Fur your consideration: 11 animation short reviews for 2024

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It’s time for the third annual review of furry shorts released the prior year. In these I go through the previous year’s released animation shorts released, typically on YouTube, to see which ones stood out to me. I will note however that this year really was all kill and no fill on the recommendation list. I’m glad to see that there are so many passionate fans finding good content out there and the improvement over all.

I will admit I did miss a bit of the “what the heck did I just watch” surprises for this year. Hopefully things don’t get too sterile. But when it comes to short stories worth a watch there is no shortage of goodness this year.

So without further ado, let’s continue.

(Prior Years: 2023, 2022)

Punked Pooch

This animation puts us in the eyes of a band that is having some clashing personality issues. The tension starts backstage and makes its way into the main stage. This is where the animation becomes more stylized with vibrant colors in the present, interlaced with contrasting memories of the past in black and white when the bandmates were more cordial and friendly before the desire for greatness drove them apart.

The transition between subtle tensions backstage to it bubbling to the surface to the point where even their fans in the crowd started to pick sides, was very well paced.

CONTRABANZ

This follows Citron, a canine that likes to push boundaries finds himself in trouble alot. He starts by getting a toy banned. In light of this instead of backing down he doubles down, comparing it to the prohibition of the 1920s. Funnily enough it works and the ‘government’ of the school authorities actually are forced to capitulate.

While I typically don’t care for high school as an environment because the youth can sometimes overplay things that are small, it works in favor in this case. Citron making himself this heroic booze mafia figure is hilarious, up to the point where on his second trip to the principles he’s playing around with a candied cigarette. Candy in and of itself was banned around the time I was in school as the Joe Camels and marketing of cigarettes to the youth began to be opposed by the government and general public.

Lackadaisy Ingenue

In speaking of gangsters and prohibition.

After last year’s pilot won the Ursa Major Awards for 2023 people have obviously been pining for more. While no new episodes came out this year, a nice short was released. It follows an inquisitive young lady prodding as her guardian drops off a car to some gangsters.

Abby keeps wanting to get more info while they work on the cars in the garage. They enjoy the company at first and misdirect, but what they do is dangerous and unlawful, so they obfuscate harder and in clever and funny ways, before the large muscle tells her she needs to leave because of the dangers. Despite this attempt to mislead, the young lady’s cleverness though as she pieces things together.

The character and aesthetic are top notch as usual, and hopefully they continue to find success on the road to their next full episode, but also continue to feel free to tell the stories they wish to tell, even the smaller ones.

Celine & Cheswick: Housebreaking!

While this may seem a cliché premise of a cat and a dog being conflicting friends, like Rita and Runt before them, I think that those that like those old trope cartoons will greatly enjoy this one. The lip work with the voice acting is extremely good. Also the emotion and expressions of the characters, even subtle ones, are quite above and beyond for an independent project.

Similar to animaniacs, some of the jokes are a bit above its stereotype audience. “It’s heavenly” says the cat, “You know that’s not where we’re going.” replies the dog. To be fair they are eating a cake they broke into a house to obtain, so in context the dog may not be wrong. Don’t know if the James Bond femme fatale name reference that ends with Gallore would have made it past the censors though.

Ruff Ruff Danger Dogs: Ep 1: The Goodest Boy

I was a Sonic fan in the 90s, so to say I don’t care for Power Rangers would be a bit of an understatement. But, you have to put baggage like that aside, because the cheesy camp superhero format is nostalgic for other fans, and such formats can inspire great things. In this case, we find ourselves following a red dog out with their owner when they’re attacked by a robot monster.

A blue dog and a yellow “dog” (cat in a dog cardboard costume) come to defeat the creature. Red ends up with a power collar and so finds himself joining the squad accidentally.

What makes this one stand out amongst the other animations is the style utilized. It is a stop motion toy based animation, similar to Robot Chicken, but better produced, which is kind of crazy for a video produced for YouTube. Fans certainly put in a lot of work for very little recognition these days for sure. The action scenes in particular are choreographed very well, which is hard enough with traditional means, no less stop motion.

Finders Keepers

“It belongs in a museum” said someone in a more famous film series. There’s no voice acting in this one, which would lend it well to being able to be shared more easily with an international audience. It’s about a pair hunting for lost artifacts and treasure. However an old colleague of theirs seems intent on taking it all for themselves.

The story is short, simple, and how it plays with the expectations makes it memorable. And one could say this short of all the others on this list feels the most… “Indy”.

Fly Away, Froggy Boy

Warning on this one, it’s violent, definitely in the R rated range of such. It’s a story about a fly who wants to assassinate a frog gangster boss. The violence at first is a bit campy as he kills the boss’s underlings. However, the fight itself with the big bad is great. Of course the protagonist wears the McClain white a-shirt vis a-vi Die Hard, why do you ask?

It starts simple enough, but as soon as the bug light comes in the animation and fight turn up to the next level. When McFly’s vision is blinded the animation is stylized to dark with light outlines. The other transition is the fact that as our hero takes damage we see red for the first time, as the frogs bleed green, this has the impact that when the protagonist bleeds you actually feel that normal emotion of pain and visceral squeamishness tied with the color. For the frogs you won’t. Interesting how the human brain works with colors like that.

Dungeon Flippers PILOT: The Ace of Wands

The premise of this series has brought it a bit of attention this year. In the pilot a pair of dungeon real estate agents, Maulie the manticore and Cleveland the dragon, try to find a wizard a place where he can move to in order to strike fear into the populus his current residence lacks.

While the promise of riches from the wizard draws them in, the client is very much a difficult one to work with. It’s because the wizard has no imagination, and without that he cannot see potential in any property they show him. So it’s up to the imagination and attentiveness of Maulie to try and make him the perfect dungeon.

The animation is clean and professionally done, and the premise is cute. As Maulie finally comes to the epiphany, does a call back song and sweeping animations to really give a sense of overcoming one’s own limitations in order to help another overcome their’s.

Catching Up (Pilot): Clubbing

As a homebody who doesn’t get out much, the protagonist of this story spoke to me. In this we see a pair of high school friends going out to the club. Clay the wolf is reluctant to do so, while dragged around by his more bubbly, outgoing, but naive rodent friend Rob.

My laugh out loud moment was when they get into the club and the first thing that happens is they both stand awkwardly just inside the entryway for many moments before Clay goes “and what are we supposed to do now?”

Bun Hunting: Overture

Piti Yindee has really shown their chops in the animations that draw back previous eras. Fossils was a great silent film style animation of a cat and dog trying to claim a fossil. This one also plays with some older tropes. Starting out with title cards and a 4:3 aspect ratio, which the wolf acknowledges in a fourth wall joke before stretching it out physically to the modern 16:9 ratio.

I think furries obviously will like it for the fanservice direction it goes in at the end. This one truly is short, but the animation and environment work show a lot of dedication to the craft, but also having some fun with it. I think given the title of Overture he wants to do more with these characters, but in creation it's sometimes knowing when enough is enough and getting a good work out there instead of trying to add more.

HORNY

Sometimes people forget that in the Ursas you can also nominate risqué (or maybe even full blown lewd, excluding certain catagories) things if you really want to. The fact that this is on YouTube though indicates it’s not that horny. But, it uses the symbology of the antelope main character’s horns growing uncontrollably to highlight their… “problem”. Eventually this reaches its… apex… and the antelope's horns start to cause major social disruptions.

The simple crayon style with messy and erratic outlines I think also works for this title. The emotion being as it’s not necessarily the “cleanest”. It presents its comedy of an unwholesome emotion in a PG-13 way.

Also see if you can’t spot the Bojack Horseman cameo.