# A long shot, but...help me find this psychedelic Russian cartoon about astronauts **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [December 1, 2011, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-long-shot-but-help-me-find-this-psychedelic-russian-cartoon-about-astronauts/604720 "2011-12-01T17:49:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Electric\_Warrior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@Electric\_Warrior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electric_Warrior)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 5:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-long-shot-but-help-me-find-this-psychedelic-russian-cartoon-about-astronauts/604720/1 "2011-12-01T17:49:48Z")
One dark and stormy night\* back in the mid “aughts”, the kids I was babysitting had gone off to bed, and I was flipping channels when I ended up on WHUT. This is the name of Howard University’s public access channel. It is also approximately my reaction to what I saw. What I saw was a cartoon featuring astronauts who travel to another planet. I saw, and I swear I wasn’t on any weird medication at the time, a long sequence of scenes where objects morphed into one another. Just really strange, psychedelic stuff. I think it mainly involved the flora and fauna of the alien planet. The soundtrack was some kind of _musique concréte_ type stuff if I recall correctly; just bizarre, random sound effects. I watched this for about ten minutes, spellbound, and then… …it ended. With credits rolling up the screen in Cyrillic, on top of an image of an astronaut floating through a starfield, while, and I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried, John Lennon’s “Imagine” played. Of course I wanted to know wtf this was, but the info bar for the program just said “Teacher” and didn’t have a description. I’m sure I could have contacted WHUT at the time and found out what it was, but I didn’t think of it at the time and it’s been so long now that I don’t even remember for absolute certain what year I was watching. I would be extremely grateful if anyone recognized this and could point me in the right direction. And I’m going to go ahead and email WHUT just in case they can help me with this extremely unspecific query. ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 6:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-long-shot-but-help-me-find-this-psychedelic-russian-cartoon-about-astronauts/604720/2 "2011-12-01T18:04:35Z")
I’ve never seen this before, so I can’t give you specific help. But, when I was obsessed with a random cartoon I’d seen on PBS (similar to your source, right?) I went on Wikipedia and browsed the pages on short films – [Short film - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Short_film#See_also) See, if it was shown on US television, it was likely an award winning short, and if you can make some guesses on the year, you can narrow it down. I found Kathedral, Skywhales, and many other long lost short cartoons in this manner. ---
**Author:** ![Electric\_Warrior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@Electric\_Warrior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electric_Warrior)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 9:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-long-shot-but-help-me-find-this-psychedelic-russian-cartoon-about-astronauts/604720/3 "2011-12-01T21:09:42Z")
Thanks for the tip! I don’t think it was a short film though. Also it was on public access television, not PBS - so anyone can show anything they want on it as long as it is in accordance with standards of decency. ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [December 1, 2011, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-long-shot-but-help-me-find-this-psychedelic-russian-cartoon-about-astronauts/604720/4 "2011-12-01T23:58:42Z")
Can you try to estimate when the cartoon was made? There are a ton of Russian films uploaded on YouTube, if you haven’t searched already. I searched for “Russian cartoon space” and found [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7znTeI8T3E0), but there are a lot of clips whose titles and tags are only in Russian/Cyrillic – I searched for “мультфильм космоса” (“cartoon outer space”) and got [242 hits](http://tinyurl.com/7br4smd). Edit: Also try “мультфильм космос” You could also ask in [this Something Awful thread](http://forums.somethingawful.com/showthread.php?threadid=2357406) (requires $10 registration to post) or [this Livejournal community](http://linguaphiles.livejournal.com/) (requires free registration to post). And now I’ll stop procrastinating and do my Russian 103 homework. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2011, 1:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-long-shot-but-help-me-find-this-psychedelic-russian-cartoon-about-astronauts/604720/5 "2011-12-02T01:27:33Z")
Sounds a bit like the [Bolero](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcmgI_kgPhM') segment from _Allegro non Troppo_, except that it’s Italian, not Russian, and is set to a very recognizable piece of classical music. ---
**Author:** ![Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e47c2d/32.png) [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Biffy_the_Elephant_Shrew)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2011, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-long-shot-but-help-me-find-this-psychedelic-russian-cartoon-about-astronauts/604720/6 "2011-12-02T01:37:23Z")
I was sure I knew the cartoon the OP was talking about, but having found it, it’s not a match after all. No astronauts, though it does begin with a scene of the [moon.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwcDRPBMMZY) ---
**Author:** ![Electric\_Warrior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@Electric\_Warrior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electric_Warrior)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2011, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-long-shot-but-help-me-find-this-psychedelic-russian-cartoon-about-astronauts/604720/7 "2011-12-02T19:00:34Z")
> [@Biffy\_the\_Elephant\_Shrew](#): > > I was sure I knew the cartoon the OP was talking about, but having found it, it’s not a match after all. No astronauts, though it does begin with a scene of the [moon.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwcDRPBMMZY) This is _very_ similar in style to what I saw. Do you know anything about this, or can the Russian speakers here transliterate the credits by any chance? I would not be surprised if the creators are the same. ---
**Author:** ![gallows\_fodder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/8c91f0/32.png) [@gallows\_fodder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gallows_fodder)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2011, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-long-shot-but-help-me-find-this-psychedelic-russian-cartoon-about-astronauts/604720/8 "2011-12-02T20:40:57Z")
> [@Electric\_Warrior](#): > > This is _very_ similar in style to what I saw. Do you know anything about this, or can the Russian speakers here transliterate the credits by any chance? I would not be surprised if the creators are the same. The first credit slide says: [Screenplay] – I. Makcimov (i.e., Maximov), D. Mansurov, B. Dzhusupbekov, K. Konirkul’zhaev The second slide says: [Director] – I. Maximov / [Artists] – I. Maximov, B. Dzhusupbekov Doing a Youtube search for “кинорежиссер максимов мультфильм” (director Maximov cartoon) brought up [these results](http://tinyurl.com/7jmk98r). ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2011, 8:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-long-shot-but-help-me-find-this-psychedelic-russian-cartoon-about-astronauts/604720/9 "2011-12-02T20:55:56Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Sounds a bit like the [Bolero](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hcmgI_kgPhM') segment from _Allegro non Troppo_, except that it’s Italian, not Russian, and is set to a very recognizable piece of classical music. > [@gallows\_fodder](#): > > The first credit slide says: [Screenplay] – I. Makcimov (i.e., Maximov), D. Mansurov, B. Dzhusupbekov, K. Konirkul’zhaev > > The second slide says: [Director] – I. Maximov / [Artists] – I. Maximov, B. Dzhusupbekov [Ivan Maksimov directed a “Bolero” short in '93.](http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0337889/) ---
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2011, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-long-shot-but-help-me-find-this-psychedelic-russian-cartoon-about-astronauts/604720/10 "2011-12-02T21:12:46Z")
[Maksimov’s “Bolero”](http://vimeo.com/9230153) ---
**Author:** ![Electric\_Warrior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@Electric\_Warrior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electric_Warrior)\ **Post date:** [December 2, 2011, 9:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-long-shot-but-help-me-find-this-psychedelic-russian-cartoon-about-astronauts/604720/11 "2011-12-02T21:54:25Z")
Wow, thanks so much for the help so far, everybody! It’s awesome having the collective mind all in on this. So I actually don’t think it’s Maksimov, now that I’ve looked at the various Maksimov stuff on youtube. The cartoon I saw didn’t have this pen-and-ink look to it. The soundtrack and the alien creatures really were almost exactly like the first video **Biffy the Elephant Shrew** brought up though, so I’m willing to bet that Maksiimov was prominent enough to have inspired similar work. Also this Bolero video of his is pretty strange and cool, and it’s something I never would have found without this thread. ---
**Author:** ![ShallowEnd](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a4c791/32.png) [@ShallowEnd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ShallowEnd)\ **Post date:** [December 5, 2011, 8:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-long-shot-but-help-me-find-this-psychedelic-russian-cartoon-about-astronauts/604720/12 "2011-12-05T08:39:32Z")
I can’t help you with your cartoon, but wanted to thank you for the thread. It made me go look once again for a different cartoon I saw on public television. This time, I found it!! I think one thing that held me back was that I thought it was in black and white, forgetting that my family didn’t have a color tv for a long time. So, if you have 10 minutes, grab the kids and gather 'round. I hope you all enjoy a solved personal mystery [Self Service](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vqg16z8ehp0). Now, if I could only remember more details of that one movie I saw so long ago… ---
**Author:** ![Electric\_Warrior](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee7513/32.png) [@Electric\_Warrior](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Electric_Warrior)\ **Post date:** [December 6, 2011, 5:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-long-shot-but-help-me-find-this-psychedelic-russian-cartoon-about-astronauts/604720/13 "2011-12-06T17:36:42Z")
WHUT contacted me. They said they’re looking into it! ---
**Author:** ![deck7](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/f05b48/32.png) [@deck7](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/deck7)\ **Post date:** [February 6, 2012, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-long-shot-but-help-me-find-this-psychedelic-russian-cartoon-about-astronauts/604720/14 "2012-02-06T03:44:17Z")
[![]( " - YouTube") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krYFdrCWrRo) ---
**Author:** ![Edwardnigma](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e8c25b/32.png) [@Edwardnigma](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Edwardnigma)\ **Post date:** [May 1, 2013, 8:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-long-shot-but-help-me-find-this-psychedelic-russian-cartoon-about-astronauts/604720/15 "2013-05-01T20:01:49Z")
I think i found your cartoon…[- YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ISvc2AvOhoI) But i was looking for another one…Same Sci Fi but they travel around galaxy to stumble upon some planet where aliens are entering into their ears…Some crazy ass trip happens from that point on… ---
**Author:** ![ataraxy22](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ataraxy22/32/307_2.png) [@ataraxy22](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ataraxy22)\ **Post date:** [May 2, 2013, 5:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-long-shot-but-help-me-find-this-psychedelic-russian-cartoon-about-astronauts/604720/16 "2013-05-02T05:29:33Z")
The OP may have seen The Mystery of the Third Planet: > **[The Mystery of the Third Planet](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mystery_of_the_Third_Planet)** > > The Mystery of the Third Planet (Russian: Тайна третьей планеты, Tayna tretyey planety), aka The Secret of the Third Planet is a 1981 Soviet traditionally animated feature film directed by Roman Kachanov and produced by the Soyuzmultfilm studio in Moscow. It is based on a children's science fiction novella "Alice's Travel" by Kir Bulychev, from Alisa (Alice) Selezneva book series. > The movie is considered a cult classic in Russia and was included in various lists of the best animated films and sc... You can watch it here in the original Russian: [Тайна третьей планеты | Советский мультфильм для детей - YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HZodexUkiDI) Here’s an English dub of it (in 7 parts): [Mystery Of The Third Planet (1 of 7) - Dollar Store Version - YouTube](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWTPMCD3SeQ) I watched this with a friend several years ago and really enjoyed it. If you like the music, be sure to check out the Russian group “Kim i Buran” ---
**Author:** ![ilyatch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/e495f1/32.png) [@ilyatch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ilyatch)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 5:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-long-shot-but-help-me-find-this-psychedelic-russian-cartoon-about-astronauts/604720/17 "2016-05-27T05:07:08Z")
I’ve been looking for this cartoon for years and years, and this thread gave me enough hints to find it. Everything fits, down to “Imagine” coming on at the end. It is this one: [http://mults.info/mults/?id=2694](http://mults.info/mults/?id=2694) I hope this helps someone looking for this trippy cartoon. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 7:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-long-shot-but-help-me-find-this-psychedelic-russian-cartoon-about-astronauts/604720/18 "2016-05-27T07:39:07Z")
Here’s the Wikipedia entry on it: > **[The Lesson (1987 film)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lesson_(1987_film))** > > The Lesson (Russian: Урок, Urok, Armenian: Դաս) is a Soviet-Armenian science fiction short film directed by Armenian animator Robert Sahakyants, produced by the Armenfilm studio. > In the far future, a starship arrives to orbit an undiscovered planet. A group of hunters lands on the planet. On the surface of the planet is detected life: unknown animals, but very similar to terrestrial counterparts, and vegetation resembling that of planet Earth. A frivolous extermination of the local fauna and flo... ---
**Author:** ![scabpicker](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scabpicker/32/8268_2.png) [@scabpicker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/scabpicker)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 10:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-long-shot-but-help-me-find-this-psychedelic-russian-cartoon-about-astronauts/604720/19 "2016-05-27T10:28:59Z")
Wow, the '70’s in Russia lasted long into the '80s. It has the flaw of a lot of '70s style animated features in that it makes progressively less sense as it proceeds. It saves itself from didactic idiocy by embracing this and kind of poking fun at the spot its logic has led to. Psychedelic, indeed. Thank you guys for answering this zombie thread and giving me something unique to watch as my week winds down. ---
**Author:** ![Dewey\_Finn](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dewey_finn/32/4222_2.png) [@Dewey\_Finn](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dewey_Finn)\ **Post date:** [May 27, 2016, 10:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-long-shot-but-help-me-find-this-psychedelic-russian-cartoon-about-astronauts/604720/20 "2016-05-27T22:21:00Z")
At the most recent Academy Awards, one of the nominees for Best Animated Shorts was “We Can’t Live Without Cosmos.” It’s absolutely not what the OP was looking for, but it is an animated Russian film about astronauts (mostly about their training). It’s quite good.