Modern animators are finding some really great ways to spice up the traditional approach to animation, and this video promoting MTV Brazil is no exception. This quick little cartoon uses balloons popping sequence filmed with a camera moving along a track, appearing to move flip-book style. Best of all? Ozzy eats a bat.

(via Dude Craft)

Last year, 205 million gallons of oil were dumped into the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. In his info-tastic video Oil’d, Chris Harmon poses a provocative question: What would we have done with the oil if it had never been spilled? His answers are staggering, but also underline human dependency on oil. Sure, we could have done a lot with those 205 million gallons, but maybe we could have done even more — or less.

(via Reddit)

This short video uses the same principle as a zoetrope, the old-timey device to create the illusion of moving images, but built on to a common bicycle hub. Though very cool in its own right, the video’s creator Tim Wheatley describes this as an experiment and part of a larger project. I can’t wait.

(Cyclotrope)

Ornana Films (Danny Madden, Jonathan Silva, and Will Madden) have created (notes on) biology, an amazing animated short film capturing the look and feel of bored doodlings in a sketchy style. Nothing like an avenging robot elephant to start off the weekend.

(via Cartoon Brew)

The only issue I take with this video is that a winged Pegasus-style horse could take a unicorn any day of the week. Besides that, sit back and enjoy the madness.

(via Neatorama)

Using paper cut outs and a standard digital camera, Wolfgang Matzl creates this highly truncated version of Inception. Despite the limited time and production, the cartoon still has some of the visual tricks of the source material. The opening, showing an unfolding building, is particularly clever.

But my favorite part has to be the deadpan dialogue. “Oh, wait a minute. I still have to finish this job. In my dream.”

(via Cartoon Brew)

Animator Adam Fisher made this stop motion video, entitled “Timber,” wherein he shaves his human mane (and probably loses all of his superpowers) with his fingers in order to teach us all about conservation, and left us with this message: “I used MY natural resource to make a film about OUR natural resources.” If you aren’t one to be freaked out by stop motion animation or grossed out by humongous hairy face decorations, then the video is actually pretty neat.

(Cartoon Brew via Laughing Squid)

Vimeo user clement valla gave users an exceptionally simple task: Trace the figure you see on the screen. The twist was that the next user didn’t see the original shape, just the previous user’s trace. Very quickly, the line barely resembled the original image, became shakey, foreshortened, and then just a collection of hash marks veering off to the right of the screen.

The result is not only interesting to watch, but a commentary on communication. Like the telephone game, it becomes impossible to reconstruct the original information, and that even the simplest form of communication — drawing a line — is hardly perfect. So, marvel at the horror of our collective isolation, or marvel at the beauty of the animation; but please, marvel.

(Vimeo via BoingBoing)

Ah, opera. The tragedies of man portrayed on stage through some of the greatest accomplishments of music. And the singers — ah, their skill is truly moving. This short animated film by Juan Pablo Zaramella captures all that, and then some.

Remember, it’s not over until the Allium cepa sings. Or something like that.

(via Cartoon Brew)

Have you ever laid awake at night, fervently wishing that Flavor Flav was somehow involved in a cartoon show about eco-responsibility? Some kind of adorable cross between Captain Planet and the Care Bears. Well, friends, wait no further. From the mind of David Feiss, creator of Cow and Chicken and I Am Weasel comes YooHoo and Friends!

The premise is so simple it’s a wonder no one has thought of it already. Five evil executives destroy the world for profit. Outraged, Mother Nature sends her (possibly hen-pecked) husband Father Time (Flavor Flav) to turn the executives into adorable, cuddly, endangered species. In order to return to their human bodies, they need to stop the very eco-disasters they caused and retrieve some kind of gem McGuffin.

Wikipedia informs me that it’s based off a Korean show of the same name, but more importantly that the American version will premiering in April 2011.

I am counting the days, friends.

(via Cartoon Brew)