Hey kids, would you like to go on a magical trip with MARK TWAIN through time and space? Sounds a bit boring doesn't it? Sounds kinda learn-y right? Well, what if I told you that Ol' MARK was going to scare the living crap out of you? And what if I told you that he wanted to introduce you to a friend of his by the name of…wait for it… Satan? In the 1985 full-length claymation movie THE ADVENTURES OF MARK TWAIN, children found a brand new level of hell to experience thanks to a visit from everyone's favorite fallen angel the devil himself. Director WILL VINTON, who is also notably connected with notorious trauma devices RETURN TO OZ and THE CALIFORNIA RAISINS, doesn't seem to get that combining psychedelia with morose nihilism is a recipe for kiddie suicide. We're not questioning the guy's artistic genius; his work makes the RANKIN & BASS canon look like a bunch of paper bag puppets and we realize that he was just giving a shout out to Twain's unfinished work THE MYSTERIOUS STRANGER. We're just wondering how he sleeps at night knowing he's blown little underage minds to smithereens. Isn't Satan scary enough with his red underwear and twisty tail? Where'd that morph-y mask come from? And what's with all that creating of little people just to destroy them bit? That type of crazy, power-hungry behavior is usually reserved for the big head honcho himself…God! Depicting Satan as an evil dude who wants to take over the Earth, now that's what we can get behind. This Satan not only doesn't want the dump, he's convinced it's not real, and that it's only an illusion, a dream. There's a fun concept for a kid to mull over! If nothing else, we certainly could have done without the sight of the little cow falling into the pit, now that was just plain mean!The brave among you can check out the offending scene HERE!
Dude. Now that is some really screwed up stuff. Didn't see this in my youth myself, but I stumbled across the vid on YouTube and came here just to make sure Lancifer put it up here somewhere. You can tell when a scene justifies 8 pages of traumatized laments on the movie's IMDB.com msg. board that it is a serious offender! Wow, that Vinton producer was daring.