In this Oscar winning short film, Bob’s a dentist turning forty, but his birthday provokes a mid-life crisis, much soul-searching and some amorous thoughts about his young receptionist at work. He returns home certain of the futility of his dental career and the emptiness of all his friendships, unaware that wife Margaret has organised a surprise party and that his friends are hidden behind the furniture in his sitting room listening to him rant and complain. The evening does not turn out quite as they expected. 

Bob’s Birthday won numerous awards at international festivals. It was a co-production of Channel 4 Television, The National Film Board of Canada and Snowden Fine Animation. It was made over a two and a half year period, animated in London at Snowden Fine’s studio on swinging Carnaby Street. The post production was done in the Montreal studios of the NFB. The technique used was traditional cel animation. Hand done, like in the olden day! Every drawing done in pencil, then traced onto acetate, then painted and shot one frame at a time.