years ago, SBS in Australia used to show weird shit on a Saturday night. i never found out who made this, or even what it was called.
simple wiggly-style line drawings and simple animation; an old couple living in a shack near a river. every morning the man would go out and pan for gold, then he'd come home and show the woman what he'd found. at the same time every evening their cuckoo clock would go off (although there were no sound effects), and a little hopping thing would come out and do something different each time; take a shit off the clock platform, or get its head cut off with a little guillotine. when this happened, the man would go over to the door of the hut, open it; this strange, haunting violin and banjo theme would start playing and a train would rush past the door, then he'd close it.
this happened a couple of times, and then one day the man came back and he hadn't found any gold; the railway was coming through, and they'd ordered him off the land. when the clock alarm went off, he was too sad to open the door... the music rose to a frantic pitch and the train smashed into the hut, knocking it into the sky, where that little thing from inside the clock chased it into the distance, jumping from cloud to cloud.
i have no idea what search terms i could use to even begin looking for this. i have done a lot of research and despite not finding the source, i have found similar animations by cordell barker and paul driessen.