9. Jamie And the Magic Torch
Cosgrove Hall Films was a mainstay of British animation for 33 years until its dissolution in 2009, and Jamie and the Magic Torch was one of its early successes. The premise is fairly simple; a young boy possesses a magic torch that allows him to escape his room at bedtime. You might expect him to then hang out at train stations and attack weary commuters at bank teller machines, but this was the 70s and that sort of thing happened a lot less. Instead he does the diametric opposite, and goes to a magical land of adventure to help people solve their problems. The format is sort of like The Magic Roundabout, but instead of vaguely strange characters - such as talking dogs and cows - confronting the protagonist, Jamie's dog Wordsworth actually becomes a talking dog, and with an absolute minimum of narrative fuss to boot. And from there, things get properly surreal. Gnomish inventor with borderline Asperger's Syndrome wearing rollerskates and travelling about in a subterranean flying saucer? Unicycle-riding, truncheon-eating policeman? Troll with a kazoo-trumpet nose? Look no further to seek that sort of thing. But this surreality is layered with such inoffensive fun, combined with lush pencil backgrounds and overlaid with emotive score, that it's a timeless alloy that deserves viewing.