Noah Knew His Ark is a weird, wobbly time capsule

Is it worth the seven minutes?

If you like old cartoons where everything moves like it's made of overcooked noodles, then yeah, give it a look. It’s definitely not for people who need a serious plot or, you know, logic.

I watched this on a Tuesday morning and honestly, it felt like a weird fever dream. It’s a Van Beuren cartoon from 1930, so you know exactly what you’re getting into before the first frame even hits.

The whole thing is basically just an excuse to watch animals move rhythmically to a soundtrack that sounds like it was recorded in a tin can. 🎺

Noah himself looks... well, he looks like a generic old man with a beard that has a life of its own. He’s building the ark, and the hammer hits have this clink-clink sound that gets stuck in your head for hours.

The animals arrive in pairs, but they don't really walk. They sort of bounce or slide along the ground like they’re on invisible conveyor belts.

I noticed one specific hippo that seemed way too happy about the impending apocalypse. It just kept wiggling its ears while the sky turned black.

The storm itself is pretty funny. The rain is just a bunch of vertical lines drawn over the characters, and sometimes the lines don't even match up with the background.

It reminds me of the low-budget charm you see in stuff like Where North Holds Sway, where the environment feels like a suggestion rather than a place.

Everything is shaking. The boat shakes, the water shakes, even the clouds seem to be vibrating with anxiety. ⛈️

There is a moment where a lion and a tiger are just staring at each other while the boat rocks. I think the animator forgot to give them a second pose, so they just blink for like ten seconds straight.

It becomes unintentionally funny when you realize everyone is just waiting for the disaster to be over so they can start the jazz portion of the evening.

Once the sun comes out, the movie just gives up on being a Bible story. It becomes a full-blown musical. 🎶

The animals start dancing in sync, and it’s that classic "rubber hose" style where bones don't exist. Legs stretch, necks twist, and a giraffe basically turns into a slinky.

I kept thinking about how much work went into drawing every single one of those frames by hand just to have a monkey do the Charleston. It’s kind of impressive and deeply stupid at the same time.

The music is catchy, I guess, if you like 1930s upbeat orchestral loops that never, ever stop. It’s the kind of tune that makes you want to tap your foot and also maybe scream into a pillow.

If you’ve seen A Close Shave, you know how much animation progressed later on, but there’s something about this primitive stuff that feels more "human" in its errors.

Like, there’s a scene where an elephant’s trunk disappears for a split second. Nobody cared! They just kept the cameras rolling.

The ending is just abrupt. The party is going great, and then the cartoon just... ends. No real goodbye, just a fade to black while the animals are still mid-kick.

It’s not "good" in the way we think of movies now. It’s just a relic. 🏺

I wouldn't show this to a kid today because they’d probably be bored or confused by the lack of dialogue. But if you’re into the history of how we got from pencil sketches to Pixar, it’s a neat little stop on the map.

Also, the way Noah dances at the end is genuinely terrifying. His knees go in directions that should require immediate medical attention.

Anyway, it’s short. You can’t really get mad at a movie that’s over before your coffee gets cold. ☕

Just don't expect it to make sense or follow the source material. It's just animals vibing on a boat while the world is underwater.

Final thought: The birds in this movie look like they were drawn by someone who had only heard a description of a bird but had never actually seen one. Just round blobs with beaks.

Check it out if you’re bored. Or don’t. The world will keep spinning either way. 🌍