Carnival in the Clothes Cupboard

Content warning:

Contains racist characterisation

Trigger warning:

Contains suicidal ideation

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Carnival in the Clothes Cupboard

1 Jan 1941
Sound
6m

A cartoon fantasy brings fabric patterns to life in a literal soap opera - yet even here the reality of Home Front life creeps in

A colourful cartoon commercial for soap flakes seems the last place that the realities of wartime life should creep in. A clothes cupboard opens to reveal a fantasy world where figures on fabric patterns come to life, and a neglected clown is shunned until he bathes in Lux Flakes. But in a last minute coda, the clown returns to break the animated fourth wall and tell the audience that the product will not be made again till the war is over.

Future Ealing and Hollywood director Alexander Mackendrick began his career at the J. Walter Thompson advertising agency, scripting and storyboarding many of their animated cinema commercials at this time. Along with the very similar Fable of the Fabrics, this was the first production by Halas & Batchelor Cartoon Films – a company that would quickly develop into Britain's biggest animation studio of the post-war period.

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From the collection

Animated Ads

British animation won great success as an entertainer, but it has long had a lucrative second career in sales

In cinemas and on TV, animated adverts have frequently outshone the main attraction. In the early days of the cinema, animated ads were often relative epics, with five-minute comic encounters leading to a pack-shot punchline. The arrival of commercial television in 1955 brought the animated ad down to bite-size, but if anything they packed an even harder punch. Advertisers found that animation could soften the edges of a hard sell approach, and bring cartoon brand characters to life.