Christmas Cracker
1963 · 9m · Canada
Directed by Norman McLaren, Jeff Hale, Gerald Potterton, Grant Munro
Genres: animation, family, musical
Tones: humorous, theatrical, whimsical
Three playful animated segments reinterpret Christmas through dancing paper cut-outs, a rodeo of tin toys, and the search for a perfectly decorated tree.
Picked by Margot
The scouts
Four canonical NFB animators playing in the same sandbox should be a master class in restraint, but instead it's a polite Christmas card—formally impeccable, thematically safe, the kind of thing that makes you wonder what *would* happen if McLaren actually let loose on holiday kitsch.
A masterwork of collaborative craft: McLaren's paper cutouts dance with architectural precision, the toy rodeo sequence sits perfectly in the lineage of stop-motion play, and the tree hunt gives the omnibus its narrative spine—this is animation aware of its own traditions and secure enough to honor them.
The decision to let each segment breathe in its own formal language—flatness against dimensionality, stillness against kinetic chaos—is what transforms a holiday trifle into something alive; watch how the toy rodeo's rhythm cuts against the paper dancers' geometric silence.