Can anyone help identify memory of a disturbing animation shown in 1988?

[ajsmith]

I have a vivid memory of the following, which I'm fairly sure was broadcast as part of Def 2's animation specials from 1988 (which also included, less disturbingly, the film of Yellow Submarine cut into 2 parts shown over consecutive nights)

B/w faintly Gilliamesque cartoon of a Victorian front room, seen in profile. A Victorian-type man arrives home carrying a scary Bird-woman in an old-fashioned bird cage. She has a vultures body and a bald baleful human face. After a bit, the birdwoman break out the cage and chases the guy around the house. He think's he's evaded her and opens the front door, where she appears in front of him.

NEXT SCENE

The front room again. Birdwoman is perched, and the Victorian guy is on the floor, now missing both his legs. He drags himself over to the gramophone, and puts some music on.

At this point, I recall the channel being switched, maybe cos it was considered too scary for me at the time (I was 8)

anyone else recall this? I'd love to know what it is.

[Blumf]

Sounds vaguely familiar, was it 2D or stop-motion?

Possibly one these guy's work, but I don't think they were active way back then:
http://www.bolexbrothers.co.uk/

[ajsmith]

It was 2D.

[Dusty Gozongas]

That'll be Harpya.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtBQH9SQLUc

Could be construed as a tad misogynistic, but it's pretty damned good.

[The Pan Shandies]

I've got an animation that I would like identified if that's ok. It was stop-motion and involved a woman on an island who slept with a sailor and then the sailor went off sailing and the woman had their baby and raised it and then the sailor returned with his new missus and they took the child and sailed off leaving the woman by herself. At this point the woman leaves the island set and is now in the animator's studio. She then dismantles herself and that's the end. It looked fairly contemporary. The puppets were skinny. The sailor had a perpetual stupid grin and I don't think you could see the woman's face because her hair covered it. Any ideas?

[ajsmith]

That'll be Harpya.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wtBQH9SQLUc

Could be construed as a tad misogynistic, but it's pretty damned good.

THANK YOU!!! You've made my day.

[Ocho]

It was stop-motion and involved a woman on an island who slept with a sailor and then the sailor went off sailing and the woman had their baby and raised it and then the sailor returned with his new missus and they took the child and sailed off leaving the woman by herself.

That's the plot of Madame Butterfly.  I searched for "Madame Butterfly" "Animation studio" and my bet is it's this:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0302274/
http://www.nfi.no/english/norwegianfilms/show_utskrift.html?id=15

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39ajY_ITD8Y

[The Pan Shandies]

That's the plot of Madame Butterfly.  I searched for "Madame Butterfly" "Animation studio" and my bet is it's this:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0302274/
http://www.nfi.no/english/norwegianfilms/show_utskrift.html?id=15

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39ajY_ITD8Y

Yeah, that's the bunny. Fucking brilliant, thanks so much. You've no idea how many people I've asked about this. Originally watched it late at night, abroad on hols and drunk to boot, about seven years ago and was just knocked out by the ending. Cheers Ocho.

[Ambient Sheep]

OK, while we have the animation experts in, here's mine that I've mentioned on here before:

An Eastern European, probably Czech, cartoon (i.e. 2D cel-style animation) I saw on Channel 4 sometime in the 80s.  As I remember it, the whole thing was just a side-view of a house and a bit of back garden, with the fourth wall of the house taken away, thus leaving our view of the house as a cross-section.  Don't remember anything much, except bizarreness involving a fat bloke taking a bath, then letting the water drain out a pipe into the garden, or something like that.  Lots of purple colours.  Difficult to explain, I don't remember anything about it except that for something that at first glance looked like a kids' cartoon it became very unsettling.  I'd like to see it again so I can work out what unsettled me.  :-)

I know that's horribly vague, but I thought I'd mention it, just in case.

[Phil_A]

OK, while we have the animation experts in, here's mine that I've mentioned on here before:

An Eastern European, probably Czech, cartoon (i.e. 2D cel-style animation) I saw on Channel 4 sometime in the 80s.  As I remember it, the whole thing was just a side-view of a house and a bit of back garden, with the fourth wall of the house taken away, thus leaving our view of the house as a cross-section.  Don't remember anything much, except bizarreness involving a fat bloke taking a bath, then letting the water drain out a pipe into the garden, or something like that.  Lots of purple colours.  Difficult to explain, I don't remember anything about it except that for something that at first glance looked like a kids' cartoon it became very unsettling.  I'd like to see it again so I can work out what unsettled me.  :-)

I know that's horribly vague, but I thought I'd mention it, just in case.

Sounds a bit like the Valse Triste segment from Allegro Non Troppo.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tX92pHpPc-k

[Neil]

Sheepy, was it a loop, where it started off with noone in the house, and then it progressively added different characters after each iteration, until the house was packed?  I remember one of the characters was a guy getting out of a wardrobe and, I think, jumping out the window.  Then it started to wind down, and each character started vanishing again.

[another Mr. Lizard]

Sheepy, was it a loop, where it started off with noone in the house, and then it progressively added different characters after each iteration, until the house was packed?  I remember one of the characters was a guy getting out of a wardrobe and, I think, jumping out the window.  Then it started to wind down, and each character started vanishing again.

That's 'Tango', I think - Polish animation that won an Oscar a few years back. There was some story about the director wandering out of the Academy Awards ceremony and being refused re-admittance by the heavies on the door, as I recall.

[ajsmith]

Ok, I've got another one.. here's hoping one of you kind folks recalls this one.. (this one wasn't an animation btw)

I have a vivid memory of seeing a short film (or maybe a clip from a longer film) featuring the following:

It was in Black and white, and in a factory type area with 2 huge printing press style rollers; Some guy in charge (scientist type) and his female assistant were feeding naked women through the rollers: they came out the other end flattened 2 dimensional, much bigger, and dead. It seemed they were being made into some bizzare kind of porn. After doing quite a few women like this, the scientists clothed female assistant also fell in the rollers and was flattened like the rest. These images were incredibly disturbing to my young 5-8 year old self, and have always stuck in my mind. I would have seen this sometime mid to late 80s, 85-88ish I guess.
Anyone have ANY diea what this was? It was on terrestial British TV around that time, surely must've been Channel 4