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1980s or early 1990s computer-animated movie for Jewish kids about a sentient bicycle that helps a kid learn his brachos


I watched this in the early 1990s. When I say it was animated I mean just barely animated. From what I remember much if not most of it was just computer generated stills with voice-overs. There was a kid at a Jewish school that was having some sort of competition on knowledge of brachos. Somehow he met up with this sentient bicycle that took him to some kind of magic land where he learned brachos. There was some sort of difficulty in getting back home. The next day at school he won the competition.

This movie was part of a series that included at least one other film. I once saw part of another film with the bicycle where it was in a spaceship traveling through outer space.

If you don’t know what 'brachos' are then you’ve never seen or heard of this movie. Unless you are or were an observant Jew at some point in your life then you’ve never seen or heard of this movie. I realize the odds of someone else like that being on this website and coming across this forum are very small.

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Similar like this?
Aaron's Magic Village

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I've never heard of Aaron's Magic Village before. I had no idea there were any movies about the famous Chelm. But other than having Jewish characters it's completely different from the movie I'm looking for. I don't think that just looking through all the Jewish animated films ever made will help you find the movie I'm looking for. I have a feeling that this movie is so obscure that if you haven't seen it for yourself then you couldn't possibly have heard of it and there may be literally no information about it on the Internet.

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OK. Give us more details, please. It is 3D animation or (almost partly) live-action? Perhaps it is "Storylords".

Storylords consists of twelve 15-minute programs which focus on building reading comprehension strategies through the use of fantasy. The storyline consists of a young boy named Norbert who has been apprenticed by Lexor – an old Storylord from the land of Mojuste – to defend Mojuste's citizens against the wicked Storylord, Thorzuul. Thorzuul seeks to turn all of those who can't understand what they read into stone statues for his collection.

The first few episodes follow a basic formula: first, Norbert is summoned by Lexor through a magic ring to enter the land of Mojuste and help a certain citizen solve a riddle or word puzzle given by Thorzuul. He then travels to Mojuste via the "Bike-o-Tron" (a magical stationary exercise bike in his garage), while chanting:

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If I remember correctly the movie I saw was actually 2D animation and much if not most of it may have just been stills. There was no live action. It can't be Storylords. That's all live action and it's non-religious.

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Perhaps it's " Tzav Kriya" (1989) , but I didn't find any information. It is 30-minutes short animated movie.

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I couldn't find any information about Tzav Kriya either. It's probably not it because it seems that it was made in Israel and therefore probably in Hebrew. What I'm looking for was in English.

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I found only "Lights - The Chanukah (Hanukkah) Story", but it is from 1983 or 1984, and I doubt, because it isn't too similar.

"A family-friendly version of the story of Hanukkah, a Jewish holiday also known as The Festival of Lights. Playful lights (letters) arrive from the sky one day for people to enjoy, but invading Greeks try to impose their alphabet instead."

Do you remember other kids? What was style of animation?

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It's not Lights. Like I said, the movie I'm looking for is extremely obscure and Lights is too well known. Leonard Nimoy and Paul Michael Glaser were both voice actors in it. I watched it a couple times in school. The movie I'm looking for had nothing to do with a specific Jewish holiday. If any other kids were shown then it was just at school. What little animation it had was 2D computer animation.

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Perhaps it is "Kingdom Chums - Little David's Adventure" (1986)

Television special inspired by the Biblical tale of David and Goliath. Three schoolchildren from the real world are transported into the world of the Bible, with the help of three magical stuffed animals. One of them, a raccoon named David, becomes his Biblical namesake and faces off against a warthog giant named Goliath.

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It's not that either. Kingdom Chums has regular animation as well as live action. The movie I'm looking for had computer animation and no live action. It only involved one kid and he wasn't transported into the Bible. He just went to some imaginary contemporary setting with the bicycle to learn brachos.

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Have you tried going through your temple and contacting companies that provide educational movies for the Jewish faith?

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I'm not religious anymore. I haven't even been to my synagogue in years. I doubt the rabbis or rebbetzins there would have ever even heard of this movie. I actually watched this movie at school. I have no idea how many different companies there are (or were) that have made educational entertainment for Jewish kids. For all I know the company that made this went out of business over 30 years ago. Finding out the name of this movie isn't important enough to me to take the time and effort to try to find a needle in a haystack by trying to contact all these companies in the hopes that the one that made this movie still exists and that if they do I could successfully find and contact them.

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Do you remember style of animation? Which animated movie is "similar" in visual effect? Something like "Krabat – The Sorcerer's Apprentice (Czech: Čarodějův učeň) " (1978) ?

Something like cutout animation ?

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It didn't look anything like Krabat - The Sorcerer's Apprentice. It was all computer graphics. It was mostly 2D if I remember correctly. Much if not most of it may have just been still images. Perhaps the best way to help you visualize it is to say that the computer images and animation had about the same look and quality as this:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K043ZXbioWY&ab_channel=THEZOD

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Perhaps it is extremely difficult to find, because it isn't marked as "animation" in IMDB database.

Maybe something like "Beyond the Magic Door" (1982– ) ?

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I looked at Beyond the Magic Door and it's not even animated. Perhaps the movie/show I'm looking for is so obscure that it doesn't even have an entry on IMDB at all. There are other more well known Jewish movies that don't have IMDB entries. For example, The Animated Haggadah is a very well known movie among Jews but it doesn't have an IMDB entry. This is in spite of the fact that many of the people who worked on that movie do have their own entries on IMDB.

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I think that you're right. I found a book with Brachos Land, but it isn't.
https://menuchaclassrooms.com/products/middos-menchies-book-chayala-in-shimi-lernin-de-brachos

Perhaps it is too rare, so nobody doesn't add this for IMDB database.

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And maybe "Angela Anakonda" ?
"A rambunctious girl and her friends' adventures in school and their community." It was mostly 2D.

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Definitely not Angela Anaconda. This is something I watched about 9 years before Angela Anaconda even started. This was a specifically Jewish film but Angela Anaconda was a secular show. The movie I'm looking for is almost certainly something you never would have actually seen on TV.

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And "Something from Nothing (1999) ?
https://jfi.org/year-round/jfi-on-demand/something-from-nothing

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Definitely not that. Something from Nothing is from 1999. The movie I'm looking for is from the early 1990s at the latest. I'm certain of that because I watched it in the early 1990s.

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OK. It sounds like educational movie for kids, eg. "Wisdom in Creation" - it is about brachos, but it is too new.
https://torahlive.com/courses/wisdom-in-creation

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