These stills are taken from clips shown as part of the BBC4 Animation Nation documentary. I know very little about the adverts that the clips come from, beyond the fact that the first few were included in part of the documentary talking about Bob Godfrey's Biographic studio.
(In the case of this commercial, I don't even know what product is being advertised)
The next ad is for Glenryck pilchards.
Next is a commercial for Shippam's meat paste. I showed stills from a stylistically similar Shippam's ad here; meanwhile, it is known that the Larkins studio made an advert entitled Shippam's Guide to Opera. BCDB identifies that commercial's characters as Canned Meats, Pilchard and Tomato, which sounds rather like the cast of this one.
The last of the adverts to be shown in the section on Biographic is this rather experimental Kit-Kat commercial.
This very sixties Spam advert was shown later in the documentary. In case you're wondering, the lyrics to the band's song are "Spam, Spam, Spam, there is only one Spam, Spam, Spam".
And finally, an advert for Rowntree's Cocoa. This was shown in the documentary to provide a contrast with the more sensitive portrayal of Africans in Larkins' Put Una Money for There.
The Kit-Kat advert was drawn on film based on drawings by Bob Monkhouse, believe it or not. They also experimented with a hand-drawn soundtrack à la McLaren, but seemingly was not very successful as it was replaced with still fairly abstract electronic beeps and boops instead. Monkhouse had some animation pedigree having worked at Gaumont-British Animation, and also drew comics.
ReplyDeleteThe ad first aired on 22nd April 1963 and it was directed by Biographics's Keith Learner.
Thanks for the information, it's always appreciated.
ReplyDeleteI noticed the McLaren influence, but I'd never have guessed that Bob Monkhouse was involved...