Closed Mondays

Closed Mondays
Directed by	Bob Gardiner Will Vinton
Release date(s)	1974
Running time	11 mins.
Country	USA
Language	English

Closed Mondays is an 11-minute animated film using animated three-dimensional clay figures, cocreated by Will Vinton and Bob Gardiner in 1974. It was produced by Lighthouse Productions, released by Pyramid Films in the USA, and won an Academy Award for Animated Short Film.

Plot summary

The film opens with the words "Closed Mondays" in white on a black background filling the screen, then the camera pulls out to show that the words are part of a sign that reads:

Aug 15–Oct 3 - One Woman Show - Celia Crazelsnuk Oct 3–March 19 - Usual Crap - Closed Mondays

It is night. A small art gallery stands with its door slightly ajar and the lights on. A bulbous-nosed man with thinning grey hair, holding a brown bottle and apparently drunk, wanders in.

As he shuffles through the gallery, a small abstract sculpture is transformed and imitates the man behind his back and returns to its original shape without his noticing.

The drunk sees a picture of colorful musical notes that form a circle around a jagged shape resembling a red staircase in the middle of the picture. The picture moves to upbeat music for a moment and then returns to normal. Doubting his own eyes, the man looks again. The music begins to play, and a miniature man resembling the drunk skips down the stairs, stands on one of the circling musical notes, rides it for a while, then continues down the stairs to the bottom. The entire picture then becomes two abstract color/clay blobs that pulsate to the music.

Suddenly the music stops and the drunk is back in the gallery, where he makes a critical comment ("What was that guy thinking of?!") and staggers away.

The man sees a sculpture of a computerlike device with large lips and gauges for eyes. He laughs at the sculpture and flips a lever that starts it. The sculpture begins speaking rapidly and says it's a "replica of the model 505 type P electro brain," claims to be far superior to its creators, and carries out its "infinite mutation" program. The computer begins to stutter as it tries to say it has a short circuit and an error before changing into a talking globe, a talking apple, a colorful bust of Albert Einstein, a television, and finally a hand with smaller hands at the end of each of the fingers before entirely melting down into a shapeless mass of clay.

The drunk walks away after making another comment ("Blabbermouth computer!") and is frightened by some jungle animals reaching through a glassless window pane that turns out to be a harmless painting.

Feeling distressed, the drunk walks on, where he sees a painting of a medieval woman kneeling on a castle floor. She holds a brush in her hand and a bucket is beside her. The drunk asks her, "Hey… wassa matter?" She weeps and tells him, "Oh, if my master could have seen more of the beauty in life… Here I am on my knees, doomed to wear this sorrowful face, scrubbing this cold stone floor forever and forever and forever…" Then the painting returns to normal.

The drunk sees the still-open door and runs to get out of the gallery, but is stopped just before he gets there. He is a piece of statuary, and returns to his inanimate state before reaching the door.

The credits read:

Voices by Todd Oleson & Holly Johnson

Music by Bill Scream

Created by Will Vinton & Bob Gardiner

External links

• Closed Mondays at the Internet Movie Database
• Information for the British Film Institute
• AFI FEST Festival Database information
• Video on YouTube