Selling Corn Toasties, the Cartoon Way

Animated TV commercials, other than those plugging cereals, reached their peak in the mid-1950s but commercials in a cartoon format went back to the pre-network days. In 1941, a cartoon lamb appeared during ads for Botany Mills on the weathercasts of WNBT New York.

Television grew—very slowly at first—after the war years. In July 1947, there were only 12 stations on the air in the U.S.: WNBT, WCBS and WABD in New York; WPTZ in Philadelphia; WTTG and WNBW in Washington; WKGB in Schenectady; WWJ-TV in Detroit; WBKB in Chicago; KSD-TV in St. Louis; W6XAO and KTLA in Los Angeles. WNBW had signed on in late June, KSD first went on the air in February. W9XZV, the Zenith station in Chicago, and W2XJT, radio repairman Bill Still’s station in Jamaica, New York, were conducting occasional test broadcasts but neither became commercial stations.

Live sports events were extremely popular with televiewers in 1947. WCBS aired the Brooklyn Dodgers games and sold time to General Foods. The company want to advertise its Post cereals, and decided to use cartoons to do it. They used a balop, which is kind of like a slide. I don’t believe they were animated.

There were some hurdles to overcome, as reported by Television magazine in its July 1947 issue.

Big problem facing Young & Rubicam was to put across the six' products in the Post's family of cereals.
Best way of solving it, they decided, was to concentrate on one product per game, tying in the entire line at the opening so as to build up overall identification.
Briefly, their present commercial pattern on the Dodger games consists of a singing jingle (live); balop cartoon commercials after the third and seventh innings; product identifying scoreboard between innings; pickup of billboard on field whenever possible; closing commercial and oral plugs throughout the game.
When the season started, CBS had not shut down its studio broadcasting and a pre-game live commercial was given, immediately after the jingle followed by a balop after the fifth. Under revised conditions, live commercials now have to be given in an improvised studio in the control room at the field, using but one camera. Lighting also presented a problem and limited experimentation along the live line.
However, agency has come to the conclusion that the tricks which can be played with balopticans are certainly less expensive and may prove to be better commercials for this type of pick-up. For one thing, the weather cares little for baseball schedules—and rehearsals on a live commercial, only to be rained out, added up to a large chunk out of the budget with nothing to show for it.
Overall aim was to experiment with different commercial approaches with an eye toward the day when the audience would he practically unlimited and they had the same kind of money and the same commercial problems. Because they have the whole game to put the message over, agency feels that hard hitting selling is out-that commercials should be made as palatable as possible.
To achieve overall identification at the opening, a "curtain" with all the Post cereals on it opened to disclose a quartet in baseball uniform, complete with trick gay '90 mustaches, singing a jingle about the Post family of cereals and the game. Curtain closes at the conclusion of the jingle and cut is now made to the field. Quartet is picked up from the studio in the control room at the ballpark. Currently a wall card is used as an opening curtain.
Cartoon Commercials
Cartoons used on the baloptican also have an exaggerated, comic approach. Typical of the types tried the one illustrated is here. Balops formerly came after the fifth inning when the live pre-game commercial was used. Now, however, agency feels that they will get higher identification with balops after the third and seventh innings. Such slides, when handled with a light, amusing touch, sell well and there can always be one slide which will pay off with concentration on the product.

There is an animation connection to this, one discovered by cartoon expert/restorer Devon Baxter in Variety. These commercials were created at the New York studio of Ben Harrison, who had laboured for years at the Charlie Mintz studio, co-directing Krazy Kat cartoons in both the silent and sound eras for release by Columbia. Devon picked up the phone and interviewed Harrison’s daughter. Read his findings in this post.