Cultoons

An anxious and harried businessman becomes frustrated during a telephone call, and slams down the telephone on his desk. He then begins to doze off, and he dreams about his telephone being taken away in an ambulance, and rushed to a doctor. In the dream, the telephone begins to tell the doctor about all the ways in which it has been misused.

Len Lye scraped together enough funding and borrowed equipment to produce a three-minute short featuring his self-made monkey, singing and dancing to 'Peanut Vendor', a 1931 jazz hit for Red Nichols. The two foot high monkey had bolted, moveable joints and some 50 interchangeable mouths to convey the singing. To get the movements right, Lye filmed his new wife, Jane, a prize-winning rumba dancer.

A 1936 sheet music booklet for "Think About Your Safety" a song from the Once Upon a Time cartoon by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.

'The Peanut Vendor' shown as part of the 'Cultoons' screening at The 2006 Ottawa Animation Festival.