A splendid satire on the Olympic industry and TV sports programmes. Plenty of recognisable types amongst the furry cast from the gushing bimbo interviewer to an intense USSR gymnast to a deadpan turtle anchorman. The animation is above average for TV but lacks the richness of Bluth or Disney. However that hardly matters because the real pleasure lies in the smart script, engaging vocal performances and first rate character design. Quite a lot of the more adult humour will sail over the heads of the young but older viewers can watch this movie again and again to pick up on the jokes they missed last time. An extremely underrated cartoon gem.

A series of vignettes are presented as the broadcast of the first animal Olympic Games through the fictional ZOO television network. The Games are staples of the summer and winter Olympic events.

Produced and directed by Steven Lisberger, Animalympics was intended to cut in with NBC's coverage of the Olympic games where every so often the Olympic Games commentators would break from their coverage by saying "let's check in on how the animals are doing" or something to that effect. After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan Jimmy Carter boycotted the Moscow held Olympic games and NBC scrapped their coverage and airing of Animalympics. Animalympics was structured in such a way that it could be shown theatrically as a film and was shown as such in overseas markets. No distribution agreement ever happened for Animalympics in North America and aside from some airings on cable TV and VHS releases it never made much impact. The film did boast some early work by animation specialist who would go on to bigger work such as Brad Bird, Roger Allers, and Bill Koyer and as expected there's some really good animation on display. While technically speaking Animalympics is a nice looking production with above average animation, it's also a flabby directionless mess with no driving engine and many of the events are lacking in identity because they feel like (and are) a series of shorts based on formula that don't lend themselves to a feature film format.

Animalympics does technically have characters as the "athletes" are given talking head segments where they discuss their backstory or personalities. One of the few that standout is an alligator named Bolt Jenkins who's a strange hybrid of Bruce Jenner and John Travolta (complete with a similar delivery to Travolta's Welcome Back Kotter role) and it's more head scratching than genuinely funny. Other athletes are more or less the same with Eurasian Athletes being parodies of typical Soviet archetypes and other athletes being less engaging. Connecting the segments is color commentary by voice actors such as Harry Shearer, Gilda Radner, and Billy Crystal doing parodies of Barbara Walters and Howard Cosell which are done well enough but their not all that funny or unique. The one element I can say is good without reservation are the musical segments where the film showcases the most impressive animation sequences alongside some fairly good music (as far as adult contemporary goes).

It's probably unfair to judge Animalympics as a movie since it was intended to be shown chopped up in 5 to 10 minute segments in between the actual Olympics, but because it was released as a movie it needs to be judged as one. Animalympics is style over substance with good animation in service of what's rather traditional cartoon antics with basic satire of the 70s Cold War geopolitical climate. As a time capsule and point of interest for animation enthusiasts I can recommend it on that level, but most of the vignettes are so similar there will be long stretches where even the most patient viewer's patience will be tested.

Continuing to review "SNL"ers early work on film, we're now at 1980 with the television showing of the animated Animalympics. A 30-min. version of the Winter Games segment had originally been shown on NBC during the actual Winter Olympics on ABC but when the Summer Games (held in Moscow, Russia at that time) were boycotted by our country, that effectively cancelled the airing of the Summer Games ep of this movie. HBO eventually showed the whole thing a year later for multiple airings. Anyway, then-current members of the "SNL" cast Gilda Radner and Harry Shearer as well as future member Billy Crystal were among the voices that contributed here and what a treat to hear Radner as her Baba Wawa character as well as Crystal as Howard Cosell and Muhammad Ali ones. Aided greatly by the musical songs of Graham Gouldman of 10cc with the whole thing put together by Steven Lisberger who would later helm TRON. Many quite funny visual gags abound and there's a feel good vibe throughout especially concerning a couple of opposite sex runners that permeates the whole thing. So on that note, I very much enjoyed Animalympics.