Masyanya

This is the first of the "Ragtimes" — a peculiar subtype of Masyanya cartoons where the characters play not only themselves but also various animals. Allegorical cartoons, so to speak. There are nine Ragtimes in total, and I'm putting them in a separate playlist precisely because of this unusual concept. Though it's not really that unusual, when you think about it. We're all roughly 97% animal, and our behavioral patterns are easy to recognize as distinctly beast-like — so easy, in fact, that it's often funny. That's what the Ragtimes are about. And vice versa: animal behavior sometimes strongly resembles human behavior, only caricatured.

The title — I myself can't read it without stumbling. This episode is about birds. About parent-birds and chick-birds. Not sure what else to describe here — it's all in the cartoon itself. The only thing worth mentioning is that recording chaotic multi-character dialogues solo, voicing everyone yourself, is quite the task. Enough to drive you mad.

On the website this episode is listed under exactly this title — "The Black-o-eared Parrot." With that extra "o." And the description explicitly notes that it's not a typo. However hard I tried just now, I couldn't remember what the joke with that extra "o" actually is. So let's just say there is a joke in the title, but its nature remains unknown. Which is somehow even better. :) This episode will never lose its relevance. Especially for parts of the world where freedom (in the idealistic sense) never existed and apparently never will, because almost nobody there actually wants it. Such parts of the world exist — more than one — you know the ones. A good episode by every measure, and I'll say so without false modesty. And huge props to Sasha Proskura — he did the animation here, as in all the Ragtimes. Clean and precise.

The episode about monkeys is actually about the traps we set and the pits we dig. Two different approaches to catching the bluebird of happiness — well, the monkey, rather...

— And who makes the rules for us? — Those whose income exceeds 10,000 koku. — And why do they have so much koku? — Because they make the rules, why are you acting like a child? Another evergreen, eternally relevant episode. The alternative, original title was "Lasius neglectus" — somewhere between the Latin name for the black garden ant and a nihilist. This time it's a full-on manifesto of humanist anarchism, voiced by Lokhmatiy. With all its ins, outs, and everything in between.

The title, like the plot of the cartoon, contains a pretty transparent — oak-level obvious, I'd say — nod to the work of one Richard Bach and his seagull. But Bach didn't quite think it through. His character is this laser-focused idealist-fighter-go-getter. A real stormy petrel of the revolution. Nonsense and pomposity. The cartoon shows how the "reality and dreams" mechanism actually works. Idealists are mostly numbskulls. Though that's precisely what makes them valuable.

This is what happens when you let an artist off the leash. :) In this episode the Masyanya characters aren't even playing animals anymore — they're playing characters from "Buratino" in a sort of contemporary-to-them interpretation. The cartoon is packed with references and quotes that probably only make sense to me, which is also a side effect of the "artist unchained" phenomenon. Many of the little songs reference Soviet radio productions of "Buratino" that were the soundtrack of my childhood — but not necessarily yours. You're really not supposed to do that. Which is why I'm saying — went a bit overboard, pardon me. On the other hand, a little piece of my own personal history is baked into this one. And at the same time, despite its abstractness, the cartoon is a time capsule of very specific era markers: CD-ROMs, a floppy disk on the desk, ICQ chat history and all that...

This one went completely off the allegory charts. A species of creature called "Shurikis" (means "Fellas") inhabits the Serengeti national park. A wildlife documentary segment about them — in the style of the classic Soviet nature show "In the Animal World" — is the subject of this episode. Yet what seems like an overly elaborate allegory effortlessly brings us back to a world of simple, instantly recognizable realities. The cartoon's allegory is as simple a game as the mating rituals of the "Shurikis" themselves that it describes. A primitively Freudian episode, one might say. Pretty cool, in my opinion... :))

There was a film called "Dead Mountaineer's Hotel", in case anyone missed the reference. This episode has a nightmarish ending. It's the only episode with a bad ending. Masyanya dies. Even if in the form of a moth — still... The episode was planned to be the last Ragtime. And the last Masyanya episode altogether. Which is why she dies.