Many of the children’s short films were compiled into reels, screened at film festivals and available for rental or purchase. For a long time, these were the only children-made films in distribution. The films in this program feature works from all ages engaging in a variety of animation techniques, hilarious voice acting and often surprisingly sophisticated cinematographic decisions. The Amazing Colossal Man has the distinction of being the first Yellow Ball film. It was in this very theater (pre-Harvard Film Archive) that an enthusiastic audience demand to see it again immediately after it screened. In the words of Lenny Lipton who wrote many classic manuals on film and photography, “They bounce off the screen with a life force that most of the cartoon mills have forgotten existed.” Andersen says she was always taken with the “bizarre” and “unexpected” forms films made by untrained minds take. Though many joyfully elicit laughs and revel in fantastic adventures, the children frequently rely on dark humor and boldly enter into more “adult” territory—death, crime and exclusion are recurring motifs—free to explore terrain which would be considered too edgy today. Difficult political issues of the time also work their way into many of the films, revealing the children’s uncensored processing of the tumultuous, violent atmosphere in the era of Vietnam.

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