There was plenty of talk in the 1970s about the saving the environment and, by extension, saving the Earth. From it was born the environmental protest movement.
This also seeped down into Saturday morning television at a time when pressure groups demanded cartoon producers teach “correct” behaviour to children, naively believing this would end things like racism, pollution, violence and other world ills.
Hanna-Barbera responded with a TV movie called Yogi’s Ark Lark (1972), which was turned into a series. Its message to the kids: clean up the planet.
But this wasn’t the studio’s only foray into what was called ecology back then. There was another film, this one by Hanna-Barbera’s industrial division and funded by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Freedom 2000 (1974) follows planet inspectors from another world, first as they look at a world killed by its peoples who couldn’t get along with each other. Then they zoom to Earth, where the “captain” champions the American economic system as the best. From here, there is a history of how the system came to be and then the usual warning from the Chamber about the government stifling it, with another veiled threat about Communism. “A totally-controlled economy has within it the implication of a totally-controlled populace.”
It’s only toward the last four minutes the film segues back into the environment, with the captain opining how technological change is adversely affecting the eco-system. But, hurray!, Corporate America is up to the task of doing its part.
The superior aliens, having reviewed the situation (as big business sees it), promise to return to Earth in the year 2000 to see if any advancement has been made.
We know the answer.
You’ll recognise the voice of Korann as Janet Waldo. Vic Perrin is the narrator. Having made these notes, I didn’t realise there are credits at the end. Gerald Baldwin directed the cartoon and co-wrote it with George Gordon and Art Scott. The animators were Alan Zaslove, Ruth Kissane, Fred Crippin and Bob Bachman, with backgrounds by Bob McIntosh and layouts by Rosemary O’Connor, Wall Batterton, Charles McElmurry and Cliff Roberts.
Ross Martin and Richard Carlson supply the other voices and the string-filled score is by Dean Elliott.
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