Adam Fisher’s lively stop-action animated short pits a crotchety New England geezer against the eponymous clam. The old guy is digging for clams in the shoreline mud and is easily scooping up his harvest. But he meets his match with the purple clam, a combination Moby Dick and Bugs Bunny who drives the old man to mania via his slapsticky elusiveness.
Fisher, a student at the Rochester Institute of Technology, creates a professional-level animated film. The vision of a speeding clam dragging a sour old man through the mud is one of the more imaginative sight gags imaginable. There’s even a bogus sea chanty theme that sings the glories of the mighty clam, which adds a salt-aired tinge to this brief but jolly effort.
