I accepted the suggestion of placeboKatz and took a look at Destination Earth. It is a propaganda cartoon sponsored by the American Petroleum Institute, where a Martian explorer discovers the secrets behind the USA’s prosperity: oil and free enterprise. The best of it is not the message, is the animation and the producer behind it: John Sutherland Productions.

John Sutherland was responsible for the production of several Disney’s animations of 1930’s and 1940’s. The Animation Station Podcast made a very nice episode about him:

John Sutherland worked as a assistant director for Disney before opening John Sutherland Productions in 1944 with the encouragement of Walt Disney. They specialized in writing and producing animation/live-action films and supportive print material during the remainder of the war years.
Soon thereafter, Sutherland began turning out animated industrial and propaganda films and was a place many animators went during periods of inactivity at the other animation studios during the 40s and 50s.

His fifties production is composed basically by educational short films and propaganda with animation, many of them with a clear anti-communist slogan – very funny nowadays. I made a search to see what else that he produced was available at Internet Archive in public domain and the result was quite nice. The result of the videos available and were you can watch it is below – the videos at You Tube were uploaded by The Animation Station Podcast.

- A Is for Atom (1953): Internet Archive – Google Video.

- Destination Earth (1956): Internet Archive – Google Video.

- Going Places (1948): Internet Archive – Google Video – YouTube.

- It’s Everybody’s Business (1954): Internet Archive – Google Video.

- Make Mine Freedom (1948): Internet Archive
Google Video – YouTube.

- Meet King Joe (1951): Internet Archive – Google Video -YouTube.

- The Atom Goes To Sea (1954): Internet Archive – Google Video

- The Butcher, The Baker and The Ice Cream Maker (1950’s): Internet Archive – Google Video

- What Makes Us Tick (1952): Internet Archive – Google Video.

- Why Play Leapfrog? (1950): Internet Archive – Google Video – YouTube.

- Wise Use of Credit (1960): Internet Archive – Google Video.

- Working Dollars (1956): Internet Archive – Google Video – below.

- Your Safety First (1956): Internet Archive – Google Video.

How can someone resist to that super-cute-furry-tiny-adorable-little-creature? Awww… so cute! That is just one of the several picture that Jamie McCarthy took from the northern short-tailed shrews that appear on his back yard. (Thanks André!)

A fabulous collection: Canadian War Poster Collection – The holdings of the Print Collection in the Rare Books and Special Collections Division include some 250 Canadian posters from the two World Wars.

During the First World War, the imagery of Canada’s posters was, both thematically and graphically, similar to that of British war posters.This visual affinity was partly due to the imperial and constitutional ties between Canada and Britain.In addition, Canada targeted posters at specific ethnic groups. There were specially designed posters for French Canadians, Irish-Canadians and Canadians of Scottish descent. The bulk of the posters encouraged men to enlist and the public to buy Victory Bonds.
.
In the Second World War, Canadian posters reflected the fact that Canada was not under attack by an aggressor on its own turf. Whereas some countries’ war posters portrayed violence in graphic detail, Canada’s posters generally avoided such direct images. While war posters again encouraged enlistment and financial support of the war effort, advancements in communication made appeals for discretion and secrecy staple messages of many Second World War posters. Another frequent theme was the encouragement of workers to increase productivity.

Classic Cartoons: This blog is intented to support the love and rediscovery of Classic Theatrical Cartoons from the Golden Age of Animation but with an eye on modern productions as well as on tv animation! Full of images, the blog is not fast to load, but it worth it. Among the last post, I have some suggestions, from cartoons and animators that I like, of course: Attack of the Proto-Bugs Creature!, Tortoise Wins by a Hare (here we go again!), Tortoise Wins by a Hare, Fleischer’s Hide and Seek and Betty Boop’s Lost Kitten Found!.

Who wants a IR Control Daleks? Each IR Dalek stands 8 inches high and is happiest when gliding across your desk shouting “EX-TER-MIN-ATE!” and hunting for the Doctor. Complete with tank-like controls and digitized grating dalek voices you’ll feel just like you’re in your own low-budget BBC telly show. I want one!
Maybe you have no idea of what is a dalek, so start reading this post and listen to Dr.Who – Genesis Of The Daleks. After you are going to be prepare to make your own Dalek or even cool dalek ornaments for you next Christmas.

From the APOD: The Starry Night by Vincent van Gogh painted 1889. This painting is wonderful and now I have a good excuse to post it.

The painting Starry Night is one of the most famous icons of the night sky ever created. The scene was painted by Vincent van Gogh in southern France in 1889. The swirling style of Starry Night appears, to many, to make the night sky come alive. Although van Gogh frequently portrayed real settings in his paintings, art historians do not agree on precisely what stars and planets are being depicted in Starry Night.

Videogame Theater presents Pac Man – The Insatiable Hunger. A funny video using puppetry and animation, with Pac-Man as a junkie and wife-beater. Poor Ms Pac-Man. (I know this isn’t new, but I found it now).

More Pac-Man: Frogger, 1980 games, The Video Game Revolution and Pacman live-action video

Association Cinémannecy se met en quatre pour vous proposer une ribambelle d’images nouvelles. Découvrez notre univers emplit de Courts et Très Courts Métrages… The list of films of 2005 contains some great videos and almost all have links to watch the videos. The list of films of 2006 is available too an still short, but all the videos are available to watch on-line. From this last list my recommendation is Entre deux miettes by Sylvain Ollier, that joins animation and live action.

Le Moulin (The Mill) is a pretty good animation by the student Florian Thouret . The animation was his project to the to École Émilie Cohl in 2005 and it was in the last Annecy. Through love, a man disrupts the established system of a village dominated by a windmill. This fable was creating using 2D and 3D animation, and I will have the pleasure to see it on the big screen at the Anima Mundi in July.

Here are six stupendous reasons why I love Datajunkie: "O" is for Orson!, "W" is for Welles!, "C" is for Campbell Playhouse!, "H" is for Harry Lime!, "M" is for Mercury Theater on the Air and "Z" is for Zither!. I love Orson Welles and those vintage radio recordings and songs sounds like music to my ears. He had the perfect voice, he knew how to use it and he was clever enough to choose the right texts for it. It’s a pity that the stupid-bitch-Hearst didn’t like Citizen Kane and helped a lot to destroy Welles’ career. Anyway, he was brilliant at the radio too.
There are more great stuff there: the audio version of Edgar Allan Poe’s The Raven by the superb Vincent Price I think ( I didn’t listen it yet) and Horror Stars on OTR!: radio lectures of horror and mystery (or suspense) stories read by Boris Karloff, Bela Lugosi, Peter Lorre and Vincent Price.
More Welles: From Zombies to Orson Welles, The Shadow knows, Orson Welles and his early movies, The Mercury Theatre on the Air and Trailers of movies remakes and War of the Worlds.
Update: Datajunkie made a new Orson Welles post "T" is for The Third Man!.