''Mister Smile'' is a 1999 American

animated Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anim ...

short film A short film is any motion picture that is short enough in running time not to be considered a feature film. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences defines a short film as "an original motion picture that has a running time of 40 minutes ...

directed by Fran Krause while he was attending

Rhode Island School of Design The Rhode Island School of Design (RISD , pronounced "Riz-D") is a private art and design school in Providence, Rhode Island. The school was founded as a coeducational institution in 1877 by Helen Adelia Rowe Metcalf, who sought to increase the ...

. It won several awards in

independent film An independent film, independent movie, indie film, or indie movie is a feature film or short film that is produced outside the major film studio system, in addition to being produced and distributed by independent entertainment companies (or, i ...

festivals. The story follows a variety of characters who are all invited to a party at the home of Mister Smile.

Plot

Two men and a bear cower in their

tree house A tree house, tree fort or treeshed is a platform or building constructed around, next to or among the trunk or branches of one or more mature trees while above ground level. Tree houses can be used for recreation, work space, habitation, a han ...

home, awaiting the arrival of their newly ordered robot. Meanwhile, a bird drives home to his human wife. That night, he dreams about the childhood moment when he realized that he has fingers instead of wings - a discovery that prompted him to become a salesman. A monkey paces in the waiting room of a nearby hospital, as a chicken is called back to see the doctor. The doctor zaps the chicken with a shrinking machine, and after putting the chicken into a

syringe A syringe is a simple reciprocating pump consisting of a plunger (though in modern syringes, it is actually a piston) that fits tightly within a cylindrical tube called a barrel. The plunger can be linearly pulled and pushed along the inside ...

, injects her into the monkey. Around this time, a squirrel and an old man play a game together, within their shared

apartment complex An apartment (American English), or flat (British English, Indian English, South African English), is a self-contained housing unit (a type of residential real estate) that occupies part of a building, generally on a single story. There are ...

. The squirrel removes the old man's

dentures Dentures (also known as false teeth) are prosthetic devices constructed to replace missing teeth, and are supported by the surrounding soft and hard tissues of the oral cavity. Conventional dentures are removable (removable partial denture or ...

and hides them from him. The old man then tries to guess where his dentures are. In the apartment above the bird-human couple, lives Mister Smile, whose head is a yellow

smiley face A smiley, sometimes referred to as a smiley face, is a basic ideogram that represents a smiling face. Since the 1950s it has become part of popular culture worldwide, used either as a standalone ideogram, or as a form of communication, such a ...

. Mr. Smile stamps his face onto sheets of paper, causing the features to disappear from his face completely. The features always regenerate though, as he slips the stamped sheets of paper into envelopes. Each group of characters receives one of these envelopes in the mail. They have been invited to visit Mr. Smile, who is presumably a celebrity. Although the doctor's procedure goes awry, leaving the now normal-sized chicken stuck inside of the monkey's head, all three are delighted to receive their invitation. At the party, Mr. Smile hands out autographs, and the bird explains why he has the words "Love" and "Food" tattooed on his hands. In the bird's estimation, love and food must exist in harmony, for they are the only two things that anyone needs in life. He places the fingers of one of his hands in between the fingers of the other and declares "Flooovde". The end credits inform the audience that the chicken and monkey got married shortly after the end of filming.

Production

Fran Krause made the film while attending

. It took him two semesters to complete the film, during which time he listened to

Archers of Loaf Archers of Loaf is an American indie rock band originally formed in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, in 1991. The group toured extensively and released four studio albums, one compilation, numerous singles and EPs, and a live album which was release ...

songs. Reminiscing a decade later, he remarked, "I was on the 3rd floor of Market House about 20 hours a day painting cels for

he film He or HE may refer to: Language * He (pronoun), an English pronoun * He (kana), the romanization of the Japanese kana へ * He (letter), the fifth letter of many Semitic alphabets * He (Cyrillic), a letter of the Cyrillic script called ''He'' in ...

. There was a janitor at his school named Mel, who according to Krause, "would sing in a beautiful baritone as he cleaned up around the cafeteria." Krause wanted Mel to voice the bird in his film, but Mel struggled in pronouncing a critical line. Eventually, Krause settled on voicing the character himself. His brother Will voiced the monkey and was the only other actor in the film.

Critical reception

Morgan Miller of ''

Film Threat ''Film Threat'' is an online film review publication, and earlier, a national magazine that focused primarily on independent film, although it also reviewed videos and DVDs of mainstream films, as well as Hollywood movies in theaters. It first ...

'' gave ''Mister Smile'' three stars and called it "a very silly cartoon". His review noted the minimalist style of the animation and compared the bird's soliloquy to

Robert Mitchum Robert Charles Durman Mitchum (August 6, 1917 – July 1, 1997) was an American actor. He rose to prominence with an Academy Award nomination for the Best Supporting Actor for ''The Story of G.I. Joe'' (1945), followed by his starring in ...

's in '' The Night of the Hunter''. Dan Sarto of ''

Animation World Magazine Animation is a method by which still figures are manipulated to appear as moving images. In traditional animation, images are drawn or painted by hand on transparent celluloid sheets to be photographed and exhibited on film. Today, most anima ...

'' wrote that the film was a "crowd favorite" at the Ottawa International Student Animation Festival. He appreciated the film and felt that it was a "quirky, funny tale". Both critics praised the humorous ending.

Richard Roeper Richard E. Roeper (born October 17, 1959) is an American columnist and film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times''. He co-hosted the television series '' At the Movies'' with Roger Ebert from 2000 to 2008, serving as the late Gene Siskel's success ...

also saw similarities with ''Night of the Hunter'', writing "Give this animated flick credit for reaching back a bit".

Accolades

The film won First Prize in the Undergraduate/First Year Films category at the 1999 Ottawa International Student Animation Festival, the First Prize Animation Award at the 2000

USA Film Festival The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...

, and the Best Animated Film Award at the 24th Annual Atlanta Film & Video Festival. It also screened at the 1999

Chicago International Film Festival The Chicago International Film Festival is an annual film festival held every fall. Founded in 1964 by Michael Kutza, it is the longest-running competitive film festival in North America. Its logo is a stark, black and white close up of the comp ...

and at a

Rooftop Films Rooftop Films is a non-profit film organization based in Gowanus, Brooklyn. It is best known for its Rooftop Films Summer Series, a film festival that runs from May through August every year, and consists of as many as 47 outdoor screenings of new ...

festival.

References

External links