Tracing the Heart of Thai Animation’s National Characteristics by Millie Young The Thai industry is still relatively new, having had a slow staggered start in the 1940’s, a flourish of a feature in 1979, the industry only really started in earnest early this century. This is a precursor to the extended research that aims to begin to identify characteristics of Thailand’s Animation’s through historical research, collation of academic discussions on the South East Asian productions, interviews with key players in the Thai animation industry and education, questionnaires to current students of animation and analysis of key works. So this is a trace over the history of the main commercial productions up to the present to set the context for the future analysis. Thailand is of course no exception to the cultural hegemony of Nationalism; the ideology of ‘Thai-ness’, is literally the notion of "Thai" and "un-Thai", was originated in the 19 th century by King Mongkut, Rama VI. If we trace through Thai animation this ideology is visible right from the early educational films by Sanae Klaikluen, created in 1945, simplistic narratives that instructed people to wear hats and farmers to wear boots. This continued through in the commercial works, such as Bo-ree-boon Balm of Payut Ngaokrachang who is recognised as the father of Thai animation. In his animation short based on his newspaper comic strip, “Haed Mahasajun”, we see a policeman directing traffic - his dance-like motions strike a chord with Thai audiences still familiar with the traditional Ram Thai dance full of coded hand gestures. In the ‘Adventures of Hanuman’ based on the Ramakien epic, funded by the United States Information Service, he focused on the Hindu monkey god, Hanuman, in combat against a red monkey. There are overtones of an anti-communist agenda in the story influenced by the political currents prevalent in South East Asia at the time. The then Thai government banned this film but when there was a change in government to 'Jom Pon Tanom' government, and they decided to broadcast this animation. The Adventure of Hanuman Payut Ngaokrachang's 1957 Similarly he made ‘the Boy and a Bear’ 1960 based on the theme that unity was necessary to combat communism. However it was in 1979 Payut made the pioneering stepping stone in Thai animation, “The Adventures of Sudsakorn” the style and content were driven by classic Thai art and it features Sud Sakorn, the boy hero, son of a mermaid and a wandering musician-prince, on his adventures he fights with an elephant, a shark, a dragon horse (Thai classical mythology) , as well as encounters with a king, a hermit, a yogi, a magic wand and ghosts, all common themes in traditional tales which continue through to current cinema. The Adventures of Sudsakorn Payut Ngaokrachang's 1979 In 2006 Kantana Studio’s feature film ‘Khun Klauy’ directed by Kompin Kemgumnird was released. A story of an elephant and his role as the war elephant for King Naresuan in the defeat of the Burmese in the Ayutthaya Period of Thai history, (16 th Century) it has been described as ‘extremely nationalistic’, (Jit Phokaew 2008) - the backdrop is the war with the Burmese, the caricature of which holds true to the Thai historical bias.