Langford Toons was born out of sheer necessity—I ran out of stuff to film, so I drew my way out of it! With cartooning already my go-to hobby, it seemed only natural to cobble together a full video using nothing but hand-drawn silliness and a trusty computer. Admittedly, it’s not quite Disney-level magic, but every frame is 100% me—and it takes a heroic number of hours to pull off. Think of it as lo-fi animation with visions of grandeur.
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First up - how does this nonsense all happen? As if just to prove how long these simple videos take to make I created "The Making of a Langford Toon". If anything - it's nice to see how my home set-up has expanded and improved since then.
And what music to best go with this than a touch of Herb Alpert and his Tijuana Brass? |
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APPLEJACK
Good ol' Dolly Parton - this song was always a favourite of mine and this was my first Langford Toon. Not too much in the way of animation - mainly still pictures and moving backgrounds, but it set me on a path! I was particularly pleased with the Applejack character in this one.
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FROSTY THE SNOWMAN
Next up came this festive offering. This one was quite a leap forward from Applejack - much more animation involved and even a bit of simple lip-synching with the words of the song. This one was always a favourite with the kids!
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RUN SAMSON RUN
Yet another deep, dark delve into the recesses of the record collection. I didn't think this particular tune by Neil Sedaka was very well known, but the video has managed to claw it's way to being the most watched video on my channel. The song has a great story that lends itself to a video re-telling.
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THE MUSEUM SONG
I love a good West End musical, and Barnum was one of my favourites. This song not only gave me chance to draw a large amount of weird stuff, but I could use it all twice as the chorus is repeated! By the way - I didn't do the animation of the girl playing the violin... I'm not that professional!
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MOLASSES
My dad's record collection didn't go far enough back for this one - I had to plunder my grandad's stash of records! A different, simpler design for this strange little video - black and white simple shapes only. Somehow it does push up the 'cute' dial a notch though.
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THAT OLD BLACK MAGIC
Another strange offering from Spike Jones and his City Slickers - the same daft band that brought us "Molasses". This video Lee, star of many of my videos when I first took the plunge and bought a camera. This is his triumphant return accompanied by a few of my own creations.
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Y VIVA ESPAÑA
Oh this year I'm off to sunny Spain! "Y Viva España was a favourite at parties in the seventies - and why not? It's a great, catchy sing-along and I hope my video does it justice. Try not to frown upon the featured bull fighter - no animals were harmed in the making of this video!
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COOTIES
"Cooties" featured on the stage production of 'Hairspray' and on the movie soundtrack - even though it was only played over the end credits. It was a great song to make a cartoon to though and was my last Langford Toon video...... for now.
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