A Little Halloween Treat

October 21, 2007 6:38 AM

Vincent (youtube)

Filmed in 1982, this was Burton's first directorial effort. Mentioned in passing just once on Metafilter (back in 2001) but never linked here, it is a fun little animation, narrated by Vincent Price.... A small fan site for the animation is located here, and of course, there's a wiki article as well.

posted by HuronBob (17 comments total)

English version narrated by Vincent Price here (also YouTube). HuronBob, if you don't mind maybe an admin can slip in this url for yours and then delete this post.

Great post, nonetheless!
posted by jperkins at 6:55 AM on October 21, 2007

Wow thank you! A treat indeed. FYI your youTube link sent me to a dubbed version. Here's the Vincent Price narration YouTube link. Hopefully admins will fix it and it won't distract into a derail because this is a very fun find. Thanks again.
posted by dog food sugar at 6:55 AM on October 21, 2007

ouch..... Thanks for the correction folks...
posted by HuronBob at 7:00 AM on October 21, 2007

I really love the relationship between Burton and Price. They both seem to share this love of spooky story telling and the work they did together is so fun. Price's role in Edward Scissorhands is so great: an eccentric mad inventor in the middle of an insane suburbia. What a perfect final role for Price's long career. Sorry to be such a gushy fan, but I guess that's what I am here and this post has suddenly put me in the mood for halloween.
posted by dog food sugar at 7:03 AM on October 21, 2007

This is great. I remember seeing it on the Disney Channel back in the 1980's and waiting patiently with a VHS tape to grab it next time it came on. I think they eventually released it on a tape with Frankenweenie.
posted by marxchivist at 7:32 AM on October 21, 2007

Definitely my favorite of Burton's work.
posted by slimepuppy at 7:35 AM on October 21, 2007

Oooh I LOVE Vincent. I named my iPod after it/him.

Thanks for reminding me to watch this again.
posted by ClarissaWAM at 7:51 AM on October 21, 2007

Has anyone seen the 3D version of Nightmare Before Christmas currently in the theaters? Wondering if it's worth the trip.
posted by stbalbach at 8:05 AM on October 21, 2007

Just took my daughter to see Nightmare 3D yesterday. Real D 3D is pretty slick (well, not Imax-slick, but pretty slick), and since it wasn't actually shot in 3D, there were no cheap or distracting effects. Mostly very clear depth, like you could reach out and touch the little model sets.

Both Vincent and Frankenweenie are on the special edition Nightmare DVD. Gotta raise these goth kids right.
posted by dgbellak at 9:06 AM on October 21, 2007

Wow. The massive amount of similarity and imagery between that and Edward Scissorhands is really interesting. I get the feeling that he had that sort of image and vision in his head, and was just waiting to show it in a larger, more realistic format.

Even the kid looks a bit Jonny Depp at the beginning, and the tree shapes and some of the shadow work is really similar.
posted by Brockles at 9:11 AM on October 21, 2007

Very nice, especially this close to Halloween. Never saw it/heard of it before, so thanks HuronBob.

How cool it is to create a kid obsessed with Vincent Price, and then get Vincent Price to do the narration.
posted by LeLiLo at 9:45 AM on October 21, 2007

Brockles - I always thought both Vincent and Edward Scissorhands (and Beetlejuice, for that matter) were designed specifically to look like Tim Burton himself.
posted by Joey Michaels at 1:22 PM on October 21, 2007

He looks like a blank page?

OMFG! That explains all his weirdness! Is he a vampire?
posted by Brockles at 1:34 PM on October 21, 2007

Always enjoyed this film, glad to know it is now widely available thanks to the intertube!
posted by The Wig at 2:58 PM on October 21, 2007

I can't believe I'd never heard of this before, thank you for sharing it! Vincent Price's voice just puts me in the right frame of mind for October. I love it.
posted by annathea at 3:47 PM on October 21, 2007

How cool it is to create a kid obsessed with Vincent Price, and then get Vincent Price to do the narration.

Even cooler, to be a kid obsessed with Vincent Price, then create a poem about a similarly obsessed kid and then get Vincent Price to do the narration. He's mentioned in interviews before (like this one) that the relationship portrayed between Ed Wood and Bela Lugosi in Ed Wood resonated with him so strongly because it felt like his friendship with Vincent Price. He was also working on a documentary featuring a bunch of interviews he'd done with Price before he died, and every so often it pops back up again in interviews. I keep hoping that he'll get back to it, because I'd really love to see it.

This short and Frankenweenie are regular October fare for me. Glad to see people enjoying it.
posted by Nathaniel W at 6:20 PM on October 21, 2007

great stuff, thanks for the post, i thought i was a huge tim burton fan but i'd never seen this or even heard of it before
posted by exhilaration at 8:10 PM on October 21, 2007