Here’s 30 Seconds Of Calvin And Hobbes Dancing

This video will only mean something to a small proportion of our audience, but to those people it will mean a lot.

In March, Ugly Americans animator Adam Brown had a shot at animating Bill Watterson’s beloved cartoon Calvin And Hobbes, using frames from one of the strips. The 25 seconds that resulted — of an unsuspecting Calvin playing with a toy truck in front of a fire, before being surprise-tackled by Hobbes — was a little slice of magic for those of us who grew up with the comic.

But this one — Brown’s second attempt — is even better. Prepare to smile for a while.

Watterson has said a number of times that he doesn’t want to animate Calvin and Hobbes: “If you’ve ever compared a film to a novel it’s based on, you know the novel gets bludgeoned,” he told MentalFloss earlier this month. “It’s inevitable, because different media have different strengths and needs, and when you make a movie, the movie’s needs get served. As a comic strip, Calvin and Hobbes works exactly the way I intended it to. There’s no upside for me in adapting it.”

But while we may never get to watch the strip, a crowdfunded documentary about it and its creator, Dear Mr. Watterson, comes out next month. Here’s the trailer.