1960 US Navy spot by Bobe Cannon

After Robert “Bobe” Cannon (the genius director of Gerald McBoing Boing) left UPA around 1958, he began to do a lot of commercial freelance. Among the places he worked was Playhouse Pictures, where he directed and animated this :20 second spot for the US Navy featuring a somewhat Thurber-esque cat and dog talking about their owner’s decision to join the Navy.

Despite the bare-bones simplicity of the piece (or perhaps because of it), it’s highly effective and does a great job of communicating the message. The commercial didn’t have much ad agency involvement as far as I can tell. The circular script where the characters repeat one another’s words was written in-house by Chris Jenkyns, who was the primary writer/storyboard artist at Playhouse.