No-brain and Unhappiness

1962 Animation 20 minutes Directed by Zhang Songlin

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About No-brain and Unhappiness

No-brain forgets half of what he starts. Unhappiness answers every request by refusing. The narrator, who has had enough of both, lets them grow up overnight so they can feel the damage. No-brain, now an engineer, designs a building of a thousand stories and leaves out the elevators. Unhappiness, now an actor, will not play a scene the way he is told, and the performance falls apart. The mess sends them back to the habits they need to drop.

Cast & crew

More about No-brain and Unhappiness

Zhang Songlin directed the short as the 1962 graduation film of the Shanghai Film Academy animation class, which he headed. Ren Rongrong adapted his own story after studio chief Te Wei approved it. About thirty students drew the picture over four months, each taking five to ten shots.

Themes

  • A boy who cannot remember the elevators
  • A boy who will not take direction
  • Growing up overnight as a lesson
  • No-brain
  • Unhappiness
  • thousand-story building
  • elevators
  • actor
  • narrator
  • Shanghai Animation Film Studio

In film history

In Chinese, "no-brain" and "unhappiness" are still nicknames for a scatterbrain and a child who will not go along.

Making

Zhang told the class to invent freely and to take part in the character and background designs. Te Wei, head of the Shanghai Animation Film Studio, looked at the story before Ren was hired to adapt it.

Look

Duan Xiaoxuan photographed the cels. Han Bin and Yan Yunkai painted the backgrounds.

Music

Zhang Dong wrote the score. The Shanghai Film Orchestra and the Shanghai Peking Opera Theatre orchestra play it, conducted by Chen Chuanxi and Zhang Xinhai. Qiu Yuefeng narrates.

Notes

  • The Chinese title is 没头脑和不高兴.
  • Qiu Yuefeng speaks the narrator, the "I" who pushes the boys into early adulthood. Yao Peihua voices No-brain.
  • Shang Hua has a few lines as a doorman.
  • Animation was supervised by He Yuwen and Lü Jin. Han Bin and Yan Yunkai painted the backgrounds.
  • Children's writer Ren Rongrong agreed at once when the studio asked him to turn the tale into a script.

Scenes

  • The narrator lets the two boys wake up as adults.
  • No-brain unveils a thousand-story tower and has forgotten the elevators.
  • Unhappiness refuses the stage direction and the play comes apart.

Influenced by

  • Ren Rongrong's children's story of the same name

Also available

  • Wikimedia Commons (没头脑和不高兴 1962.webm)