Canhead is a 1996 animated short film (7 1/2 minutes) directed by Timothy Hittle.
It is the middle of three stop motion animation cartoons featuring a protagonist named Jay Clay. Jay Clay the little clay man is wandering across a stylized rendition of a desert that is actually a workbench. Jay meets Blue the dog, and they become friends. However, Jay is unable to feed Blue as the food in his knapsack has gone bad. Jay awakens from sleep only to see Blue on the other side of a wide canyon (that is, a gap in the workbench). Blue the dog then disappears, literally, fading away into nothing. In despair, Jay goes wandering, and finds a bunch of moai, aka Easter Island heads, which are made out of tin cans. The moai have a surprise.
Tropes:
- Agony of the Feet: Played for a gag. Jay, who evidently has been tramping a long way through the desert, sits and massages his aching feet. He squeezes and massages his foot, which is a basic undifferentiated pad-shape Invisible Anatomy style, and when he gives it a hard squeeze five toes briefly spring out before again disappearing back into the foot-pad.
- Colossus Climb: Jay gets the better of the tin can mecha by climbing onto it and using the two halves of his broken staff to rap on the mecha's can head like a drum. This seems to tame the mecha, who goes shuffling off with Jay riding on his head.
- Creepy Doll: Jay flips over an object on the bench and discovers that it is the face plate of a stereotypical creepy doll, with the eyes that droop as the doll is tilted. The doll face plate then suddenly erupts into another terrifying monster like the tin can mecha.
- Horns of Villainy: When the tin can moai reveals itself to be alive and hostile, a pair of horns extends from its head.
- Humongous Mecha: The tin can moai sit there inertly in the desert — until one turns and looks at Jay. It then erupts out of the desert (the workbench) and is revealed to be a gigantic robot at least five times the height of poor little Jay. Jay has to run from and eventually do battle with the mecha.
- Invisible Anatomy: While Jay has articulated fingers his feet are toeless foot pads. This is used for a gag when he massages his sore foot and five toes temporarily spring out.
- Milking the Giant Cow: Jay does this, raising his hands to the sky in despair after opening his knapsack for food only to find the knapsack filled with worms and the bottom gone.
- Silence Is Golden: There is no dialogue in the cartoon.
- Spooky Animal Sounds: Something is howling as Jay beds down for the night, making the atmosphere that much more spooky (or silly, really).
- Stop Motion: A claymation figurine goes on an adventure.
- Stress Vomit: Jay temporarily escapes from the mecha by plunging through a "hole" in the desert (a drainage hole in the work bench). Once he lands at the bottom of the drainage area, he vomits.
