Given the rather profound poetry of a film such as “WALL-E” and the scathing satire of a television series such as “South Park,” one could easily argue that we are living in a golden age of animation. Further evidence comes from “The Animation Show,” a collection of animated shorts that returns to the big screen for the fourth time in six years, making its premiere today at IFC Center.

Now overseen solely by Mike Judge — the man behind such hit animated TV shows as “Beavis and Butt-Head” and “King of the Hill” — “The Animation Show 4” (“Animation Show 3” was recently released on DVD) features some impressive new works from animators who have struggled in years past. What will surprise longtime fans this year is the franchise’s embrace of shorter and more inventive material, along with a wide array of animation techniques, pairing up traditional with state-of-the-art experimental.

The unexpected can be expected from the very first second, as an introductory segment, specially commissioned from Joel Trussell, explodes onto the screen. Mixing stick-figure Vikings crossing the ocean with the timely sounds of thrash metal, this rock featurette is a hilarious mix of modern and retro, a hieroglyphic head trip.

While Mr. Trussell’s segment is all about the visuals, other short films in “Animation Show 4” (which features more than two dozen shorts) defer to the dialogue. The wittiest back-and-forth is to be found in Steve Dildarian’s “Angry Unpaid Hooker,” which keeps the visuals streamlined — thin edges, bathed in white, little movement — as the verbal exchange takes flight. A wife arrives home to discover a husband sitting on the couch, arguing with a hooker — unpaid, as the title suggests, and unhappy about it. The humor stems from the husband’s reaction, and the calm way with which he tries to talk himself out of this domestic disaster — reasoning with his wife, but all the while talking business with the prostitute. It’s a twisted take on “Three’s Company.” More than just a short, the animation is reportedly the inspiration for a new, 10-episode HBO series this fall, to be titled “The Life and Times of Tim.”

Much as in years past, Mr. Judge has sprinkled episodic shorts throughout the 82-minute program. One such series, Dave Carter’s “Psychotown,” features two paper cutouts, both speaking with Australian accents, as they banter in a rapid-fire back-and-forth that is childish, vulgar, and hilarious. Another series, “Usavich,” is the most surreal work to be found in the program — a head trip of a road trip featuring two non-speaking, egg-shaped rabbits as they journey through the country, reacting to various, physics-defying challenges with guttural groans and wide-eyed terror.

Perhaps the most visually creative work of the entire program is the simple and streamlined “Love Sport: Paintballing.” Playing out as a wordless story of small squares attacking each other in binary fashion, it has the feel of a classic Atari game, yellow cubes unleashing paintball hell on blue cubes, and then blue cubes launching a counteroffensive against the yellow team. It is beautiful, quirky, and evocative, not only blurring the line between war and sport, but also finding a way of fusing together the simplistic look of early computer games and the more complex undertones of an emotional back-and-forth.

As always, Bill Plympton is part of the proceedings, this time with a bittersweet short titled “Hot Dog,” in which man’s best friend tries a little too hard to impress his owners, and pays the price for a big mistake. Following in the footsteps of “Animation Shows” past, a handful of shorts this year are more insane than ingenious. The most peculiar of them all is “Yompi the Crotch Biting Sloop,” which features a yellow blob of clay attacking the groins of various humans.

If “Yompi” runs the risk of turning off newcomers, first-time “Animation Show” audiences will be most delighted by the shorts that aim to be more serious, sober, and stylish. Smith and Foulkes’s “This Way Up” takes its time in telling the story of two accident-prone undertakers trying to get a coffin to its final burial place. Matthew Walker’s “Operator” is an almost-silent, one-sided conversation with a lonely man in his apartment who dials zero, looking for the phone number for God. Meanwhile, “Western Spaghetti,” directed by PES, is a glorious, non-narrative experimental short that takes place entirely on the top of a stove. Nothing really happens, but what it lacks in plot, it more than makes up for in pure inventiveness, with spinning pieces of candy corn representing open flames, and cellophane as cooking oil.

With all the unpaid hookers and nervous hot dogs, there’s plenty of humor in “The Animation Show 4,” and no doubt the laughs will make this a must-see for college audiences. But there’s also more beauty at play here than some will be expecting, and a range of styles and technology that suggest animators are trying their very best to push this burgeoning genre into loftier territory.

ssnyder@nysun.com

Through July 31 (tentative), IFC Center (323 Sixth Ave. at West 3rd Street, 212-924-7771).