TV REVIEW : Unconventional Animated Shorts on PBS

“Not-For-Saturday-Morning Animations,” an episode of “Alive TV” airing tonight (11 p.m. on KCET-TV Channel 28, 11:30 p.m. on KPBS-TV Channel 15), offers mainstream viewers an all-too-rare look at five unconventional animated shorts. The films seem to have been chosen at random, however, with no discernible theme tying the program together.

In Nick Parks’ hilarious “Creature Comforts” (Great Britain), an unseen journalist interviews stop-motion clay animals in a London zoo. A lisping Brazilian jaguar laments the lack of “espace” in his tiny enclosure, while a mortified young polar bear hides her head when her younger brother asks a dumb question. The subtle gestures and expressions in this Oscar-winning short set new standards for clay animation.

Christoff and Wolfgang Lauenstein use stop-motion techniques to present a bleak parable of human interdependence in “Balance” (Germany), another Oscar winner. Five ashen puppets lead a precarious existence on a platform floating in space. The discovery of an ancient phonograph sparks a conflict among them that culminates in a futile victory.

The other three films in the program represent less successful attempts at mixing media. Pooh Kaye tries to blend live action, pixilation, stop motion, cut-outs and animated paint in “Wake Up Call” (United States), but the results suggest two or three unrelated films imperfectly grafted together. Chel White’s use of sequential photocopies of body parts to suggest movement in “Photocopy Cha Cha” (United States) looks like an artsy rock video. Paul Vester’s “Picnic” (Great Britain), a chaotic, self-conscious collage of images of destruction, manages to make the apocalypse seem uninteresting.

It’s nice to see off-the-wall films getting wider exposure, and animation fans can only hope “Not-For-Saturday-Morning” becomes a series. But the people in charge of “public television’s summer ideas-and-images” show should choose the selections more carefully.