Q&A with Academy Award®-nominated animator Bill Plympton

Preserved by the Academy Film Archive

Legendary animator and cartoonist Bill Plympton’s first feature, THE TUNE is a wildly surreal animated musical comedy about a struggling songwriter named Del (voiced by Daniel Neiden), desperate to write a hit tune to save his relationship with his pert, long-suffering girlfriend Didi (voiced by Maureen McElheron, who co-wrote the script and composed the music). On his way to meet her and his boss, Del gets sidetracked in the cheerfully deranged Alternate Universe of Flooby Nooby: a strangely nostalgic vision of 1950s middle-class America as filtered through the affectionate-but-twisted sensibilities of David Lynch, Talking Heads and classic Warner Bros. Bugs Bunny ‘toons. There’s a Doggie Elvis who croons about his pompadour; a love duet between a Burger and Fry, a slice of Cherry Pie and a Scoop of Ice Cream; and a joyfully sadistic Bellhop at The Love Sick Hotel, all singing lovably warped tunes like “Dig My Do,” “No Nose Blues” and “Tango Shmango”. Plympton’s famed animation style, done in colored pencils with a gorgeous pastel palette, is perfectly suited to this beautifully off-kilter saga of a man who loses his way only to find his heart: “Lost?” “No, I just don’t know where I am.”

Academy Museum film programming is generously funded by the Richard Roth Foundation.