Charley Says: Strangers

1973
Sound
1m

Who needs to talk to strangers when you're the only one who can understand the garbled mewling of your best buddy cat, Charley?

"Do you want to see some puppies?": few such apparently innocuous phrases set off more alarm bells than this one, and this public information filler is the reason why. Charley cat is the dream companion not just of children but also every parent, keeping their kids honest, innocent and safe. The somewhat uncanny movement of the flat cardboard puppets, particularly the dark stranger, helped engrain them into the brains of a generation of children.

Animated information filler. Charley the cat tells children about the dangers
of talking to people they don't know.

Animation Goes to Work

For those with an official message to get across, animation is the perfect messenger

Animation has an almost magical ability to charm and captivate. And those same qualities also make it a strikingly effective communication tool. It grabs attention, speaks to all ages, and can distil complex messages into simple and appealing visual metaphors. For government or other august bodies, cartoon antics have often been the perfect jam to sweeten the pill of official communications, whether to explain sweeping change or impart health and safety messages. And for the inventive animator, even the most utilitarian brief is no barrier to the most outlandish of treatments.