Noble's Surburbia

Maurice Noble was the art director for John Sutherland Productions in between stints with Chuck Jones at Warner Bros. He was responsible for a large array of designs for It's Everybody's Business, a 1954 capitalism propaganda cartoon for Du Pont. He needed settings for the 18th, 19th and mid-20th century. Boats, maps, cars, hats, trains, cityscapes. And because it’s 1954, it has to be in a modern art style. He succeeded magnificently.

Here’s a little sequence. The Average Worker gets his pay.



Into his car he jumps to head home to suburbia.



He screeches to a stop (note the flat tires caused by excess braking) now that’s he back in his ultra-modern home. Note the trees with greenery made with friskets (and a sponge, I presume).



Mrs. Average Worker’s in the 1954 kitchen. She picks her husband’s pocket. He’s in so much in Dreamland over his pay that he doesn’t even notice. In the future, Jane Jetson just grabs her husband’s wallet.



I suspect the background artist is Joe Montell. The animators are Bill Melendez, Emery Hawkins, Abe Levitow and Bill Higgins, with Bill Scott and George Gordon punching up Sutherland’s story. Carl Urbano directed and Gene Poddany provided the music. All top-rate people. Unfortunately, I don’t know who did effects at Sutherland, but the effects animation is very good in the two-reeler, too.

While Macdonald Carey is credited with narration, Herb Vigran and Joe Kearns don’t warrant being mentioned on screen. Sutherland even went to the expense of hiring a male chorus.