In 1969, 14-year-old Jerry Levitan snuck into John Lennon’s Toronto hotel room with a reel-to-reel tape recorder and scored an impromptu interview with the Beatle. Nearly four decades later, animator Josh Raskin transforms that scratchy audio recording into a stunning piece of animated art, as Lennon’s words about peace, activism, and the absurdity of violence bloom into surreal ink drawings.
Editorial Perspective
What makes I Met the Walrus extraordinary is how the animation literalizes Lennon’s stream-of-consciousness philosophy without ever dumbing it down. Peace symbols sprout legs, tanks melt into flowers, and Nixon’s face dissolves into static — all synced to Lennon’s unhurried drawl. The source audio itself is remarkable: a nervous teenager asking earnest questions, and a surprisingly patient Lennon giving answers that feel more relevant now than in 1969.
Where to Watch
Available on the National Film Board of Canada website and YouTube. The original Jerry Levitan interview audio is also available separately.
Historical data reconstructed from archive.org snapshots of the Manhattan Short Film Festival website.
