This is a very clever film from The National Film Board of Canada. I can honestly say I have never seen anything like it and I can certainly understand why it was Oscar-nominated.It begins with a message that the film is brought to you by The National Film Board of MARS!! It turns out to be a documentary about Earthlings, and the film goes on to show the day-to-day habits of car--which, the Martians assume is the dominant life force on the planet! It's all very clever, as these aliens supposedly think that the cars are intelligent and humans are parasites! Very tongue-in-cheek--and I like the dry and business-like narration.The only negative about it is a sign of the times in which it was made. Compared to Oscar nominees from the 1940s and 50s as well as more recent ones, the animation is rather poor--simple drawings with moderately low frame-rates. However, for the 1960s, this is pretty typical so I don't fault it for this.

Just watched this Oscar-nominated animated short on YouTube. Presented by "The National Film Board of Mars", What on Earth! has a narrator telling the Mars audience about the life there is on Earth that feeds on a pump of gas. It seems he's referring to the cars that dominate the highway. We also find out about the "Earthling"s "retirement" parking place and how they "reproduce". And then there are those "parasites" (humans) that inhabit these "Earthlings"...This satirical animated short from The National Film Board of Canada hits the mark of how the Mars people think the cars are the living creatures since the road is dominated by them. And considering how there hasn't been any evidence of actual life on the red planet yet, there's no chance of anyone there being offended by the material here. So on that note, I cautiously recommend What on Earth!

This short, nominated for an Academy Award, is a very funny and very pointed satire that really deserves to be more widely seen than it has been. Produced under the auspices of the NFBC, it scores points in quite a few areas, lampooning aspects of modern culture. Produced in 1967, the points it makes are just as cogent and valid today. Until recently, Cartoon Network showed this occasionally on the very late-night series, O Canada, which, sadly, is not currently airing. Cartoons are not just for children and much of the output from the National Film Board of Canada shows that they understand this. Try and catch this somewhere if you can. It's most definitely worth seeing. Most recommended.

Earthlings. They have strange names that consist of two groups of three letters and numbers. They have strange lives, as they play on complicated running fields all day. Their reproduction process is most confusing, and most efficient also. They communicate by making strange honking sounds. But thanks to painstaking research by Martian scientists and Martian probes, we are understanding them more and more, and hope to make contact with them one day.This satirical short is only ten or so minutes long, but in that time it accomplishes plenty. It cuts to the truth of this world. What is the dominant species of the planet Earth? Why, automobiles, of course. This excellent short, while not perfect (the reproduction sequence took a little too long), takes a very amusing look at the people of Earth and their strange habits. 9/10.