‘Closed Mondays’ is grandfather to ‘Kubo and the Two Strings’

In researching the background of the Portland-based film production company Laika, I stumbled onto a story about Will Vinton, the Portland guy who founded the company that Laika grew out of. The overall story, which runs under the headline "How the Father of Claymation Lost His Company," is a standard tale of a talented guy with big dreams who let things get away from him.

It's also about how a guy with lots of money (Nike's Phil Knight) bought an ailing company both as an investment and as a place for his talented son (Travis Knight) to work. That investment has resulted in such films as "Coraline," "ParaNorman," "The Box Trolls" and now "Kubo and the Two Strings."

After having seen "Kubo," and being impressed by its blend of stop-action and computer-enhanced animation, I was particularly interested in seeing "Closed Mondays," the 8-minute-long, 1974 claymation film that won Vinton an Oscar for Best Animated Short Film (embedded below).

 And I was interested to learn that Vinton's first submission, to a local Portland film festival, earned him a rejection. As the story points out, "within two minutes, the film was outright rejected. 'The judge didn’t even screen it,' recalls Vinton. 'It just wasn’t his cup of tea, or whatever.' "

Take a look and judge for yourself. And then consider how far stop-action has come in 42 years.