Moo-re on Early Animated Commercials

A study of theatrical cartoons is only scratching the surface of the animation business in the Golden Age. There were many other companies that made animated educational and institutional films and even commercials on both coasts.

Theatrical animated cartoons began on the East Coast, and I think readers here know a little something about the New York studios of the sound era—Fleischer/Paramount, Van Beuren, Terrytoons. But there were many smaller studios as well, especially in the 1950s as television demanded animated commercials. Not all of these studios restricted themselves to cartoons. They made live action films, slide films, and even stop-motion films. Anything to keep in business.

One company that spanned several decades was Caravel Films, Inc. In fact, they were part of a TV cartoon series, but we’ll get to that in a minute. Among Caravel’s seemingly countless number of short films were cartoon ads.

Caravel goes back to 1921. An article in a 1957 volume of Business Screen magazine talks of a 1938 film for the American Can Company starring 80 puppets called Jerry Pulls The Strings. It doesn’t mention the firm’s first cartoon film, but an article in the March 8, 1939 reports Walter Lantz Productions was suing Caravel for $2,490 owed on a commercial cartoon made in 1936. Lantz was evidently a subcontractor; his studio animated Boy Meets Dog (1938), which was produced for Bristol-Myers by Caravel.

One of the studio’s animated commercials was profiled in the July 15, 1941 edition of Business Screen. The short doesn’t appear to be available for viewing on line, but the article gives us a summary. One of the names (besides Elsie’s) may be familiar to you.

BORDEN CARTOON STARS ELSIE

♦ From Moo to You, a new animated color cartoon subject starring Elsie, the Borden cow, has been completed by Caravel Films, Inc. The subject was designed primarily for widespread school distribution though some theatrical distribution is contemplated. It was premiered in Boston at the recent N.E.A. convention.
This film is distinctive in that it utilizes the highly entertaining quality of the animated cartoon in presenting a serious educational story. It deals with the elementary but fundamental economic principle — in general that services have a momentary value, and specifically the milk necessary costs more in the city than it does in the country.
Elsie Tells the Wherefore
After establishing the need for the purchase of milk for the use of a family on a picnic in the country, Susan, an eight year old girl is puzzled when the farmer from whom she has purchased a quart of milk, returns some change. In retiring to the scene of the picnic, Susan comes upon Elsie who proceeds to tell her the whys and wherefores of the change. Starting with the premises that:
"When you buy milk at the farmers door,
You pay for the milk and nothing more."
Elsie proceeds in logical sequence to review the steps and the respective costs involved in the production and distribution of fluid milk for city consumption.
By use of the flash-back we follow the steps being described by Elsie — from the health tests being performed on Elsie herself, through the country station where the milk is received, the tests performed there, transportation to the city, pasteurization, bottle cleaning, filling, capping, crating, and door to door delivery — all instructive but handled in a free and amusing manner which is peculiar to the animated cartoon technique.
The film has just been completed in the animation studios of Caravel under the direction of Jack Semple and George Rufle and with an original musical score by Sam Morgenstein.
Five Months in Production
With a running time of nine minutes, the subject has been in production for five months. Some twenty-five thousand drawings were necessary to complete its production as were the services of fifty artists, writers, and technicians exclusive of musicians, voices, and recording and laboratory technicians. Photographed entirely in Technicolor in the Caravel studios, this subject is an example of the successful application of an accepted and established theatrical medium to a specific purpose in the commercial field.

George Rufle’s animation career went back to the silent days. His hometown paper in Hanover, Pa. in 1921 stated he started in animation at age 17 in 1918, working for the International studio, the Bray Studio and then the Jefferson Film Corp. (the Bud Fisher Studio). When sound came in, he animated for both the Fleischer and Van Beuren studios. He developed a synchronising system called the Rufle Baton. Years later, he toiled on TransLux’s less-than-epic The Mighty Hercules. Rufle died in 1974.

Ads weren’t permitted on TV in the U.S. until July 1, 1941 but trade publications in 1940 report that Caravel was making “minute movies” featuring Pepsi-Cola’s two Keystone-type cops and airing them on W2XBS (WNBC-TV today). To the right, you can see a poor scan of frames from what looks like a short showing how those ads were made.

Caravel opened enlarged new studios in 1957, but caught the takeover eye of the Buckeye Corp. In 1959, it took over ownership of Pyramid Productions, a TV production company, and distribution company Flamingo Telefilm Sales, as well as commercial house Transfilm. It then bought Caravel and merged them into Transfilm-Caravel. It also consolidated its animation operations into another firm, Transfilm-Wylde Animation, before it re-formed in 1961 as Wylde Animation, Inc. Meanwhile, Transfilm-Caravel was one of several New York commercial studios that closed in 1962.

Before that happened, Transfilm-Wylde cut a deal in April 1960. Variety reported the studio would be producing cartoons for a series starring The Nutty Squirrels, some suspiciously Alvin-Simon-Theodore-esque characters created by Don Elliott and Sasha Burland that had appeared on records. Foreign cartoons would make up the bulk of each half-hour with the squirrels featured in wrap-arounds.

This is hardly a full look at Caravel and its animation. I can’t fathom the work involved, but it would be great if someone had the time to research these commercial studios, generally run by or employing veteran theatrical animators. Their work deserves to be explored.