Incidentally some Americans may remember a few of these as a PBS show from the late 80's/early 90's played them called "Long Ago & Far Away", hosted by James Earl Jones. These episodes were narrated by Tammy Grimes. Unfortunately those episodes got blocked by the company that owns the original Hungarian Folk Tales series, no doubt wanting you to watch their version instead!
http://openvault.wgbh.org/catalog/V_37147E9308DE4265B0A46FC3FE1220B3
It's sad to see an end of an era that way. Cable TV used to be like that to me back in the 80's as well. Nickelodeon used to play a lot of odd stuff I was watching like
this.
I've heard a lot about Jankovics and the films he's made. One of these days I need to sit down and watch "The Tragedy of Man", which is his life's work I've read.
Wow, Hungarian folk tales and James Earl Jones? Sounds like a match made in Heaven! I shamefully admit I've never heard of Tammy Grimes before, but her narration is lovely. I always find it fascinating when they try to bring foreign animation into the American market (aside from the obvious Anime). I also remember catching some episodes of Spartakus and The Sun Beneath The Sea in English on CN, which was one of my favorite French cartoons as a kid. Hell, it still holds up really well today, the occasional weak animation and all the stock musical numbers notwithstanding.
I love Jankovics's material to pieces. The Tragedy of Man is really something else, with an art style even more eclectic than Song of THe Miraculous Hind. For those of you interested, it's also up on Youtube with English subs:
it can also be ordered as a DVD, though doing it overseas might be costly with all the shipping fees.
My personal favorites from Jankovics are János Vitéz (John the Valiant) and especially Fehérlófia (Son of White Mare). A couple years ago you could find them both on YT, but now it seems like you can only look up a few clips. The subtitles on those were either poor or nonexistent anyways, so I'll probably try making my own and upload them once I get the time. I did send Fehérlófia to SexuaLobster a few years ago, and he was quite impressed with its atavistic, psychedelic visuals.
Here's the first 6 or so minutes of Fehérlófia, just to give you a taste (without subs unfortunately). It's pretty trippy and the parts at 1:31-2:48 could be considered NSFW by today's standards (even if the heavily stylized art style hides much of it), but I think the visuals and sound design makes it worth watching.
As for you mentioning there not being stuff as good aired in the US, whether that's true or not, American cartoons of the '80s and '90s (and the early 2000s to some extent) were a huge of my childhood, and for that I'll cherish them forever (not to mention all the fantastic Disney\Don Bluth feature length animations).
Not to double post, but I discovered Nik Ranieri's student film from Sheridan was uploaded on YouTube! Worth checking out!
Nik talks about how this came about in this interview he did for the Animation Guild some years back, apparently it was part of a college mandate for Canadian content for an Olympics-related event...
Man, that was fantastic! Love that style of hand painted background, not to mention the satirical caricatures. The animation is very nice too, way more fluid than what you see in most recent western cartoon shows, and while it's not quite old Disney levels of fluid, the placement of key frames is very clever, making all the movement feel very snappy and deliberate. The humor is great too, there's something cathartic about political big wigs that are supposed to govern us for our sake, but make everything more miserable while only thinking about filling their pockets being depicted as lunatics taking part in Looney Tunes-esque antics.
