All Rise...

Appellate Judge James A. Stewart is teaching a frog to play the piano.

Editor's Note

Our review of Paul McCartney: The Music And Animation Collection, published May 12th, 2004, is also available.

The Charge

"You can create magic out of just a few moving drawings."

The Case

Paul McCartney is a lucky guy. He sits around in his library and the pictures in his books just come to life. Actually, it only looks that way in Paul McCartney: The Music and Animation Collection. It all started with some ideas from McCartney, along with his late wife Linda and some authors.

The collection features three cartoons:

• "Tropic Island Hum"—A squirrel on the run from hunters and a ballooning frog land on an island that's "a safe place, a sanctuary, for those who have been cruelly treated." The squirrel even meets his Dorothy Lamour-like dream squirrel girl.

• "Tuesday"—Lily pads become flying carpets for some lucky frogs, who go into town to get tangled in laundry, torment a dog, and watch David Letterman on TV. It's from the David Weisner book, and features the voice of Dustin Hoffman.

• "Rupert and the Frog Song"—Mary Tourtel's comic strip bear finds a frog-only spot, so he decides to go in anyway. He hears the frogs sing and play instruments.

"Tropic Island Hum" and "Rupert" are mostly excuses for song, sort of extended music videos. With Paul McCartney as the composer, though, they're definitely worth a listen. "Tuesday," with its images of airborne frogs, adds a great sense of humor to the mix. All three use colorful hand-drawn animation to make their anthropomorphic concepts seem believable, or at least interesting.

McCartney appears to have done a lot behind-the-scenes with writing and production; it would have been nice to see a little more of him in the all too brief introductions, but you can't have everything.

If you're an animation buff, you'll enjoy the documentary on the creation of "Tuesday" and the line tests, layouts, and storyboards for "Hum" and "Rupert." Oddly, there's a trailer for the collection on the collection itself, which seems kind of pointless.

Music and Animation Collection isn't essential, but it could be a nice stocking stuffer for the McCartney fan on your list.

The Verdict

Not guilty.

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