The Pincushion Man (1935)
The Pincushion Man is an animated “cult classic,” which really means that it’s a long-forgotten oddball. It turns up from time to time in various low-budget compilations, where the weirdness of its concept is right at home among other nutty cartoons of the 1930s. While not a great accomplishment
by any means, the film is odd enough to stick in the minds of many who’ve seen it, and is as easily as hallucinogenic as The Sunshine Makers, a bizarre short subject described in great detail in Leonard Maltin’s Of Mice and Magic. It’s just plain weird, and whether you like the cartoon depends upon your tolerance for weirdness. The plot of The Pincushion Man, like the plots of virtually every sub-Disney animated cartoon of the 1930s, is a thin pseudo-fairy tale designed
to allow as many “whimsical” characters and situations as can fit into a 6-minute cartoon. Thus, the characters are cherubic, the settings vaguely recall storybook paintings, and the music is bouncy and peppy. The animation is done in repetitive cycles and there is very little to suggest that the film had been either storyboarded or was carefully written. The story revolves
around “Balloonland,” which is menaced by the demonic “Pincushion Man” who lurks outside the gates of the city.
The Pincushion Man is probably the reason why people such as myself remember the film. He’s an odd villain, so odd that his picture is reproduced to the right. Tall and lanky, he looks like a diaper pin that has somehow
sprouted arms and legs. His “pin” is an amazingly phallic image and there are some menacing moments in the film that would have been right at home in an early Betty Boop cartoon. In short, he’s unlike anything else in most of the animated shorts of his day. He’s got almost no personality, but his character design and a few odd quirks in his animation make him an off-the-wall oddity. Even his eventual defeat is strange. I wouldn’t like to see this character again, but I’m kinda glad someone made a film
about him.
That someone was Ub Iwerks. Once an equal film making partner with Walt Disney, Iwerks split with Uncle Walt and attempted to make films on his own. He assembled some of the best talent of his day and created some of the oddest, unintentionally psychedelic films of all time. Series like Flip the Frog and Willie Whopper were as strange as their titles suggested. There are times when I've viewed these films and wondered just how well-ventillated Iwerks' studio was. Were the paint fumes getting to the animators? Regardless, the Iwerks studio folded; Iwerks went back to Disney and his best animators went on to better things.
Is The Pincushion Man worth tracking down? If you’re looking for a long-forgotten cartoon that holds up to multiple viewings, the answer is “No.” If you’re looking for the animated equivalent of a late-night B movie, or if you’re trying to prove that current anime imports aren’t the weirdest animated films of all time, you may have found your film!
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