SYNOPSICS
The Butter Battle Book (1989) is a English movie. Ralph Bakshi has directed this movie. Charles Durning,Christopher Collins,Miriam Flynn,Clive Revill are the starring of this movie. It was released in 1989. The Butter Battle Book (1989) is considered one of the best Animation,Family movie in India and around the world.
A tale of two hostile neighboring countries, one country is occupied by the Yooks, while the other is occupied by the Zooks. Both countries don't agree with each others ideology. Due to this issue they ended up building a wall in between the border of the two opposing cultures. The main reason they hate each other is because both cultures have a different way of buttering their bread. The Yooks eat their bread butter side up while the Zooks eat their bread butter side down. The story is told by the perspective of a Yook border patrol guard who tries to outwit a Zook name Van Itch with the latest Yooks weapon. However every time the border guard presents his weapon, Van Itch would have a weapon that is able to counter attack the Yook's weapon. This leads to an arms race with results leading to a mutual assured destruction.
Same Actors
The Butter Battle Book (1989) Reviews
A brilliant story with a hard lesson
This was one of my favorite adaptations of a Dr. Suess story. On one side of a stone wall, there's the Yooks, the "proper" race that butters their bread "butter side up". On the other side live the Zooks, which (gasp!) butter their bread "butter side down". The two groups, whom appear to be the exact same with the exception of this one characteristic, have waged war with each other for countless years. The Butter Battle Book shows the story of an old man who was once patrolled the wall, protecting the Yooks from the terror of the Zooks. With the help of his advisor, things get worse and worse until he and Zooks' protector both bring out a device that will destroy both sides of the wall forever. Who's going to drop it first? We may never know... I saw this when I was a child, and it left a lasting impression on me. These two races are fight over something as simple as this, and it shows what happens if we don't learn to get along and accept one another as each other. In a way, this story is the summary of every war that has happened: the fighting gets worse, and if we don't learn to get along, things are only going to get worse until both sides will destroy one another. Even though the story is very humorous, the moral is an important one. I'm hoping that one day I can share this story with my children and my grandchildren.
a brilliant, if all-too-brief, collaboration between Bakshi and Dr. Seuss
Who would've thought that one of the very best adaptations from book to screen- albeit small screen- in the Dr. Seuss realm would be by underground animated filmmaker Ralph Bakshi. By then, Bakshi had gone on from the more personal work of the 70s, trademarked with rough pencil and inking with wild color combos in unconventional stories, to more sci-fi/fantasy fare like Wizards, Fire and Ice, and even a hit and miss attempt at Lord of the Rings. This short work that he produced and directed, probably as a way to make ends meet as much as an artistic statement, is probably one of his most obscure works, but it might be one of his better works because he keeps his ambitions low and his targets simple enough to accomplish completely. What we have here is a story that has a level of appeal for children and adults, and like the recent Happy Feet it will mean different things for different audiences. For either age group, child or parent (or those who are out to seek any and all works by Bakshi), there's some appeal. For kids, it's a bright story of what it means to have a job to do, however petty or ridiculous it might seem. The Yooks and the Zooks are two different kinds of, well, Seuss characters, who each have their own way of spreading butter on bread, one side up, the other side down. Soon there are goofy attempts by a hired Grandfather Yook (voiced by Charles Durning) to take on the task of stopping the Zooks from continuing on their bottom-buttered path. There are also some whimsical songs, and even some random moments of strange humor, as can only come out of Seuss. But for the older ones, those who might have any kind of political awareness, Seuss and Bakshi have a simple message to go on, which is the notion of wars being started on the most petty but fastidiously held points of merit. And, as escalating tactics go, pretty soon it's less about the actual butter itself than the point of one side being too different enough- separated by a 'great-wall' kind of wall barrier- to ever have any kind of peace. There's details like how grandfather, however incompetent he might be to swart the Zooks, gets promoted to general, or how intricate a bomb can be made: and how it's just as easy for the other side to get the same power. It's not only how sharply and aptly Bakshi is in having Seuss's words have their impact, and the wit as scathing as it is poke-in-the-ribs playful and fairly hilarious (I loved the ending, which I won't reveal, but has its suddenness as a point of absurdity and satirical merit), but in fusing in his own methods of style that make this a success. Bakshi, taking a break from rotoscoping, makes the Seuss cartoonish world come to life, and in a manner that presents it not totally smooth and finely tuned but a little scratchy and messy and with the colors usually of the lighter-primary side (the exception, and a great scene at that, is when grandfather ventures down the staircase to the bomb-making lava-pool area). There's something very much alive to how Baskhi gets the Yoots and Zoots moving along, how they use oddball weaponry or machines, and how the timing is less out of Looney Tunes than out of his background as a satirist of culture. He even gets Seuss's songs, which are by turns silly and inane, as entertaining little notes in the story. If you can find this for your kids, if they happen to be Dr. Seuss fans anyway, it's a sure bet to get them into a lesser known but still worthwhile work. It's smart, vibrant, and almost cheerfully discomforting; second only to Chuck Jones's How the Grinch Stole Christmas as the best animated adaptation of a Seuss work. 8.5/10
The World In Ten Million Years
Wow. Wow, wow. Hmmm. Do I waste the words? In the spirit of Bakshi, I'll stay human and fail by trying. I won't believe the Grandfather. Anyone who studies Bakshi feels the tides of generations, of change, of the street, of music, and art, addiction and emotion. Of the loss of soul which accompanies conviction. So those few will suck on the sour, ironic pill of these comments like they have every minute of Bakshi film, and twist their face wry, and spit it out and never forget. They illustrate alike. Let me simplify and close; from 'a brilliant, if all-too-brief, collaboration...' "Soon there are goofy attempts by a hired Grandfather Yook (voiced by Charles Durning) to take on the task of stopping the Zooks from continuing on their bottom-buttered path." And contrast. From 'Simplistic and misguided' "In any event, the cartoon is little more than simplistic propaganda which does little to explore the nuances of the ethical questions behind nuclear armament and instead tries to inculcate fear of weapons technology into children." Do I really need to summarize? Probably, but I won't. Conviction becomes reality. What acts is indestructible.
Another terrific Dr Seuss animated adaptation
Even from an early age I have loved Dr Seuss, and I find the animated versions of his work on the most part classics(1966's How the Grinch Stole Christmas is my favourite). Ralph Bakshi's The Butter Battle Book is not an exception. While I am more familiar with and prefer Chuck Jones' visual style, the animation is very good, not always smooth but always colourful and vibrant. The score has the right mix of whimsy and energy, while the songs are very catchy and succeed in making Dr Seuss' classic rhymes highly memorable. With or without song, the rhymes have razor-sharp bite and wit and move along at a sprightly(and gentle when needed) pace. The story is simple, smart, charming and true to Dr Seuss' book, with many funny moments for children and adults to savour. The message is important and doesn't feel thankfully overly-didactic in how it was put across. The characters are wholly engaging and the voice acting I can't fault either. All in all, terrific like most of the Dr Seuss animated adaptations. 10/10 Bethany Cox
This way up
"The Butter Battle Book" is an American half-hour television special, well actually just a little over 20 minutes as usual, that was released back in 1989, so it has its 30th anniversary this yeah. The director is Ralph Bakshi and while he is not entirely unknown the writer is the star here as here we got one of Dr. Seuss lesser known works and he was in charge of the original material as well as the adaptation. This one was not nominated for an Emmy. The cast includes some known names too, the voice cast that is andthese are Oscar nominee Charles Durning as well as Golden Globe nominee Clive Revill with the latter being still alive today. Now I must say I can see why people did not really like this one as much as some of Seuss' other works, even if the imdb rating is decent. The characters felt pretty uninteresting to me, even if it was clearly visible who made this. The fact that nothing except their either blue or brown outfit makes a difference between them visually is typical Seuss. Same goes for the rhymes. No narration this time, but the characters are speaking. It is basically about two lands who fight and one of them eats bread with the buttered side up, the other with the butter side down. Now that is the one truly baffling thing here. Yep people did eat bread with the butter side down at some point apparently. Anyway, the result of this conflict is that they are fighting each other, not really violently to keep it kids- and family friendly, but yeah there are arguments and we also see catapults and what they shoot with these catapults were slices of bread, a large amount, with the buttered side where they think it belongs. I think this is in terms of almost every production value a bit of a poor man's version of other stuff by Dr. Seuss. His easily recognizable approach to comedy alone is not enough. The characters, the music, the animation (maybe), the exact contents - itg all feels tolerable, but not really worth seeing. It is certainly as far away from failure territory as it is from real quality. So if you totally adore Seuss' works, then go check this one out. What I found far more interesting than the story or so is thatg you can easily make a connection here between this short film and the plot and the cold war atmosphere that was still existing back in the late 80s globally, even if it was really quickly getting less, also with the Fall of the Berlin Wall around that time. But this is not supposed to become a history lesson, but a review instead. So I say as an overall suggestion that you may want to skip the watch here. Nothing worth seeing really except the buttered bread that may make you hungry. Not recommended.