Mister Smile

Mister Smile is an animated short film by American animator Fran Krause. The film was originally created by Krause as his senior project for Rhode Island School of Design; it has however reached a surprising level of popularity in independent film festivals, winning several awards. The film follows the stories of several characters who are invited to a party at the home of Mister Smile, presumeably a celebrity. Krause currently resides in New York where he is a professor of animation at Pratt Institute.

Among the guests are three characters (two people and a bear) who live a fearful existence in a treehouse and their newly purchased "False Man" (a robot), a salesman bird and his wife, an old man and his pet squirrel, a doctor, his assistant (a chicken), and his patient (a monkey). The film ends with the salesman, who has "LOVE" and "FOOD" tattooed on his hands, delivering a Night of the Hunter-esque speech about the balance between love and food.