Week 2 - Feb. 4th Screening "Pumpkins"

To start off with I wanted to make note of the amazing use of stop motion animation in Cohl's "Great Pumpkin Race." Although it's noticeable that stop motion was used it was still somewhat seamless and believable to the eye. During the entire picture I felt like these were magical pumpkins that could climb buildings and go over railings. This "magic" quality to the pumpkins gave me humor seeing as I knew that logically these pumpkins can't roll forever (let alone climb over objects and go through chimneys). So through the creative technical use of stop motion animation (along with reversing the film) Cohl made this entire little story believable but at the same time humorous because of the logic behind what was going on. My main question from seeing this film however, was "What is so important about these pumpkins that all of these people chase after them with strenuous effort?" My theory, as demonstrated by the pumpkin's ability to jump over railings etc. is that these are in fact magical pumpkins. It makes more sense as to why these characters tried so hard to catch the pumpkins. Wouldn't you try hard to catch a magical pumpkin?