A mad king demands his subjects laugh. They don't, so he builds increasingly elaborate machines to force the joke, each one more useless than the last. Kuri Yoji made this in 1966 and somehow captured the exact feeling of absurdity collapsing under its own weight, the kind of comedy that works because nothing in it is trying to make sense. If you've ever watched something deliberately broken and felt it click, this is the ancestor of that feeling.

Au Fou! is a short experimental animated film made in 1966 by the pioneering animator Kuri Yoji. A comedy with fantasy touches, it grows out of Kuri's worry that, as the world's population swells and more unwanted babies are killed, murder may come to be sanctioned by authorities. Two versions exist: the original black-and-white cut runs about 13 minutes, while a shortened color edit made for international audiences runs about 9 minutes.