Naked in the Early 19th Century

In the early 1900s, the nation was fascinated by two wildly different men who tried to return to nature: Ernest Darling from Oregon, who wore a loin cloth and befriended Jack London; and John Knowles who went into the Oregon wilderness to prove modern man could survive as well as prehistoric humans.

This episode contains examples of two different kinds of animation I’ve been experimenting with this season. Both employ 3D animation which I have always wanted to experiment with. The first “stop motion” style in the section on Ernest Darling uses a reduced frame rate and simple 3D lighting techniques in order to imitate the kind of DIY tabletop animation style first made popular by the old Monty Python comedy series that I grew up watching. These animations were done mostly by Terry Gilliam, a personal filmmaking hero who created such modern fables as THE FISHER KING, TIME BANDITS and BRAZIL.

The Knowles section features original artwork by one of our favorite collaborators, Alegra Figeroid and uses more traditional camera moves to tell the story.

These animations, along with Skip’s skillful storytelling and the general weirdness of the stories worked so well together. It’s no wonder this is likely my favorite episode of Season 7.