[1] It was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film in 1990, but lost to Aardman's Creature Comforts.

[2][3] Each piece of history is presented as a simple vignette, usually depicting a few simply-drawn characters arguing and making war, over and over again.

There is very little spoken dialogue; instead, most of the cartoon is accompanied by a bouncy piano-driven score, which frequently changes style to suit the particular historical era.

However, the score rests on a single simple theme, which is Antonín Dvořák's "Humoresque No.

[4][5] In the course of 9 minutes, Grasshoppers takes us through the following parts of history: As the centuries (and later decades) pass, the pace of the animation grows gradually faster and more frantic.