With Max shooting target practice in his studio, KoKo and Fitz find themselves ascending to heaven and learning the ropes of angelhood. But they end up back on Earth, dodging bullets in Max's real-world duck-shooting gallery.

United States

Is Koko's Paradise worth your time today? Short answer: absolutely, if you approach it as a vital historical artifact of early animation, brimming with raw, unbridled imagination. ...
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Comparing the cinematic DNA and archive impact of two defining moments in cult history.

Dave Fleischer

Edgar Jones
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Max Fleischer's Koko's Paradise plunges the viewer into a surrealist reverie, beginning with the mundane act of its creator, Max, engaging in target practice within his animated studio. This seemingly innocuous setup quickly dissolves into the fantastical as KoKo the Clown and his canine companion, Fitz, inexplicably transcend their earthly bounds, finding themselves in a whimsical, ethereal heaven. Here, they are initiated into the peculiar rites of angelhood, a sequence teeming with Fleischer's signature rubber-hose animation and a nascent sense of the absurd. Yet, this celestial sojourn is abruptly curtailed, as the duo is unceremoniously returned to a more perilous reality: Max's studio, now transformed into a treacherous, live-action duck-shooting gallery, where they must navigate a barrage of real bullets, blurring the lines between animation, live-action, and existential peril.
Animation, Short, Comedy

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