Etienne Delessert cartoons

[wiley207]

Since many of them are being found online lately, I thought I'd bring them up.

One artist/animator that has contributed some really strange/bizarre/creepy "Sesame Street" cartoons would have to be Swiss illustrator Etienne Delessert, in 1973-1974. Generally, these cartoons only run for 30 seconds, but a few may be even longer. They are produced using traditional cel animation and cutout animation (sometimes both combined.) They don't seem to teach anything, and are mostly just there for the sake of being there, or maybe they were just filler. Here is what I know he did so far:

He did that "apple tree" cartoon with the droning Irish-sounding music and the hill the tree is on having an ogre's head:

This cartoon featuring three little gnomes in a vase of flowers. This one is actually kind of cute.

The cartoon with that giant freakish mutant rabbit chasing the kids to fast rock drum music...

And of course, the eerie "face morph" ones...

There's another one found on an Arabic episode of "Iftah Ya Simsim" (it starts at 17:54) where this hen counts out some eggs, and when she walks off, the eggs hatch into these little dancing dragon-like creatures.

So far, we don't seem to know that much about them; in fact, the first one to ever resurface in the digital age was probably the "mutant rabbit" one. We don't know any other episode numbers they may have appeared on, for the most part, and the CTW Archives don't seem to mention anything about them...
(A few of these have been falsely attributed to John Korty, when his cutout-animation films are actually quite different from these bizarre ones.)

 

[mr3urious]

Thanks for disclosing the identity of the producer of these segments!

I've noticed that these seemed to get more and more nightmarish over the years, with less and less of a point to them. I mean, the first two can at least be a subliminal way to teach counting, but what about the others?

I hope you can find the info on the animator of that freaky "bird" cartoon while you're at it.

 

[Drtooth]

I have to admit, the chicken and egg one at least looks impressive on a technical scale.

 

[fuzzygobo]

Some of these, especially the apple tree clip, have been attributed to Terry Gilliam. Beautiful visuals, twisted mind. But while Gilliam's cartoons move, they don't always flow. Still nice to know he wasn't the only sick puppy out there.

 

[shadesbelow]

Someone else mentioned another/third "face morphing" segment, which I faintly recall, but only ever saw once in 1980, when I was four, so I guess I didn't just dream that one after all! In it, a guy's face is seen in semi-profile, and his mouth changes shape and expression a number of times, and I seem to remember that he disappeared with a "pop!" at the end.

 

[crackmaster]

I like the face morph segments the most. A lot of anime during that time had sound effects like that.

 

[SkyeFan]

Don't forget, there's one more Etienne Delessert cartoon that I had once brought up - an animated version of the classic song "Bein' Green". This never aired on the actual show itself, but it was screened at a special event honoring the show's recent anniversary. I am curious about this particular bit of work, because even though it was adapted into a book, it may have been too scary for the show. It makes me wonder what other animations from this artist, as well as other segments intended for "Sesame Street", had been instantly rejected from airing.

Incidentally, I've been curious about this for some time - could there have been MORE footage to the "giant rabbit" and "apple tree" animations?
I don't know this for a fact, but these cartoons almost seem like they COULD HAVE had extra footage to them that was cut for the show. Suppose the "giant rabbit" cartoon originally ended with the humongous hare running in the direction it had come from chasing after the three kids again (I know that would sound senseless and more like a cliffhanger, but still...), and what if the "apple tree" cartoon ended with the mountain monster (as I call it) unraveling its tongue and devouring the apples off its forehead.