I guess Ed Bishop's narration kept "Automania 2000" from becoming too dark and serious as, after all, this is still an animated movie. And a fairly successful one at that as it was nominated for an Academy Award over 50 years ago, but lost to Mel Brooks' entry. "Automania 2000" is about the way people in the 1960s imagined industries and life in general and what they would look like when the new millennium starts. There were some witty moments in here, but I personally felt the comedy was not that great really. The animation wasn't exactly to my liking either, but the 60s were generally not too great in terms of style and there's even worse stuff out there. After all, it is all subjective if you like the style or not, so i will rule in the film's favor and give it a thumbs-up. Pretty awkward that this film is already about a time gone for 15 years looking at how long it was back then till the year 2000 would be reached. Watch it.

This short by John Halas and Joy Batchelor was nominated for an Academy Award for Animated Short. There will be spoilers ahead: The basic premise of this is that automobiles, having built up in numbers, size and purpose to an absurd degree, have ground to a halt through perpetual gridlock. Everyone now lives in stationary cars stacked in layers.Naturally, people being people, there's still a striving by many to better their neighbors, which calls for MORE cars, which still don't go anywhere but up. Disaster is inevitable.While cars are the ostensible target here, science and human nature are really what's being skewered here. The animation is rather dated and limited, but the short is more than worth watching.This short can be found on a DVD with five other Halas and Batchelor shorts which is included in a book about the animators, titled Halas and Batchelor Cartoons, An Animated History, by their daughter Vivien Halas and Paul Wells. Halas and Batchelor are significant to animation in general and to animation in the UK. The book itself is very good and the shorts on the DVD are well done and all are worth watching. Automania 2000 is recommended.

I am mainly familiar with the animation work of British husband-and-wife team John Halas and Joy Batchelor via their wonderful cartoon adaptation of George Orwell's political allegory ANIMAL FARM (1955); though this one-reeler got a favourable assessment in "Leslie Halliwell's Film Guide" and was nominated for an Oscar, I never had the opportunity to catch it until I decided to check its availability via "You Tube" on a whim! I still did not expect it to be this surreal, or so thoroughly effective – to say nothing of prophetic – as a satire on society's obsession with automobiles, something which I thankfully am not bothered with myself...as I do not even own a car, despite having acquired a driving licence years ago (and which is why I can never understand some people's adulation for anything equipped with an engine)! Anyway, Science is content here to supply to the public demand for larger (the one point it did not get right, since things are actually becoming increasingly microscopic in size) and ever more sophisticated models (eventually being also able to reproduce themselves!). The result of this sees the whole planet engulfed by motor vehicles, so much so that their owners (and immediate families) are forced to take up residence inside them! The visualization of a massive pile-up of machines and helicopters flying above to provide the necessary sustenance and medical attention to the trapped occupants is delightful...but the solitary manufacturer himself, previously safe up in his proverbial ivory tower, is ultimately overwhelmed by his own creations. The stylish film is colourful and great fun – and, at this stage, makes me wonder what other gems of its ilk (or, for that matter, Short Subjects in general) may have been eluding me all this time...

Automania 2000 is a British animated short from Halas and Batchelor that depicts a future that is overrun by cars as the result of public demand for bigger and better ones. The effect is that cars stack up so much space in the world that people start living in them without going outside much. And then cars start reproducing themselves which cause even more girdlock. Partly humorous in tone owing to the cheery narration but pretty eerie visually, Automania 2000 is a compelling look at the not-too-distant time beyond the present that should give us lots to think about. Well worth seeing for animation fans. I discovered this unique short on YouTube through Cartoon Brew.