Happy Landing, Martian!

The designs are the highlight of my favourite John Sutherland cartoon, Destination Earth (1956). But there’s fun in the dialogue in that what you see on the screen conflicts with the narration.

Captain Cosmic heads on a mission from Mars and spots the U.S.A. “I set her down like a feather,” he tells us, and the footage then shows him crashing through a water tower, a billboard, slicing through telegraph poles, trees, TV antenna, crashing through a barn and a chicken coop, finally resting against a broken tree.



Bill Scott, George Gordon and Michel Amestoy created the story, with the designs by Tom Oreb and Vic Haboush. The backgrounds were painted by Joe Montell, and you can see some of his ticks in here (the same as ones in his backgrounds for Hanna-Barbera several years later). Marvin Miller provides all the male voices (it’s your guess who plays the chickens and the one-line farm wife).