‘The Adventures of Mark Twain (1985)’ is an Overlooked Claymation Masterpiece Not Intended For Young Eyes

It’s G rating did it no favors

Alexander Razin
SH0TGUN

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They don’t celebrate Christmas in the movie, but I liked the photo. Image Credit: Clubhouse Pictures

I’m a bored teenager on a Saturday afternoon. I perused YouTube until I found a fascinating video.

I scrolled and scrolled.

After scrolling for several minutes, a title caught my attention. “Very scary, disturbing children’s cartoon, banned from TV,” the title read. What I saw wasn’t scary, but the claim of banning it from TV was proof enough.

The TV stations did not ban the clip, and it wasn’t a children’s TV program. It was part of a stop-motion animated movie, The Adventures of Mark Twain (1985.) Regardless, the movie feels banned. We forgot about it until fans of stop-motion films rediscovered it years later.

Will Vinton created The Adventures of Mark Twain (1985) (Comet Quest in the UK) through Clubhouse Pictures. I added 1985 because the movie has the same name as another movie from 1944.

Will Vinton and Co. worked on this film for three and a half years until its 1985 release. They filmed it in the barbershop studio, a house converted into a workroom near a barbershop.

The creator, Will Vinton, may sound unfamiliar, but we know his work. Vinton was known for…

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Alexander Razin
SH0TGUN

Aficionado and connoisseur of obscure and experimental music, movies, and TV. Fictional and nonfictional pieces have their place here, too