Almost everything is better in small doses — even great cartoons like TV's "The Simpsons" and the old Warner Bros. "Looney Toons" work best when they're brief.

Animator/caricaturist Bill Plympton is no exception to the rule. His signature "Plymptoons," drawn in a unique penciled style, are often so hit-and-miss that some of them are best left unseen altogether. And "Mondo Plympton," a compilation of his animated shorts, leaves little out, good or bad.

That's not to say this career retrospective is unwatchable. Plympton's fans will likely get a kick out of seeing his best shorts (such as "How to Kiss") finally put together, and there are some very funny new bits — like the never-before-seen TV ads for Soloflex and the Oregon Lottery, which were scrapped because of their off-the-wall content.

Unfortunately, some of the newer 'toons also boost the compilation's vulgarity quotient, especially "How to Make Love to a Woman," an overly long and juvenile series of sex gags that seem like the work of a much younger artist.

Bridging the cartoons is an amusing series of "interviews," which features animated patrons asking questions of a cut-and-pasted, photographic version of the artist.

During these cartoon Q-and-A sessions, Plympton talks about his early career experiences, including stints as a caricaturist for the New York Times, Rolling Stone magazine and the Village Voice.

According to Plympton, those experiences only whetted his appetite for cartooning — which he began with the black-and-white short "Speed" and continued with the brief, but incredibly crass shorts "Wild Animal Act" and " . . . and the Eskimos Have 100 Words for Snow." He even briefly flirted with political humor with "Boomtown," a collaboration with satirist/

playwright Jules Feiffer — a famed cartoonist in his own right.

But surely the best and most recognizable of his works in this collection is the sincere but twisted "25 Ways to Quit Smoking" and the almost Dali-esque, mind-bending "Your Head."

"Mondo Plympton" is not rated but would probably receive an R for quite a few vulgar sight gags and jokes, as well as some cartoon nudity, violence and sex.