Rejected
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Rejected is a 2000 animated short comedy film by animator Don Hertzfeldt that was nominated for a 2000 Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film. It received 27 awards from film festivals around the world and in 2004 was ranked by the Internet Movie Database as the 3rd most popular short film of all time.
Rejected has achieved a very devoted cult following, unprecedented in the world of animated short film, and has since grown into a pop culture icon that is frequently quoted or referenced (see "Trivia"). Fans of the cartoon have been known to wear costumes, re-enact their favorite scenes in fan films, and some have had tattoos made of their favorite characters.
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[edit] Synopsis
The film purports to tell the story of the progressive breakdown of its animator, Don Hertzfeldt. The frame narrative is told in short text passages printed on the screen, musically accompanied by the first movement of Beethoven's 9th Symphony - starting with Hertzfeldt being commissioned by the "Family Learning Channel" (a fictional cable network) to produce animated commercial bumpers and commercial spots. All of the spots he produced, as the text informs the viewer, were reviewed by the client and promptly rejected. As the viewer watches the spots themselves, it becomes quickly apparent why: the antics of the characters range from mere head-scratching non-sequiturs to exaggerated sequences of grotesque violence and mutilation—contrasted not only with the cartoony style of the animation, but with the cheery muzak that accompanies each spot's reminder that "You're watching the Family Learning Channel!"...
- A man in front of a bowl of cereal holding a giant spoon, repeatedly saying "My spoon is too big!" An anthropomorphic banana walks into the scene and announces "I am a banana!". At the end there is the sound of what could be a vacuum cleaner.
- Two stick men talk to each other in a strange dialect. One asks, "Tuesday's coming. Did you bring your coat?" The other responds, "I live in a giant bucket." A grotesque creature then grows out of the first man's head and screams something, to which the second man replies, "Fuck!" (which is censored). A creature with a pig-like head and tentacles then flies overhead, producing a noise like a jet engine.
- A group of figures stand beneath a sign reading, "Silly Hats Only". Another person enters the scene wearing a regular looking hat. They stare at him. After a brief Family Learning Channel logo, we return to find the people with the silly hats beating him on the ground with baseball bats.
- A voice announces, "You're watching the Family Learning Channel! And now, angry ticks fire out of my nipples!" A stick man wearing bunny ears approaches a group of children and emits a loud, cow-like moan as he fires a swarm of angry ticks from his nipples, attacking the children.
- The two stick men with the strange dialect return. The first asks, "Say, do you want to go see a movie?" The second responds, "I'm feeling fat and sassy." The two men then begin screaming at each other. The first man's left eye explodes, pouring a fountain of blood from the socket onto the second stick man's face, both of them continuing to scream.
The screen text then informs us that Hertzfeldt received another commission, from the (fictional) "Johnson & Mills Corporation", to produce animated commercials for their products, and like the previous spots, these were all reviewed and immediately rejected.
What follows is another series of additional bizarre and outrageous ads, including one that spawned the popular catchphrase, "I am a consumer whore" ("and how!"). This sequence builds to the most infamous scene in the film: A fluffy character, after exhorting his fellow cheering fluffy friends to "Dance!", begins to bleed profusely from his anus. He announces the fact repeatedly to his oblivious dancing friends, and eventually drowns in a screen full of his own blood.
The screen texts return to tell us how Hertzfeldt began to break down, started to create commercials using only his left hand, and either from the repeated rejection or from the loss of individuality in the corporate world, finally begin to "fall apart". In the film's climax, his characters' paper world suffers an apocalypse: the puffball figures run in terror as the "Family Learning Channel" logo plummets from the sky and its crushing letters rain down on them; howling winds sweep the banana through a black hole in the page; the papers ripple and crumble, mutilating a number of running characters; two stick figures pound on the fourth wall, denting their piece of paper outward towards the camera as they try to get out. The camera finally freezes on the guy with rabbit ears, trapped as the page crumples around him, silently screaming and turning into a blur as his world comes to an end.
[edit] DVD
Ever since its original theatrical run, the film has been a popular target for internet bootlegs, and in 2001 Bitter Films released a limited edition DVD "single" to give fans a proper alternative. It also featured a deleted scene as well as an audio commentary. Hertzfeldt has stated on the Bitter Films website that his concern with bootlegs has always been over quality control issues, and never a financial one.
Rejected is also featured on the DVD, "Bitter Films Volume 1", a compilation of Don Hertzfeldt's short films from 1995-2005 that is available exclusively from the Bitter Films website, http://www.bitterfilms.com. Rejected-specific special features on this DVD include a text caption commentary, never before seen footage from abandoned projects that have relevance to the film, the 2001 audio commentary, and dozens of pages devoted to the film in the "Archives" section, including sketches, storyboards, camera and editing notes, deleted ideas, and the like.
[edit] Inspiration
Although the film is fictional and Hertzfeldt never did any commercial work, he received many offers to do television commercials after his short Billy's Balloon garnered international attention and acclaim. In public appearances, he often tells the story that he always wished he could just make a cheap, nonsensical commercial to give to the company intending to hire him, make off with their money, and see if the terrible cartoons would actually make it to air. Eventually this became the germ for Rejected's theme of a collection of cartoons so bad they were rejected by advertising agencies, leading to their creator's breakdown and, presumably, his demise.
Hertzfeldt has never accepted "real" commercial work and has stated numerous times on his website and in public appearances that he never will, as he feels they are "lies" and does not want to lie to his audience.
[edit] Trivia
- Rejected world-premiered at the San Diego Comic Convention in 2000. Don Hertzfeldt totaled his car on the way home from the appearance.
- The alternate dimension scenes from the Aqua Teen Hunger Force episode "Broodwich" were an acknowledged homage to Rejected and Hertzfeldt, who was an early strong influence on the Aqua Teen creators.
- The film is recognized on a mural in front of Mead Hall at Pitzer College in Claremont, CA
- The movie was scheduled to air on Adult Swim in 2001 but was delayed for unknown reasons - it was rescheduled to air in November 2002 "uncut and commercial free", and was heavily promoted on the network that week. However, the short was pulled from the schedule at the last minute, for unknown reasons. Rumors about the reasons behind this highly unusual action have included: the film's brief use of the phrase, "Sweet Jesus" ("Jesus" being a word allegedly not allowed on a Turner Network); and an anonymous high-ranking network executive simply not finding the short to be funny. Rejected has since aired without incident on the Cartoon Network in other countries as well as on other international television networks, but has to date never been broadcast on American television.
- Between numerous film festival appearances, Rejected toured North American theaters in 2000, 2001, and 2002 with Spike and Mike's Sick and Twisted Festival of Animation, in 2001 and 2002 again with a retrospective touring program of Don's and animator Bill Plympton's films called "The Don and Bill Show", and again in 2003 and 2004 with Hertzfeldt's own the Animation Show tour.
- The song that the Fuzzballs were dancing to is called "Nu är det jul igen", a Swedish Christmas song.
- Rejected most recently returned to theaters in 2006 as part of the Sundance Institute's 25th anniversary "Art House Project", a special screening series of Sundance films for local audiences nationwide. Rejected was one of 5 shorts and 25 features from Sundance's history selected as "essential" and representative of the spirit of the Sundance Film Festival.
- A hidden reference to Rejected can be found in the PC video game Prey: in the bathroom that the player starts in, a graffiti drawing can be found above the right urinal. The drawing is a stick figure holding a large spoon with the words, "My spoon is too big" written next to it.
- A 35 second deleted scene from 'Rejected' can be found only on the DVD single, portraying a father inquiring into his son's desire to drink goat's blood. The scene appears to fit in with the "Johnson & Mills" portion of the original film, and is revealed to be an advertisement for cotton-swabs at the end.
- The Australian punk/ska band Dead Air International quotes the film with their repeated chorus, "I am a consumer whore - and HOW!" in their song, "I am the Strip Mall".
