A cinema advert for cocoa that apes American cartoons, from a little-known corner of British animation history.

British movie mogul J Arthur Rank decided he wanted a home-grown animation studio to take on American cartoons in the 1940s, and brought across key Disney man David Hand to run it. Staffed by returned servicemen with an artistic bent, he gave the studio three years to train up before launching the Animaland and Musical Paintbox series from 1948. In the midst of their training they also produced some commercials, including four Coco films. The reasons for aping American cartoons were a mix of commercial and artistic ones - and the decision to make Coco a stereotyped black character is sadly not uncommon in chocolate advertising from this time.