The statement was made about a cartoon in 1956—but not one produced by the Famous/Paramount studio, home of Casper the Friendly Ghost and Popeye. The film is Destination Earth, a stylish 13½ minute short made for the Oil Industry Information Committee of the American Petroleum Institute by John Sutherland Productions.
The cartoon is full of imaginative, stylised designs by two Disney veterans—Tom Oreb and Vic Haboush. We’ve featured their wonderful work on the blog before. Here’s a downtown city scape. The background art is by Joe Montell.
The woman on the movie theatre poster (a 3-D film in 1956?) looks like something out of UPA. Note the theatre has “Super Tody Yo-Vision.”
Here’s a bit of Captain Cosmic the Martian walking toward the public library.
I haven’t been able to find when it played at the Paramount, but I’ve found other screenings at theatres (one with Sal Mineo’s Crime in the States), at service clubs and on several television stations during Oil Progress Week in October 1956. A Jewish women’s group showed it after a meeting in 1964, along with the industrial short Beef As You Like It.
The fine designs cover for the fact that the film basically tells the government to stay out of free enterprise.
George Cannata, Russ Von Neida, Tom Ray, Bill Higgins and Ken O’Brien get animation credits. Carl Urbano was the director, Marvin Miller gets no screen credit for voices and there’s no music credit, either.
Joe Yule was Mickey Rooney's father (and Mickey was originally Joe Jr.).
ReplyDeleteThanks for the note, RN.
DeleteI'll bet Henry's Power Six is a little reference to the post-war Henry J. small cars.