There are several in the 1968 version of The Charge of the Light Brigade.
the animated sequence from the star wars holiday special…
what?
The British made-for-TV version of Douglas Adams’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy frequently breaks for stylized animated pieces when it refers to an entry in the guide itself.
“The Babel Fish is small, yellow, leech-like, and just about the oddest thing in the universe…”
I’m sure I remember that the rabbit has Jack’s face.
ETA: Found it! (YouTube link) Doris and Jack are in actual bunny costumes, dancing with animated Bugs. Gorgeous color.
Natural Born Killers had a few animated scenes.
The not-great movie version of Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy had a scene where the improbability drive turned everything into yarn.
Repo: The Genetic Opera has several backstory pieces done like comic books.
In this sequence in Prince of Egypt, part of the backstory is told by moving hieroglyphics, which act out the story in animation very different from that of the rest of the movie.
Do we even need to mention Scott Pilgrim vs. The World? Besides Ramona telling about her exes in comic strip form, the movie is sprinkled with loads of cartoony extras.
The Wall has some striking animated moments to decribe Pink’s descent into madness.
As does One Crazy Summer when John Cuzak desribes the heinous cute and fuzzy bunnies.
oh, that’s a good one. very underrated movie in my opinion.
Another inversion: In Wall-E, the videos left by the pre-ecological collapse humans are portrayed by live actors, instead of CGI.
Here’s a listing of animated openings for movies, but most of these aren’t “story-telling” openings:
There’s one film I remember from the 1960s, although I can’t recall the title or the stars. The animated opening told how the heroine came to be conceived – her professor father went all “Me Tarzan You Jane” on her mother, and you close in one the bearskin rug underf them blushing. Then you see an animated version of the heroine walking (from behind) and getting older. It’s niot among those listed on TVTropes, and hasn’t been mentioned yet in this thread.
Black Dynamite has a love scene that is very stylized animation. I can’t find a link to the whole scene (which is just as well since it’s various sex positions) but this work-safe Youtube clip shows the sort of animation it’s in.
On the DVD extras, the producers say they used it because they knew the lead actress was never going to get naked and a non-nude “live” love scene wouldn’t work for the film. So they did a groovy animation sequence instead which works much better.
Maybe I was inspired by your post. My kids and I watched Better Off Dead last night. It also has some animated sequences thrown in: the opening credits, Lane’s cartoon of Beth and Roy that talks to him in the cafeteria, and the (claymation) dance of the hamburgers set to Van Halen’s “Everybody Wants Some”.
There was a newspaper comic strip in the late 70s called Inside Woody Allen, and this animated bit was drawn in the style of the comic strip (which was a fairly significant revenue stream for Allen, even though he had nothing to do with writing or drawing it). According to Wikipedia, the strip ran from 1976-84, but my hometown paper dropped it after a year in '77, about the time Annie Hall came out.
There are the animated sequences from Monty Python’s Quest for the Holy Grail.
ETA: Lisiate mentioned this. But I think only Holy Grail (of the movies) had the animated sequences.
I noticed the similarity in style, too.
Woody Allen had already appeared animated in the title sequence for his movie What’s Up, Tiger Lily? And in a completely different style.
The animated sequence was the best part!
Destination Moon has an animated sequence (with Woody Woodpecker!)
Ice Age had a section about the destruction of the mammoths that was drawn in cave-art style and was much more touching for it.
Which I hate hate hated (but then, Fred Willard is about the most un-funny “comic” around, IMHO). The closing credits of WALL-E almost redeem that sequence, though, as you see human civilization being renewed through a progression of artistic styles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PB9FltZf_70
The ultrastylish, retro opening credits of Catch Me If You Can, along with John Williams’s distinctive theme music, are a favorite of mine - they foreshadow but don’t spoil the plot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gaLDyrun_Cc
Faint praise has never damned so much. (Though I agree with you; and if not for the drawing style, it’d actually be pretty good).
Sita Sings the Blues uses various styles of animation for the different parts of the story — roughly-drawn for the modern-day story, more like illustration for the original story with wayang kulit-inspired figures for the narrators, and yet another style for the songs.