Short Films: Momodoch

Momodoch are a series of short films directed by Caroline Ebner and based on the children’s stories by Brian and Uschi Bagnall. They are narrated by Duncan Galloway and feature the illustrations created by the Bagnalls.

The style is just shy of a motion comic – narrated rather than voice acted and featuring little actual animation. Rather they showcase the wonderfully colourful and rich pieces that, I assume, accompanied the original books.

a new home

They are perhaps light of story but stronger in situational narrative. In the first part, entitled Monsters, Ghosts and other Ogres we discover that the reason we rarely see vampires (and other monsters) was because we ignored them as we became concerned with other (more mundane, one assumes) fears. One vampire, Momodoch – a 375 year old from the East of England – decided to emigrate with his friends.

the blood orange garden

They create a village for themselves named Obstroloch. A chaotic place with little social structure but a pub called the Black Soul. The first film simply establishes this place and comes in at 9 minutes. The second film, Momodoch and his Friends ..or the Soccer Game, begins with a sojourn in Momodoch’s blood orange garden but soon establishes that his birthday is approaching. His friends arrange a party but also need to get him a present. As the vampire collects points, they decide to have a football match with all goals dedicated to him. The second film is the longest at 13 minutes.

vampire frog

The final film, Momodoch's Birthday, is the shortest at 5 minutes and centres itself on the party arranged in part 2. How much of the books are covered I don’t know but these are pleasant to look at, the narration is solid but the films are ultimately based on a kids’ story and nothing more than a curiosity.

At the time of writing I couldn’t find an IMDb page.

Dr Zitbag’s Transylvania Pet Shop: Season 1 – review

Director: Tony Barnes

First aired: 1994

Contains spoilers

Don’t worry if you’ve not heard of it. This was a fairly obscure UK/French children’s cartoon from the 1990s and I don’t recall having ever seen it at the time it was released. I stumbled over it on Amazon Instant Video (UK version).

Compared to other cartoons, then, it really didn’t get the cult following that many did and that probably has much to do with the fact that unlike, say, Count Duckula it did not have a more universal appeal that could make it open to adults. The jokes are puerile, the situations vanilla and the characters as 2D as their drawings.

Dr Zitbag

You have mad scientist Dr Stanley Zitbag (Kerry Shale) who, having lost his job decides to open his own Pet Shop. He finds a Transylvanian castle in which to house his endeavour and discovers the owner of the castle is the dog, now dead and possessing his own bones. Horrifido, as the skeletal doggy is known, becomes his assistant. His neighbours are the Exosisters (both voiced by Nicolette McKenzie), Sinista and Bimbella, who Zitbag wants to woo. His on-running enemy is Officer Deadbeat (Christian Rodska) who wanted the castle as the new police station, though he also has a mad scientist rival Professor Sherman Vermin, who is an occasionally used character.

vampire froggy

So vampires… Well the opening theme introduces us to our first one – a vampire froggy. Zitbag uses his mad science know-how to create hybrid pets and some of them are listed in the title song. Later in the series he makes a swarm of vampire rodents. We also get a lot of random vampires popping up, be they shoppers in a supermarket, coming in to the pet shop or being the news anchor on TV. Lots of the episodes have random vampires making fleeting visitations.

the Exosisters

Then there are the Exosisters. Whilst clearly designed visually on the Bride of Frankenstein, they both sport fangs and it is clear that they are both vampires. They appear in virtually every episode to a greater or lesser extent, often as the story catalyst as Zitbag wants to impress them. Sinista (who has purple streaks in her hair) is dismissive of Zitbag but Bimbella (white streaks) seems to want to give him a chance. They do not do anything overtly vampiric, however, and the kid-friendly nature of the show is always maintained.

a random vampire

It seems cruel to attack this, especially as it might be a rose-tinted childhood memory for some, but I really struggled to drag myself through the short season. 3 out of 10 is probably fairest – it did have a horror film basis, even if it was watered into nothingness.

The imdb page is here.