Animation Fest Reviews

Rock Odyssey (USA, 1987) (Nuart Theater, today; 9:45 p.m.; 90 minutes)

“Rock Odyssey” is animation’s equivalent of “Howard the Duck”: a film so staggeringly terrible that the viewer has trouble believing a professional studio (Hanna Barbera) could knowingly create such a five-alarm disaster.

The film makers attempt to combine an inaccurate history of rock ‘n’ roll with the story of Laura, a young woman who spends 35 years looking for love, but never gets any older. The result is a cross between MTV and Saturday-morning kidvid, without the better features of either.

Terrible renditions of various songs--”Bye, Bye Love,” “Satisfaction,” “Aquarius,” etc.--by unknown musicians are mismatched to visuals that have little to do with the lyrics or the mood. Nor are the vignettes historically correct: No one dressed like Elvis in 1952, and “Stayin’ Alive,” the 1978 disco hit, introduces the new era of the ‘80s.

Some bits of animation are re-used so often, they become as familiar as a high school classmate. Clips from the ‘60s features “Hey There, It’s Yogi Bear” and “A Man Called Flintstone” turn up in the ‘80s segment for no apparent reason.

In an interview, Joe Barbera described the film as “a rock ‘Fantasia,’ if you want to call it that.” It’s unlikely that anyone will.