First up, Tayna tretey planety, a Russian animated sci-fi movie from the early 80′s. It has a wonderfully psychedelic synth soundtrack, and the visual style is foreign, somewhat weary and depressed. My copy is dubbed in French since it was taped off of Radio-Canada in the late 80s, but there are apparently several budget English-dubbed DVD releases of varying quality.

Next, Earth*Star Voyager. This was shown as a two-part Disney Sunday movie in the late 80′s, though it was apparently shot as a pilot for a full series that never happened. In the end, it’s pretty laughable (in the late 21st century of this film, they still use the dorky 80′s computer font on all their signage and UIs), but in that era the sci-fi pickings were pretty slim, so I have some fond childhood memories of this. Seems I’m not alone–it’s at least popular enough to warrant torrents of fan-made DVD versions (since Disney will likely never bother to release this on video).

Speaking of Disney, I’ve recently come across some great Ward Kimball animations from Disney’s earlier TV shows:

This segment from Mars & Beyond is mostly an excuse to create wonderfully whimsical creature animations.

Magic Highway USA has been making the blog rounds lately, and it’s easy to see why. It alternates between sensible and prescient predictions (in-dash GPS) and loopy petrocolonial fever dreams (electric hovercars driving by the sphinx in air-conditioned glass highway tubes!), set to a swinging jazz soundtrack. If you like the style, Paleo-Future has rounded up a great set of publicity stills from the collection of Kevin Kidney.

(direct link)

Here’s one of my favorites:

(Nijntje is a Dutch cartoon character who predates Hello Kitty by about 20 years. Her name means “Little Rabbit,” and is pronounced “Nine-cha”.)

(direct link)

( direct link)

(direct link)

This also serves as a neat illustration of the tug-of-war between novelty and nostalgia. Notice how the titles are steadily “upgraded” with the new technology of each decade. We reach a dance-remix-and-flying-3D-text climax sometime in the mid-’90s–and then, photorealistic computer animation having become commonplace, we make an abrupt about-face, heading back to the classic ’70s we’re-zoomin’-through-a-tube version.

(direct link)

Watch the video

Incidentally, watching YouTube on TV is the killer app for the Wii’s new web browser.