How an Old Brown Horse Walks

Poor 18th-Century Jonathan had to exchange his dream of a carriage with coachmen and two white trotting stallions after paying off his employees, backers and taxes in It's Everybody's Business. The vision of a ride in luxury pops like a bubble and is substituted for a broken down wagon being pulled by a worn-out nag.

I really like the cycle here. It’s on 12 drawings, animated on twos. Check out the leg positions of the horse.



This is what the animation looks like. This is pretty close to the speed it’s seen in the cartoon. Notice how the horse’s left foot sweeps.



It’s Everybody’s Business is a 1954 John Sutherland industrial short for the Chamber of Commerce of the United States. Maurice Noble was the art director, Bill Scott was a co-writer, Les Baxter contributed to the score. The animators were Bill Melendez, Emery Hawkins, Abe Levitow and Bill Higgins. MacDonald Carey narrated the short, while Herb Vigran was the voice of Jonathan. Carl Urbano, formerly at MGM and later at Hanna-Barbera, was the director.

We wrote about the cartoon in this post before a nice version of the short was made available on the Library of Congress web site (though there’s an obvious edit at one point).