This is a peculiar summer for sure. Here’s some animation for your entertainment and (mostly) cereal buying needs.
Things are going pretty good over here in recent days, and I hope things are going well in your neck of the woods too. These weeks have been packed here. I’ve been teaching a class for High Schoolers on Zoom this week, and its been really fun to see their creativity and interest in animation. We’ve been busy packing various orders as well; I’ll be letting the crew take over the duties as I start to concentrate on finishing animation for the Rainbow Parade titles along with the crew. Some very nice things have been showing up here lately as it gets closer to being done. Our own Mike Kazaleh sent a lovely little sequence yesterday that we’ll have to start getting our heads around to in-between. I’ll be sharing some of the animation in coming weeks. I’m really hoping to concentrate *only* on animation for a week if I can get away with it!
Here’s the cover for ‘Rainbow Parades, Vol 1, designed by Nico Colaleo with a little help from Melanie Mrozek (and myself). Progress is moving right along.
And now, onto something to watch:
Some good news this week was that a reel of commercials that had vanished a few weeks back made it to my porch earlier today. It was an eBay win from late June- and sent right away, but somehow found its way into a ‘spot’ somewhere. The commercials on the reel seem to date from 1965 through ’67, although I haven’t checked the edge code on more than a handful at this point – some seem just a little earlier than that (for example, there’s a commercial saying Lucky Charms is new cereal, and it would have been ‘new’ in ’64). About 1/3 of the reel is shown here- I can’t wait to see the rest.
This vintage “Cheerios Kid” spot is included; this cel is at 6:52
This is my first time seeing the reel, and it looks like the spots are in fairly good shape. I’ll scan them and include some in the Animated Commercials v2 blu-ray we’ve been working on for some time now. I hope to get that set all wrapped up in about a month if that’s possible. These are the last things to scan for the set.
I hope you enjoy some of these spots, and if you can identify a studio or particular animator please make a comment! I can identify George Bakes’ work in some of them myself. I’m pretty sure I’ve never seen any of them before.
And, once again, I apologize for not being properly dressed for the occasion.
Have a good week everyone!
Steve Stanchfield is an animator, educator and film archivist. He runs Thunderbean Animation, an animation studio in Ann Arbor, Michigan and has compiled over a dozen archival animation DVD collections devoted to such subjects at Private Snafu, The Little King and the infamous Cubby Bear. Steve is also a professor at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit.
Ah, the days before cereals were “part of this nutritious breakfast”, although the Wheaties athlete had what looked like a glass of juice. Even in those days, it must have taken some moxie to position sugar as a health and fitness food.
Old enough to remember Bullwinkle’s “Watch where you’re going” tag in comic book ads for Cheerios as well as the commercials. Did the Bullwinkle and Cheerios Kid campaigns run concurrently?
Also Clackers. Another live action spot had Dracula menacing a maiden and saying “Don’t be afraid! All I want is your [CLACKERS].” A friend would do impressions of that line, making it sound dirty.
The Trix voting promotion paid off with another commercial: The rabbit was allowed one bowl of Trix. Period. Then it was back to trying to con kids out of it. They were unwittingly training kids to be cynical.
“Can Do” is, of course, from the opening number in “Guys and Dolls” (“Can do. Can do. This guy says the horse can do …”). I recall first meeting various popular songs and show tunes in commercials before hearing them in context. “Love and Marriage”, eventually the theme song of “Married With Children”, always makes me think “Soup and Sandwich”.
Not only did Bullwinkle and Cheerios kid run concurrent, they were in one together.
Agreed… but I wasn’t really aware of “Can Do”s, origin…. Thanks!
This was probably a promotional reel for General Mills, or a reel used for TV station that was unused from General Mills for Program Exchange/P.A.T. packages.
Pamolive must’ve been owned by General Mills back then.
Looks that way to me, too.
Looks more to me like a reel of barter spots that somebody at a local TV station collected for the fun of it. Barter spots were commercials that TV stations had to run, often in a specific day part, in order to get programs they didn’t have to shell out cash for. General Mills was a big player in barter programs when I first started out in television.
(And BTW, Colgate-Palmolive has been a huge conglomerate for years.)
I remember a similar campaign for Trix in the nineties. Again the public voted yes to letting the rabbit have some, “just this once.” I suspect that if a real rabbit ate Trix it would make them dreadfully ill, so it’s probably a good thing the Trix rabbit never got any.
The Kix commercial looks like it was done by Fred Crippen. If that wasn’t Frank Nelson (“Yeeeeeessss?”) as the cow, it was a remarkable impersonation.
Love the timing of the opening gag on the last Lucky Charms commercial, how the kids go down slowly before Lucky quickly catapults them away.
I think patience is a virtue, particularly when dealing with Thunderbean, but you announced weeks ago that the Popeye set was done. I bought and paid for two of them a long, long time ago. My heirs will not be interested in them, so please try to get them to me while I’ll still alive, okay? Thank you.
Cliff Weimer
Sacramento
Hi Cliff,
There’s a ton of them and they’re getting out the door. It’s taken longer to get the bonus disc dubbed with all them than I hoped… but they’re all coming to a balcony near you. Sorry for taking so long!
I got mine this week, but I ordered it through Amazon.
That White Cloud tag line was buried in the back of my mind all these years, but I forgot about the toilet paper hoarding granny (different motivation than today). Oh, how I wish for a box of Sugar Cones and Corn Bursts, just for the nostalgia.
Sugar Cones and Corn Bursts must have been regional General Mills cereals, not national. They weren’t in St. Louis, that’s for certain. Gerard Baldwin animated that Bullwinkle at the Circus Cheerios spot for Jay Ward. He did some beautiful full animation as well as being expert in limited/TV stuff.
Mary remembered those- but I didn’t at all! it could be that I was just slighty too young or not around yet when they were! I know I never had either– so I wonder if they were gone by the early 70s or just regional / Detroit in Michigan and other states
That DOES sound like Frank Nelson as the cow.
The cow voice was actually Len Maxwell doing an imitation of Frank Nelson. The spot was directed by Len Glasser at his Stars and Stripes stuio.
I think I say ‘It looks like Len’s’ in the video… was pretty sure (100%) it was his studio. You’ve taught me well Mike!
Thanks so much for sharing the 60s Commercials reel…nice treat!
Has anyone tried to use a digital filter to remove all the extra red from these old prints to end up with something close to the original? Is that possible?
(I’ve also always wanted to know if someone could invent a filter that would take two-strip color films and turn them into three-strip color film! I’m guessing that’s not possible either.)
We’ll do some color correction on these of course- and can balance them out a lot usually 🙂
Your orange tabby needs his own video. He’s charming!
I’m happy to see that the Popeye set is finally about to be delivered
Dan in MIssouri
I love all those animated commercials! Can’t wait to get the Animated Commercials v2 blu-ray.
Seeing that Rainbow Parade cover is so exciting. I write novels and when the cover art is done, you know it’s getting close. It’s been sooooooooooooooooooo long. Can’t wait to have it in my hands, putting it in the Blu Ray player.
I always felt that the Cinecolor Rainbow Parade cartoons were better than the later three-strip Technicolor entries. Glad to see that these films are finally getting the restoration and presentation treatment they deserve.
Hi Steve, glad you finally got the commercial reel, it’s nice to see some of them projected, looks like they are in good shape, can’t wait to see what magic you can do to them. I love this kind of stuff and am old enough to remember just about all of them. I have more, so if at some point you would like to explore doing further magic, let me know. Thanks so much for what you do! Best, Matt.