One of my Christmas presents last year was Cartoon Modern: Style and Design in 1950s Animation by Amid Amidi. I finally gave it a good thumbing through last week, and after seeing so many fun and interesting stills from mid-century experimental animations, I was eager to find what was available on Youtube.
Happily, one of the more obscure-seeming mentions from the book was an easy find. I encourage you to watch at least part of this strange and wonderful 1959 animation made for the temperance board of the Methodist Church, of all things. It’s about the dangers of driving recklessly, it stars an alien who resembles a stylized automobile (or maybe Rainycloud, even), and it’s truly fascinating in its modern design and incorporation of jazz music with the moving images.
Definitely Rainycloud from certain angles.
Wow….
Oooh! Thanks for digging that up… Apparently that designer went on to do a bunch of Sesame Street cartoons: http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/Cliff_Roberts
Have you ever seen Jot? It’s an old cartoon put out by the Baptist Church. It’s very religious and each cartoon has an obvious moral, but it’s also this weird mashup between a cool mid-century modern style and super trippy psychedelia.