An interview-style documentary film in the style of “Electric Boogaloo: The Wild, Untold Story of Cannon Films,” about two hippie friends who set out to create a first of its kind animation festival and end up helping to start the rise of the animation industry and launch the careers of the artist and directors who run it.
Some of the most creative and successful animation artists in this country can trace the seed of that success back to Spike Decker and Mike Dribble and their Animation Festivals that began on a shoestring in 1977. Those festivals were born, quite literally from necessity: two starving entrepreneurs in Riverside, California, looking for a way to make some cash and slowing evolving their ideas into a showcase for animators anxious to display their wares in hopes of recognition by the industry.
“Animation Outlaws,” a film directed by Kat Alioshin and written by Jon V. Peters, cogently follows the story of Spike and Mike’s creation of animation festivals that began in Riverside in 1977. The animation examples are dizzying and leave one wanting to see much more. They are interspersed with interviews with some of the giants in animation who had their humble beginning by supplying examples of their craft in the crazy, kooky arena of the Festivals. Animators like Andrew Stanton (“Finding Nemo”), Barry Ward (Bardel Entertainment Inc.), Libby Simon (“FernGully”), and many others describe their early beginnings with Spike and Mike and the zany Festivals of Animations. Interviews also with Spike follow the enlargement of the original ideas to offer animators interested in more edgy, provocative, envelope-pushing films into Spike and Mike’s Sick and Twisted Festivals.
Described by some who worked the festivals, the atmosphere of the festivals was much like “a Grateful Dead concert.” Mike Gribble was the heart of the entertainment and Decker was the ever-aggressive promoter and they asked only that any animator from one of their festivals who went on to receive an academy award, only acknowledge them in their acceptance speech. Those acknowledgments were eventually delivered by several of the contributors over the years.
The film created a sadness in this reviewer due to never having experienced a Spike and Mike’s Festival of Animation, Classic or Sick and Twisted. Wow. Think I may have really missed something! But then again, thank goodness for “Animation Outlaws” to somewhat fill the void.
Now available on Digital and Video-On-Demand
