The Mystery of The Third Planet
Some of my favorite cartoons are mysterious dusty relics, swept under the animation rug by time. Today I’ll try to describe one I found in a 99 cent store years ago; “The Mystery of the Third Planet”.
My internet investigations have told me it’s a translated Russian cartoon from about 1987. The animation and backgrounds are completely amazing as you can see from these screenshots. It’s so strange and imaginative that it makes “Yellow Submarine” look like C-Span.
The plot tells the story of a young girl and her scientist father flying all over the galaxy trying to solve some convoluted mystery. Basically the story is irrelevant and not worth describing.
It’s the visuals that are stunning. Watching this movie is like watching a pre-recorded dream. When it’s over, you wonder, “Did I just see that?” The oddness is probably due to it being Russian; an entirely different culture of storytelling, mythology, and aesthetic. 
If you want to see for yourself order a copy from Ebay. It’s still only $.99! That might mean it’s public domain… if so I’ll try to convince Fred to release it as a bizarre Refrederator podcast!
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On October 19th, 2006 at 12:00 am
Wow, wow, I was just wondering if anyone outside Russia (where kids of the eighties were practically all fans of this cartoon) has seen this animation. And it turns out people from a different culture can like it too!
On October 27th, 2006 at 12:00 am
I just had to download the Russian version from an eMule site I came across.
There has been a legit release though that was made available by Films by Jove some years back under the “Stories from My Childhood” banner. Albeit, a newly English-dubbed edition featuring the voices of Kirsten Dunst, Jim Belushi and Harvey Fierstein. They also have a DVD of it in Russian but without English subtitles.
http://store.russiananimation.com/stfrmychdvd1.html
On May 31st, 2008 at 11:07 am
It’s one of my favorite old soviet cartoons. It may be interesting for you that it is based on a book by a very famous russian sci-fi writer who had a series of books about Alisa and her father.
On June 11th, 2008 at 12:17 am
Here’s the ‘dollar store’ version with the bad dialogue. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NWTPMCD3SeQ It’s better with Pink Floyd playing behind it