Gerald McBoing-Boing

Gerald McBoing-Boing
Jolly Frolics series
A scene from UPA's Gerald McBoing-Boing.
Directed by	Robert Cannon
Produced by	Stephen Bosustow (executive producer) John Hubley (producer)
Story by	Dr. Seuss (original story) Phil Eastman Bill Scott
Narrated by	Marvin Miller
Music by	Gail Kubik
Animation by	Rudy Larriva Pat Matthews Bill Meléndez Willis Pyle Frank Smith
Layouts by	William T. Hurtz
Backgrounds by	Jules Engel Herbert Klynn
Studio	United Productions of America
Distributed by	Columbia Pictures
Release date(s)	November 2, 1950
Color process	Technicolor
Running time	7 min
Language	English
Followed by	Gerald McBoing-Boing's Symphony (1953) How Now Boing-Boing (1954) Gerald McBoing-Boing on Planet Moo (1956) Gerald McBoing-Boing (2005)

Gerald McBoing-Boing is an animated short film produced by United Productions of America (UPA) and given wide release by Columbia Pictures on November 2, 1950. The winner of the 1950 Academy Award for Best Animated Short,Gerald McBoing-Boing is the story of a little boy who speaks through sound effects instead of spoken words.

It was adapted by Phil Eastman and Bill Scott from a story by Dr. Seuss, directed by Robert Cannon, and produced by John Hubley. In 1994, it was voted #9 of The 50 Greatest Cartoons of all time by members of the animation field, making it the highest ranked UPA cartoon on the list. In 1995, it was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".

Dr. Seuss's story had originally appeared on a children's record, scored by Billy May, issued by Capitol Records, and read by radio veteran Harold Peary as "The Great Gildersleeve".

This film was the first successful theatrical cartoon produced by UPA after their initial experiments with a short series of cartoons featuring Columbia Pictures stalwarts The Fox and the Crow. It was an artistic attempt to break away from the strict realism in animation that had been developed and perfected by Walt Disney. Cartoons did not have to obey the rules of the real world (as the short films of Tex Avery and their cartoon physics proved), and so UPA experimented with a non-realistic style that depicted caricatures rather than lifelike representations.