Zdenek Miler, “The Mole as a Chemist / The Mole as Painter / The Mole as Photographer / The Mole as Watchmaker” (1972 – 1975)
By the mid-1970s, Krtek the Mole was nearly 20 years old so it seemed right that he should start looking for gainful employment. In this quartet of short pieces made from 1972 to 1975, he tests different roles for size and although he’s quite good at a couple, he doesn’t last beyond one short and at the end of all of them, Krtek is back to digging ditches.
In the 5-minute short “The Mole as Photographer”, our friend Krtek acquires a camera from a mouse and immediately starts taking pictures of a family of frogs – but the camera plays up on him and he is reduced to drawing pictures of the family. Soon all the animals want portraits done and they drive the little fella nuts as he tries to keep up with all their demands.
Krtek digs his way into a warehouse of chemistry sets in “The Mole as a Chemist” and finds a set to play with. Predictably the mix of chemicals he makes threatens to explode so he hides the test-tube in a box, from which geometric shapes in different colours burst out. He assembles the pieces into a car, then a wheel, then a mobile castle with towers, but all of them quickly get out of control and he ends up spraying the box with the test-tude with a neutraliser he finds in the original set. Everything the box spews out turns into bubbles and Krtek is relieved that the mess he created soon disappears.
In “The Mole as Watchmaker”, Krtek finds an unlikely new friend in a mechanical cuckoo he finds in a clock set up in a tree. At first the cuckoo annoys him so he tries to teach the bird a lesson in manners and ends up crashing the clock onto the ground. He puts it back together to revive the comatose cuckoo and in no time at all the clock is in perfect working order and the cuckoo revives.
The longest of the four, “The Mole as Painter”, Krtek and his friends paint themselves and the forest with various paints they find in discarded cans in order to torment a fox that’s been harassing them all. Faced with a psychedelic scene, Reynard panicks and runs off. The rains come and wash all the brilliant colours and patterns away and the animals celebrate Reynard’s permanent banishment.
IN all these little animated situation comedies, there’s often a moral about co-operation and mutual benefit, being kind to others and helping them, or messing about with dangerous and unknown things. The most ordinary situation is bursting with original creative potential: a set of chemicals and equipment generates strange and wonderful shapes and colours and a forgotten set of paints provides an opportunity to render one’s home in crazy cacophonies of colour. “The Mole as Painter” must have had particular resonance for Miler who originally trained as a painter before the Second World War disrupted as career.
As with other Krtek shorts, these cartoons have beautifully painted background scenery and “The Mole as Painter” goes to town on this as the animals paint spots, lines, patterns and spirals all over one another and over the trees, flowers and grass. The style of animation is appropriately minimal if somewhat old-fashioned for the period but it suits Miler’s purposes in teaching young viewers about colour and creativity and a couple of shorts featured here acquire an abstract and experimental look and feel.
The music is significant to the shorts and often features whistling and cheery accordion melodies.
All cartoons are recommended for families with young (and not-so-young!) children. The educational purpose is quite subtle and the mood is usually happy and optimistic without being sentimental or treacly.