Customer Reviews

Pogo For President - I Go Pogo [VHS]

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Great movie about the Walt Kelly's comic strip characters. Election year fever sweeps the Okefenokee Swamp as everyone's favorite possum suddenly finds himself recruited for the nation's highest office! All of Walt Kelly's unforgettable "Pogo" cartoon strip characters hop on the bandwagon for this hilarious tongue-in-cheek trip down the campaign trail, complete with back-room political intrigue, frantic fund-raising and a candidate who would just as soon run from office as run for it. The voice talents of Jonathan Winters, Vincent Price and Ruth Buzzi help bring Kelly's classic bayou-country critters to life. Ages 9 and up might sit long enough to enjoy this film. Great satire on our political system.

In the plotline, Pogo is nominated (without being asked if he is interested) to run for President of the USA. When asked to run, he responds that he doesn't even like to walk. All the characters we know and love from the Okefenokee Swamp are busy trying to get him elected, but there is the seedy side of politics. The money dealing and political maneuvering just get to be too much for our possum everyman. This story has many of the features that endeared Pogo to so many people. Some of the dialogue is word for word from the strip.

Walt Kelly was an animation artist with the Walt Disney Studios from 1936 to 1941, and while there he specialized in Mickey Mouse, including his stellar work on a Mickey short called, "The Gay Nineties". He started in the Story department, and moved over to animation. He worked on the Pastoral scenes of "Fantasia", later on "Reluctant Dragon" and "Dumbo". After he left the Disney Studios animation team, Walt Kelly created comic books which led him eventually to create the Pogo characters as a regular comic. The comic characters were so popular he was asked to turn them into a daily newspaper comic strip. It quickly became one of the most popular strips in the country, and was known for its high quality artwork, detailed backgrounds, sensitive characters,and for its fearless political commentary, and the incredible job he did with creating completely unique characters out of the thin air. Later he turned it around again, and taking his strips that has already been published into some of the first ever graphic comic novels, re-edited them and added new material to create a running storyline that flowed well. His pacing really grabbed the audiance, going from slow dialouge in floating boats, to total chaos.

The movie on this page was released to theatrical audiances in 1979, rather than going to television. There was another Pogo story made into film before this one in 1968, a television special directed by the famous Warner Brothers director Chuck Jones. It is also available on Amazon.com as the "Pogo Birthday Special". This other show was done in traditional cel animation, and was made for NBC network TV. But Kelly never was happy with the way the final product turned out on that one despite the fact that he was very involved with voice selection, even lending his own voice, character design, song writing, and more. Walt was a perfectionist and it showed in everything he did. Next he tried to create his own animated version of the Pogo, but Kelly passed away in 1973 before completion. Years later his widow authorized through the Walt Kelly Estate that Stowmar Enterprises could create a new stop motion film for theatrical release in 1979, "I Go Pogo". They did a terrific job in designing the characters in 3D clay, and the sets and backgrounds are well done and heavily detailed. Script adaptation, production, and direction was alldone by Marc Paul Chinoy, and he recruited some top name voice actors in the form of Vincent Price (the Deacon), Johnathon Winters (narration, Mole, Wiley Catt, and Porky Pine), Skip Hinnant (Pogo), Arnold Stang (Cherch LaFemme), and Ruth Buzzi (Miz Beaver). Some fans complain that the actors were unable to authentically match the Georgia accents of the characters, which is true.

It was released on video later by two publishers UAV, with the title listed only as "I Go Pogo". Then Walt Disney Studios purchased the right to release this as a video, but both copies are out of print. This movie really needs to be remastered and released in DVD. The film is 82 minutes in length, the smaller kids might get kind of squirmy. While Pogo is a comic character, the storyline is based on ideas that are pretty adult issues, this time being politics. There are 6 original songs in the movie, including Dr. Hook, the Chipmunks, and others. It does have a 1970's tinge to the music. For some strange reason it was rated PG, probably because at that time a G rating was death in the box office. All in all very interesting for the Pogo fan, or the collector of stop motion animation.

I remember when I was a little sprout watching this flick! Adult/political situations that went way over my head didn't phase my love for this movie. Of course as I got older I was able to appreciate the language rather than the funny claymation scenes that attracted me as a child.

A SOLID classic that kids AND grown ups will enjoy. Keeps you interested, and is done NICELY!

I highly recommend this VHS video, "I Go Pogo: Pogo For President" because the characters are humorous, and the stop-motion animation (i.e., "claymation") is incredible.

I saw this when it first came out in the 80's as a child on HBO. Sadly, you cannot see this gem on television because none of the networks air it; although, it would be great if they did for the young generation of today!

Incidentally, this video has been out-of-print for a very long time.

Hopefully, the company, who owns the rights to the video will later release it on DVD!

There was a poster, GAF 3-D Fewmaster. Mrs. Kelly & the person who made the movie got into a cat fight so to speak. So the movie never was in the theatres. It went to VHS Formant before Walt Disney got it. Now I'm not sure who have rights of the the movie? The last I heard that is on DVD.