Animated Reflections: Plasmo (1997 Show)

Ah, so here's a classic for me. I do remember watching this series and enjoying it, but I could never remember the name of the show. All I could recall was a particular voice and it mentioning the name 'Coredor'. A few years back I mentioned it to my Brother and he instantly recalled the name. After a quick search, I finally got to see it all again.

Plasmo is a claymation (clay stop motion animation with various effects and styles thrown in) and is a short series of thirteen episodes that run for around five minutes each. Our main character, Plasmo, is a creature called a Polybop, which is a being capable of shapeshifting. He, a fellow Polybop called Parsty and their pet Nik-Nik are stranded on a planet called Pynco. They are survivors of a spaceship crash, but they appear to be the only ones on the planet (or that ship apparently as they refer to it as the place they hatched from). They're building a tower of scrap metal to reach the moon in the hopes to find a way to escape into space and while doing it, they meet two traveling aliens called Coredor (a one eye being who is very self absorbed, but it's more to cover up his own insecurities) and Brucho (who has a great comedic voice and never takes his helmet off, even when in the bath). Things go wrong, but somehow they get off world and their adventure begins.

Honestly, the story at times can be a little silly, but there are moments that do have emotion and it works well. This tends to be more down to the characters and their actions, mostly with Plasmo and Coredor. This helps as the short episodes tends to have limited story moments and the characters help keep certain moments interesting. To be honest, I really do like the character of Coredor, who is a real jerk but does have his moments.

First is the usual style, second is that library episode

The animation is mixed is a few episodes. Perhaps it was the way it was filmed or maybe the lighting. I noticed it between some episodes, like the library one feels so different compared to a majority of the episodes, which threw me off a bit when I re-watched them for this review. It has it's bizarre moments, but overall I enjoy this style. The sound is also good, with voices not being annoying for me and actually some being memorable (heck, Brucho's voice stuck with me for years before I got to see it again). Music also works well and is quiet enjoyable for some of the more emotional moments (though I can't tell is the music level is right. I probably need new headphones).

What got me was this was actually an Australian production. It certainly was very imaginative and I do enjoy going back and watching them every so often purely for the enjoyment of the whole thing. The whole series is on Youtube (video above) and there are even behind the scene segments which offer some insight into how they made it, so I do suggest you check it out.