Short about a king, pancakes and the sun

Hello everyone,

I hope someone on this site can help me out. I've had this stuck in my head ever since I saw it when I was three or four years of age. I remember seeing this short on TV around 1991-1992, but I could tell that it was older than what they had on at the time. I think it was played either on Noggin or Nick jr. Hard to recall, but here is what I remember:

There is a short king with a blue robe who loves pancakes. He never really eats them, he just loves their shape: circles. One day he spots the sun in the sky and somehow becomes angry. The one line I recall from this short is where he leans out the window, points to the sky and yells "The sun is round!" I recall a short scene where he imagines blowing up the sun. What I clearly remember about this short was a scene of his silhouette running up a hill with a dog or a horse to try and catch or race the sun.

The style reminded me of Rocky and Bullwinkle. One thing that I want to point out was the lack of animation in this short. A good portion was just a bunch of drawings using a pre Ken Burns affect with panning and zooming in on the sun and the king. The only animation I remember is the king hoping around his kingdom, the sun exploding and the last scene with the king running up the hill.

As you can plainly guess, I have completely forgotten what this was even about. Maybe it was lesson on the Earth's rotation around the sun? A fable on where you can find shapes in nature?


Any help is great!

Well, now that you've mentioned 'oblong' I did some research and discovered that my outline matched that of a book called "The Emporer's Oblong Pancake" which was also turned into a six minute film. The only available format however is 16mm. Thank you very much!

I was born in '88 and I used to watch Nick Jr. at my sitter's house around the early 90s. Perhaps this short was on it's last rounds?

This is a really fascinating site. I have so many fond memories of animations that I watched around from Western Europe and from North America during my childhood. I'm thinking I might post two more memories I have of a couple cartoons I've seen from the past.

Found the short for those who are curious:

The Emperor's Oblong Pancake : Hughes, Peter. Emperor's oblong pancake : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive