The Neon Nurse's Charting

Did you ever play this when you were a kid? A sort of Tag where, when the person who was It caught another player, they had to join hands, so that eventually you had this long snake of kids chasing along after the ones who were still loose?

My inquiry into the source of the animation used in the Crazy Love video has felt like that.

One of the first replies I got was from Jerry Beck of the blog Cartoon Brew, who IDed the film as "a Hungarian animated feature from 1973 called "Johnny Corncob" (János vitéz)". (Gryphons_Lair got the Hungarian part!) Jerry sent me a link to the film's listing on IMDB.com, http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0121431/ , where I found out a few more details.

It was based on a famous poem by Sándor Petöfi, and made for his 150th birthday.

It was also the first Hungarian feature-length animation film. Further searching told me it won several film awards.

From IMDB: "There is a short scene in the film, where the battling Hungarian and Turkish armies form a flag of Hungary. The scene was considered "too nationalist" by the Socialist government and nearly caused the banning of the the movie."

I also heard from Kip W who had passed the mystery on to rec.arts.animation, and today he told me Chris Sobeniak knew the answer:

"It's "János vitéz" or "Johnny Corncob", Hungary's first animated feature, produced by Pannonia Film and directed by Marcell Jankovics.

Does seem kinda odd it would show up on a video devoted mostly to H-B material (was there an English dub I don't know of they did of this)."

So now I grab onto the chain again. Having the name in English, I tried Google again and found THIS link - http://www.sealsandcrofts.com/sealscrofts4.html

""Forever Like the Rose" was used as a title for an unreleased, animated film in 1978. Seals and Crofts are cartoon characters, reminiscent of the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine." There are various original songs and a score composed with Bob Alcivar, a writer and arranger they've known since their days in the Dawnbreakers. "Forever Like the Rose" was produced by Hanna-Barbera through Pannonia Studios in Hungary. The story is adapted by Kimmer Ringwald from the epic poem Johnny Corncob, by Petofi Sandor and the groundbreaking 1973 film by Marcell Jankovics."

So there is a hint towards the Hanna-Barbera connection, though not a clear answer. Had they gotten an option on the US release of Johnny Corncob that they never followed up on? Did someone working on the Country Rock videos just find the film sitting around and assume they could use it? Maybe we'll never know....

But isn't it amazing what you can learn by linking up a few brains and the internet?