap Trick, Don Felder, Grand Funk Railroad, Nazareth, Black Sabbath, Devo and Sammy Hagar.
3. Rock & Rule – This 1983 film from the Great White North featured the voice talent, music and attitude of Blondie’s Debbie Harry, Lou Reed and Iggy Pop. Yes, they were all in a CARTOON!
4. The Point – Written by singer Harry Nilsson and directed by Fred Wolf this musical fairytale originally aired as an ABC Movie Of The Week in the 1970s. Interestingly, it changed narrators every incarnation and included Dustin Hoffman, Alan Bazman, Alan Thicke and Ringo Starr.
5. American Pop – Ralph Bakshi’s animated history of popular music in America ranged from the turn of the Twentieth Century to the early 1980s when the film was produced. The rock music used in the movie was not the original artists and represented only a small part of the film’s subject matter.
6. Dirty Duck (aka Cheap) – This cult film was produced as an answer to Ralph Bakshi’s successful underground comix hit Fritz The Cat. Written and directed by Charles Swenson its character voices and music were provided by Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan aka Flo and Eddie of the Mothers Of Invention.
7. Rocktasia – A mythical cult film featuring Sixties and Seventies hard rock and psychedelic hits animated in the style of the visual artists hip at the time. Virtually impossible to locate now days.
8. The Wall – This visual representation of Pink Floyd’s concept album was part live action and part animation. The animated song sequences were designed by British caricaturist Gerald Scarfe and are an important enough part of the film to qualify it for this list.
9. Disney’s Tarzan – Yes, it is a stretch to call Phil Collins’ songs done for this film Rock & Roll but early Genesis was an awesome band and Phil can still ride on some of its good karma, maybe.
10. Metamorphoses – Produced by the Japanese company San Rio in the 1970s it originally featured new songs by the Rolling Stones. The film tanked, was reedited with major additions and subtractions which included the Stone’s score. Certainly not one of the coolest but one of the few.