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Roger Ramjet Collection
Fred Crippen
Legendary!
Simple as that!
Coming as it did out of the 60’s, it was probably
a bit of a shot at the ‘Top Guns” of the era - those
jet fuelled ego baskets who were household names in their day and
who promised to share with America the slipstreams their sleek jet
planes and rockets were creating in the national psyche.
As a kind of cojoined parody/homage figure, Roger
Ramjet has stood the test of time. Every aspect of these episodes
murmur and scream “classic”.
Sparsely but brilliantly drawn, cheesey but bitingly
well written and with voice talent that is over the top and spot
on in terms of capturing the various nuances of the work, these
Roger Ramjet episodes show us how its done.
With 120 episodes to choose from, it was always going
to be fun selecting this line-up. The next best fun is to come along
and see which ones we picked.
Fred Crippen & Roger Ramjet
Where to begin? Fred Crippen is a legend….
well, to true animation geeks he is. Being welcomed into the tiny,
low ceiling studio he has spent 50 years animating in is little
short of a pilgrimage. But it is probably his most famous creation
– Roger Ramjet – that cuts the most ice with the wider
world. And fair enough – Roger Ramjet is an icon; a beacon
illuminating what can be achieved on minimal budget but with a iron
clad determination to remain independent to the last and a near
bottomless reservoir of good ideas. Fred was one of the original
maestro’s that made UPA the powerhouse of originality that
it became. So, yes UPA. Yes, Roger Ramjet. But what can one say
about a career that traverses wonderful kids segments for Sesame
Street and fruity animated limericks for the Playboy Channel; public
service messages about hygene and a film depicting the best 48 ways
to use the “f” word. In the face of this challenge,
MIAF goes to default mode…. Yep, we’re showing the lot!
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