''Your Face'' is a 1987

animated short film 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 ...

Bill Plympton Bill Plympton (born April 30, 1946) is an American animator, graphic designer, cartoonist, and filmmaker best known for his 1987 Academy Awards-nominated animated short '' Your Face'' and his series of shorts featuring a dog character starting wit ...

. It involves a man seated in a chair

crooning Crooner is a term used to describe primarily male singers who performed using a smooth style made possible by better microphones which picked up quieter sounds and a wider range of frequencies, allowing the singer to access a more dynamic range ...

about the face of his lover, and as he sings, his own face starts to distort in various ways. His song ends abruptly when a mouth opens in the floor and swallows him and the chair whole; after the closing credits, the mouth reappears and licks its lips.

Music

The vocals are by Maureen McElheron, known for composing the songs in '' The Tune'', also by Bill Plympton. After the song was recorded, it was slowed by one-third, giving the desired and unusual effect, also making the voice more masculine. His face is distorted into many different shapes, such as a

balloon A balloon is a flexible bag that can be inflated with a gas, such as helium, hydrogen, nitrous oxide, oxygen, and air. For special tasks, balloons can be filled with smoke, liquid water, granular media (e.g. sand, flour or rice), or light so ...

, a cube and an

ice cream Ice cream is a sweetened frozen food typically eaten as a snack or dessert. It may be made from milk or cream and is flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and a spice, such as cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit such as ...

cone.

Lyrics

The song is all original, made specifically for this short film, and the lyrics depict a

metaphor A metaphor is a figure of speech that, for rhetorical effect, directly refers to one thing by mentioning another. It may provide (or obscure) clarity or identify hidden similarities between two different ideas. Metaphors are often compared wi ...

ical description of someone's face by using musical vocabulary to describe the beauty of their features.

Legacy

The short received a nomination for

Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film The Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film is an award given by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS) as part of the annual Academy Awards, or Oscars, since the 5th Academy Awards (with different names), covering the year 1 ...

at the

60th Academy Awards The 60th Academy Awards ceremony, presented by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS), took place on April 11, 1988, at the Shrine Auditorium in Los Angeles beginning at 6:00 p.m. PDT. During the ceremony, AMPAS presented ...

. A variation of this short was used as the

couch gag The opening sequence of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons'' is among the most popular opening sequences in television. It is accompanied by " ''The Simpsons'' Theme", one of television's most recognizable theme songs. The fi ...

on ''

The Simpsons ''The Simpsons'' is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical depiction of American life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer Simpson, Homer, Marge ...

''s 29th season episode "

3 Scenes Plus a Tag from a Marriage "3 Scenes Plus a Tag from a Marriage" is the thirteenth episode of the twenty-ninth season of the American animated television series ''The Simpsons'', and the 631st episode of the series overall. The episode was directed by Matthew Nastuk and w ...

", with Homer Simpson's face replacing the original man, and

Dan Castellaneta Daniel Louis Castellaneta (; born October 29, 1957) is an American actor, comedian, and writer. He is best known for voicing Homer Simpson on the animated series ''The Simpsons'' (as well as other characters on the show such as Abraham "Grampa" ...

singing the vocals. This version ends with the Simpson family sitting on their living room couch. ''Your Face'' was preserved by the

Academy Film Archive The Academy Film Archive is part of the Academy Foundation, established in 1944 with the purpose of organizing and overseeing the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ educational and cultural activities, including the preservation of m ...

in 2015.

References

External links

*
''Your Face''
a
TCMAnimation Show of Shows Excerpt on Vimeo
{{Bill Plympton 1980s American animated films 1980s animated short films 1987 animated films American animated short films Films directed by Bill Plympton 1987 films Surrealist films 1980s English-language films Films about shapeshifting