Playhouse Pictures was contracted in 1965 to animate some very short blurbs starring Pete and Harry to sell various products under the Carnation brand.
Backgrounds were almost non-existent (one commercial has a lone cactus) and there was usually some kind of take to end them with the line “Thanks a lot, Harry.”
The characters were copyrighted by Playhouse on October 21, 1965 but the spots aired earlier. Variety of May 28, 1965 reveals:
Those Carnation "rabbits" are the creation of Playhouse Pictures vocalized by Lennie Weinrib and Al Hammer, directed by Gerry Chiniquy from Bernie Gruver's fable.Chiniquy spent many years at Warner Bros., mainly in the Friz Freleng unit, and was reunited with Friz at DePatie-Freleng. Gruver was normally a layout man. He had worked for John Sutherland and soon after these commercials were made, worked for Bill Melendez on A Charlie Brown Christmas and other Peanuts cartoons.
I'm just learning now that Gerry Chinniquy did commercial work in the mid 1960s. I wonder if he animated these himself or not.
ReplyDeleteLooking for the one where Pete says at the wnd of the commercial, "Say goodbye Harry" and Harry of course says, "Goobye Harry" I thought that was soo funny at 5 years old that I followed along and got the nickname Harry from my older siblings because of it.
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