Two Boys Grow Agitated With Their Video Game In Aggelos Papantoniou’s Amusing Short ‘Shitty City 4’

Comedy is all about timing, and one would be hard-pressed to find an animated short that makes better use of 60 seconds than Aggelos Papantoniou’s Shitty City 4.

Short, simple, and perfectly executed, the film tells just one joke, again and again, over the course of its brief runtime.

Fans of wordplay are likely to find themselves chuckling joyously at the frustration of the film’s two young protagonists. Brilliantly-crafted looks of agony on the boys’ faces hammer home the absurdity of the situation, as do their sighs and the mounting piles of taxis landing on rooftops and filling gardens. Even the camerawork has a forlorn, existential dread to it as it slowly pans back from the frustrated boys as they click away for the three-million-somethingth time.

The short was produced by Melbourne, Australia-based Gibbon Animation, directed and animated by Papantoniou with help from Nikhil Markale and Bonnie Cheng. The simple yet vital sound design was done by Michael Dockery, with Toby Garrow voicing the film’s brief bit of dialogue.