Tin Toy (1988)

The tin toy doesn’t fancy the baby he’s supposed to entertain very much when he observes it cover it’s multi-coloured hoops in drool. No wonder he now flees the length and breadth of the room - with the baby in tottering pursuit. Eventually he finds sanctuary under the sofa - along with a great many of his discarded predecessors, only for the child to topple over - probably slipped in it’s own dribble - and start to blub. “Tinny” is really quite a kindly soul and so at risk of life and limb sets off to play. Thing is, after a few seconds of engagement it turns out that the bairn is way more interested in the box. Sound familiar? Perhaps because I was always told by my parents that I, too, always preferred the box to the toy that came from it, this made me giggle. Though the child does look a little huge-headed, this animation is good fun: the look of sheer panic on the face of “Tinny” as he races to find safety and his traumatised look after a few seconds of being played with also made me smile and I found the sheer simplicity of the story really quite engaging. Everyone wants to be wanted.