The Shepherd (1969)

You have to feel sorry for the lady who lives in the flat beneath a man who keeps sheep! The constant racket on her ceiling as she tries to listen to the ball game on the radio is driving her to distraction. He isn’t very much happier as slap bang in the middle of the urban (and very, very pink) paradise in which he lives there isn’t much call for a shepherd. Frustrated, he decides a change of career is in order, so trades in his sheep for some training and then takes up a new line of work that has his downstairs neighbour heading for a nervous breakdown! The animation is all a bit basic here, but the messages work quite potently. On one level it’s about inconsiderate neighbours unaware of the distress their behaviour causes and on another it’s quite a sad indictment of the demise of some of the more traditional skills that just aren’t needed any more - well certainly not in a pasture of skyscrapers.