Are you a fan of Bobba Fett? Do you know who to thank for his existence? No, not the... well yes, the infamous 1978 'Star Wars Holidays Special'. But to be fair, only ONE element of that atrocity (if you never seen it, be warned, it IS every bit as braindead as its reputation suggests) redeems the whole thing in hindsight: the 10-minute animated segment "The Faithful Wookie", entirely created by a small, independent animation outfit from Canada (Represent!!) who called themselves Nelvana.
Just as giants like Microsoft, Apple and Amazon started in garden sheds, damp basements and stinky home garages, the Canadian trio of artists started out their work in a crappy 1-bedroom apartment in downtown Toronto which they used as a 'studio'. Within just a few years their shorts had attracted the attention of the CBC (Canadian public broadcaster), who commissioned a series of half-hour seasonal animated specials: A Cosmic Christmas (1977), The Devil and Daniel Mouse (1978), Please Don't Eat the Planet (better known by its subtitle, Intergalactic Thanksgiving) (1979), Romie-0 and Julie-8 (1979), Easter Fever (1980) and Take Me Up to the Ball Game (1980).
It is during that period that a young bearded director named George Lucas became a big fan of their work and charged them with a short 'toon for his... 'Special' special. And THAT effort got them approached to work on a hot new project from producer Ivan Reitman, called Heavy Metal. Which they had the the giant brass ones to turn down in favor of crafting their own crazy sci-fi/fantasy story: 1983's Rock & Rule.
To be fair it wasn't an easy movie to market, despite being from the era where a frightening amount of children movies were dark and disturbing as Hell (Neverending Story, Secret of Nihm, Black Cauldron, Something Wicked this Way Comes, etc). American distributors MGM/UA had no clue what to do with it, and it quickly fell off the marquee after little to no profits to show for, on an $8M budget. That should have been that for the company had they not already branched out in producing a multitude of animated & live action children series, on both sides of the border and abroad, going as far as getting tagged by the BBC to produce an animated Dr Who series (which sadly never came to be, but concept art can still be found online). Now they rival even Disney with their output in children TV programming; if the mouse isn't involved, chances are Nelvana is.
And in the meantime, Rock & Rule quickly found itself on cable TV, where it became an 80s fixture and gained absolute-cult status. Today it's one of those movies that make you feel part of a special club if you were lucky enough to have discovered AND appreciated it back when HBO first started airing it. But after almost 40 years, I still can't quite tell you exactly who it was meant for....
Anyway it's free on YouTube courtesy of Canadian lighthouse keeper Retro Rerun. Enjoy!
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