The other day I watched the Puppetoon Movie (1987) [ID6122IV]

It isn't so much a movie as it is a compilation of stop motion short films by George Pal done in the 1930s and 1940s. Puppetoons involved using wood puppets, and changing parts like heads or arms for each frame, or even replacing the entire puppet for each frame of the stop motion. George Pal did a superb job at stop motion animating! I especially liked his Sleeping Beauty adaptation, and "Tulips shall always grow". There's also a John Henry tall-tale adaptation, and a Tubby the Tuba short film too, among others.

The compilation has an intro and outro featuring stop motion icon Gumby. A Tyrannosaurus Rex explains to Gumby that he's vegan because of George Pal movies, which really doesn't make sense. The movie ends with a ton of stop motion characters including King Kong and the Planters Peanut thanking George Pal. Basically, this movie is telling us that Pal had a huge influence on stop motion filmmaking.

I'm glad I got this LaserDisc and watched it. I may be interested in trying to find more Stop Motion related LaserDiscs. Any recommendations? I'm disappointed there isn't a LaserDisc of The Gumby Movie (1995)

James and the Giant Peach (1996) [7894 AS] is pretty great.

I do remember watching that as well as The nightmare before Christmas when I was a kid. I've seen Gumby short films a lot, another one worth mentioning is Wallace And Gromit.