Animation

That’s Thumper the Rabbit talking to Bambi’s mother in the beautiful opening sequence of Walt Disney’s 1942 film when all the gentle animals of the forest come to see the newborn deer.

You’re listening to a little of the lullaby that opens up Russian animator Jiri Norstein’s animated short film Tale of Tales.

It’s passing strange and a minor miracle in the annals of music for children’s films that this totally irresistible set of soul-tapping, acoustic delights would be teamed up with the new animated film version of those classic children’s stories about the irrepressible little trickster, Curious George.

We don’t usually think about the presence of ideas of race and racial supremacy even in apparently progressive animated movies.

That’s the opening from The Magic Lion, an animated film by Charles Githinji, from the National Film Board of Canada, which has a long tradition of producing some of the most original animated movies in recent times.

You’re hearing the opening for the Weston Woods animated film version of Crockett Johnson’s well-known 1955 children’s book, Harold and the Purple Crayon.

That’s Paul McCartney describing the plot of Tuesday, the award-winning picture book by David Weisner, which McCartney has transformed into an animated film, set to his own musical score.

That’s the theme song, sung by Taj Mahal, for Peep and the Big Wide World, a new animated television show for preschoolers that is meant to introduce them to some basic scientific ideas and practices.

The song you just heard is the opening theme to “Making Fiends,” a series of flash animation films created by Amy Winfrey.