Brenda really knows how to shake it.

Animalympics (1980, USA) A “live feed coverage” of the animal kingdom’s annual respected sports games, presented by network Z.O.O..

Steven Lisberger set up his animation studio in the late 70′s to develop and produce Tron as an animated movie, but needed to gain a staff of his own with Sesame Street animations and client work. Lisberger, with producer Donald Kushner, developed Animalympics in partnership with NBC’s coming coverage of the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics. While it has segments that loosely resemble a story-line, the film does not follow a traditional three-act structure. Instead with the perspective mostly from the fake TV broadcasters and anchors, it instead uses the games themselves as an early showcase for Lisberger’s team of animators and story artists. It’s more appreciative in that regard than it is as a film as there’s character development and investment is rare at best, though Lisberger does co-write some fun still-relevant satire on the Olympic coverage and songs by British artist Graham Gouldman help keep things interesting.

Although it was designed and animated as a feature film to be released later, Lisberger agreed with NBC to also split the animals’ winter and summer games as half-hour specials. The winter special aired on television as intended, but the summer special was cancelled with the United States joined the boycott of the 1980 Olympics - after the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan at the time. Animalympics, as a feature, later aired on TV throughout the 1980′s and early 90′s. By that time the film’s crew had moved onto becoming modern animation legends, including Brad Bird and Roger Allers.

Can I find this? Not impossibly.  The YouTube link above is directly from an independent distributor, but I myself am not sure if they are licencing Animalympics. It has been released on DVD internationally in Spain and Germany, while it hasn’t been released in North America since VHS.

392. Animalympics (1980)

8/10

A bit like Surf’s Up (2007) and a bit like Zootopia (2016), Animalympics apparently played on TV frequently when it was made, and is a forgotten classic. It was directed by Steven Lisberger, who later directed Tron for Disney, and it deploys a very Loony Tunes-esque sense of humor. Created as two short films spoofing the Olympics, only the winter half aired as intended, as the U.S. was boycotting the summer Olympics that year for being held in Moscow. Oh, the irony!

The character design in this movie makes for an interesting study in anthropomorphism, or, as I like to call it, How Furry is it? For example, multiple characters are lions, but some are drawn like bipedal lions, while others are essentially human except for their tails, faces, and paws. This is not as anachronistic as some furry puritans (furritans, if you will) might have you believe, and the animation is all very fun and works well. The writing is full of animal jokes, as one would expect, and the characters compete based on geographic region rather than human countries. A few of the characters and scenes seemed like they were direct parodies of specific sports commentators and broadcasts, and those references were certainly lost on me, but all in all Animalympics is a very fun movie that even people who aren’t fans of sports can enjoy.

Animalympics (1980) - A very furry mockumentary with no protagonist or singular plot, it consists of trippy music videos and shorts with Looney Tunes type humor.

Animlaympics - the only Olympics I will ever be interested in. Sorry London 2012.

Am I the only one positive that Cats don’t Dance and Animalympics take place in the same universe?

Just sayin. Really look at the two.

I could go on about this, I really could.

I’m so glad I found out about this movie. I love it.

This is mostly a pipe dream, but I’m going to think that Zootopia takes place in the same universe as Animalympics. It’s worth a shot. Animalympics was a silly fun movie with great animal puns and parody of the times. They also had some cute characters. Also the music is fun as hell.

Heck they have the movie on a number of youtube channels.