Autumn in Rome

Film shows the story of Papageno (the one from Mozart's opera "The Magic Flute"), who wants a mate, yet has difficulties getting one.

Two stylized nursery rhymes are shown. First is "The House That Jack Built" as told with a variety of characters composed of letters that spell out their names (Example: the cow is made up of an intertwined C, O, and W). Next is "Old MacDonald Had a Band" (no, not farm) in which Old MacDonald and his band give way with a hot jazz number (even his animals play instruments). The piece comes to an end when Old MacDonald's wife is tired of doing all the housework and gives him a swift whack on his head with her rolling pin.

Professor Ludwig von Drake plays a variety of popular music, all of which he wrote. First, ragtime: the Rutabaga Rag, with vegetables dancing in stop-motion. Next, the Charleston, with cut-out animation of a singer and dancers. Dixieland and more cut-out animation; the crooner/love ballad; 50's doo-wop; and finally, rockabilly.

An obnoxious magpie returns to the forest from abroad and finds a most unenthusiastic audience for her jazz music.

Mickey guest-directs a radio orchestra. The sponsor loves the rehearsal, but come the actual performance, Goofy drops all the instruments under an elevator, so they sound like toys. The sponsor hates it, but the audience loves it anyway.

The goddess is greeted by dancing flowers and fairies. The devil comes and takes her away to be his queen. She's despondent, as winter settles in above ground. But the devil isn't happy either, and offers anything to make her happy. They reach an agreement: she'll spend six months above ground and six below. Thus we have seasons.

The people of Hamelin, overrun with rats, offer a bag of gold to anyone who can get rid of the rats. A piper offers to do the job, and successfully lures the rats into a mirage of cheese, which disappears. The citizens, disappointed that all he did was play a tune, offer only pocket change. The piper, angered, plays a new tune that has all the children of the city follow him, even the new twins the stork is preparing to deliver.

At the home of Viennese composer Johann Strauss lived Johann Mouse. Whenever the composer played his waltzes, the mouse would dance to the music, unable to control himself. One day, when Strauss was away, the house cat played his master's music. When word got out about a piano-playing cat and a dancing mouse, they were commanded to perform for the emperor.

The Cat in the Hat is all set for a lovely picnic, but the evil Grinch changes his plans by inventing a contraption that captures noise and makes it sound ferocious. The Cat has to save the world from the clutches of the Grinch and the only way to do it is to reach Grinch's soft spot.

A man in tight jeans buffs his car to the strains of The Paris Sisters' "Dream Lover".

This film resulted from the unfinished short film Puce Women. The film opens with a camera watching 1920s style flapper gowns being taken off a dress rack. The dresses are removed and danced off the rack to music. (The original soundtrack was Verdi opera music; in the 1960s, Anger re-released the film with a new psychedelic folk-rock soundtrack performed by Jonathan Halper.) A long-lashed woman, Yvonne Marquis, dresses in the purple puce gown and walks to her vanity to apply perfume. She lies on a chaise lounge which then begins to move around the room and eventually out to a patio. Borzois appear and she prepares to take them for a walk.

A gang of bikers prepares for a race as sexual, sadistic, and occult images are cut together.

Shrek, Fiona, Donkey, Puss in Boots, and the rest of the Far Far Away Kingdom battle it out in a singing competition.

Dave Apollon is a one-man production staff, who puts on a stage show as writer, director, producer, bandleader, art director, and other jobs.

In the late sixties, the American saxophone player and living jazz legend Ben Webster lived in Amsterdam for a year. Webster, who was born in Kansas City in 1909, was a unique personality in the world of jazz and blues. In the thirties, he played with all the great names. During his Amsterdam period, he stayed with an elderly landlady, Mrs Hardloper, with whom he appeared on a national talk show. In conversations with Van der Keuken, he muses on the past; on the fantastic experience of playing in the renowned Duke Ellington band; or on one of his best friends, who was so deft at eating with a knife and fork. Short, fragmented remarks, which Van der Keuken has edited in a loose, improvised editing style.

A stern classical music teacher becomes a father of four musically-inclined sons, but when one of them demonstrates a preference for jazz music, his father kicks him out of the house.

At the Katnip Kollege, we see a roomful of cats taking a course in Swingology. Everyone swings except Johnny, who can't cut it and has to sit in the dunce chair. Miss Kitty Bright tells him to look her up when he learns how to swing. Finally, listening to the pendulum clock at night, Johnny gets the beat. He rushes out to where everyone is playing and sings "Easy As Rollin' Off a Log" to Kitty Bright. She joins in; he grabs a trumpet for an instrumental break, with the complete band. They both fall off a log; she covers him with kisses.

Gypsies sing and dance around the fire while their children dream.

An androgynous 'hep pixie' helps a lonely junior high student release his inner musician and join his school band.

As in the classic fable, the grasshopper plays his fiddle and lives for the moment, while the industrious ants squirrel away massive amounts of food for the winter. With his song, he's able to convince at least one small ant until the queen arrives and scares him back to work. The queen warns the grasshopper of the trouble he'll be in, come winter. Winter comes, and the grasshopper, near starvation, stumbles across the ants, who are having a full-on feast in their snug little tree. They take him in and warm him up. The queen tells him only those who work can eat so he must play for them. Written by Jon Reeves