Canada’s summer, brief but glorious, is finally here, making us all dream of portable pools and live-in freezers.

Make sure you stay cool through it all with these 4 undersea animated shorts. Dive in!

1. The Trout That Stole the Rainbow

In this aquatic morality tale animated by Eva Szaz (who blessed us with Cosmic Zoom), the world suddenly loses all colour when a thieving trout, obsessed by the beauty of the rainbow, snatches it from the sky. Bad move trout, bad move! For more on this film, check out this impassioned post by Maxime Monast.

The Trout That Stole the Rainbow, Eva Szasz, provided by the National Film Board of Canada

2. The Hungry Squid

Meet young Dorothy, a young girl with absentee parents, bad hair… and an unstable pet squid with this absurdist short by the one and only John Weldon.

The Hungry Squid, John Weldon, provided by the National Film Board of Canada

3. Nunavut Animation Lab: Qalupalik

Think the bogeyman is bad? Get familiar with Qalupalik, a part-human sea monster that lives deep in the Arctic Ocean and nabs children who don’t listen to their parents or elders. Like Angutii, who just wouldn’t help out in his family’s camp. (Yikes.)

Nunavut Animation Lab: Qalupalik, Ame Papatsie, provided by the National Film Board of Canada

4. Deep Threat 

People who read this blog know of our real affection for Zlatko Grgić (Hot Stuff, Who Are We?). Here, the Croatian animator offers a cautionary tale about our oceans, the source and origin of all life on the planet. Less “amusing” than his other works, the film drives home the folly of polluting and disturbing our seas, in inimitable Grgić style.

“The sea has its own laws and Man is accountable,” reads an ominous closing card.

Deep.

Deep Threat, Zlatko Grgic, provided by the National Film Board of Canada