While desirable Hollywood starlets are waiting for their brave and daredevil heroes in everlasting
high towers, the much admired Alpine chicken from the “Roast Chicken Saga” prefers to do yoga.
Sounds strange, but it isn’t. This eccentric bundle of feathers has its own character.

This is also the topic I’m dealing with in my diploma thesis “Lure me out of the canned laughter –
Humour and passiveness in animated movies”. Some character traits that are typically human are
totally neglected in animated movies. The audience just gets the absolutely essential information
about actions and personal features which are necessary to understand the storyline. These stereo-
typical attributes turn the movies into obvious and transparent affairs from the very beginning. In
more negative cases the stereotyping serves propaganda purposes. How can this predominant cul-
tural passiveness be changed into creativeness but still be understandable, to give today’s movie
friend an active movie highlight?

The joke and the comedy which are considerable parts of the humour in animated movies, are by
no means shallow contemporaries which provide us with an amusing feature film evening, they
reveal deep insight into our psyche. The joke has a much more powerful and serious function
than presumed; it has the capability, by veiling itself in innocence, to appease aggressions and
discharge pent-up blockages. With its immaculate facade it tiptoes into the values of society to
break taboos - a further important subject of the diploma thesis.