South Sea Sweethearts

South Sea Sweethearts


Say aloha to a Technicolor cinema ad for Horlicks from the master of the Puppetoon, George Pal

Aloha! When the hero's sweetheart is kidnapped you know he's going to rescue her - but does it usually take six weeks sitting around drinking Horlicks first? The master of the 'Puppetoon' George Pal made five cinema ads for Horlicks in the late 1930s. Advertising agency J Walter Thompson were the British link with Pal's Dutch studio, with the scripts developed by JWT agency employee Alexander Mackendrick, the future Ealing and Hollywood director.

The Puppetoon animation technique relied on the production of a series of different puppets, heads, faces and limbs for each character in different stages of motion or expression. These could be swapped between filming, frame by frame. It brought the squash and stretch qualities of the cartoons to the physicality of puppets (hence the name Puppetoon). Pal successfully took his formula to the US in the 1940s, before moving into special effects features like War of the Worlds (1953).


Tags

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.


32 videos in this collection

1

Love on the Range

2

Your Shopping Guide

3

Molar Mischief (Solidox Advert)

4

Dolly Put the Kettle On

5

Cadbury's Star Bar

6

Mousewife's Choice

7

Fable of the Fabrics

8

South Sea Sweethearts

9

Silver Lining

10

Lyons Maid Lolly Gobble Choc Bomb

11

Put Una Money for There

Don't judge a book by its cover but do judge a political party by its garage in this Conservative cartoon from the height of the depression.
12

The Right Spirit

13

Flu-ing Squad

14

Looking Ahead

15

Mr.........Goes Motoring

16

What Ho She Bumps

17

Brooke Bond D: Tea Party

18

Branston Pickle: Advertising Agency

19

Lyons Maid Vanilla - 2p Off

20

The Boy Who Wanted to Make Pictures

21

Shippam's Guide to Opera

22

Babycham: Tennis

23

Change for the Better

24

Aladdin and the Junior Genie

25

Fun on the Farm

A cartoon fantasy brings fabric patterns to life in a literal soap opera - yet even here the reality of Home Front life creeps in
26

Carnival in the Clothes Cupboard

27

Guinness - RAF Flying Toucans

28

Bee Wise!

29

Guinness at the Albert Hall

30

Not Cricket

31

The Red Box Fantasy

A fun selection of vintage animated adverts promoting some of Britain's leading bicycle brands.
32

Cinema Adverts for Humber, Raleigh and Rudge Bicycles - Compilation

View full collection