Below is a film still and news clipping from a 1958 issue of ART DIRECTION. The brief write-up was part of the magazine’s monthly “What’s New…What’s Best” column, and praises the UPA animated/live-action commercial created for the 1959 launch of Tang, “one of America’s most celebrated chemically created foods.” Not much to say about this one, except that I think the sun design has some great appealing shapes in it. Do any readers out there know if this commercial has ever been released on one of those commercial compilation tapes? And one bit of useless trivia: the article mentions that the jazz theme was composed by Phil Moore, a pianist and studio arranger who was also responsible for composing the music for John Hubley’s short ROOTY TOOT TOOT (1952).
Wat a typically great design. Makes me want to drink some of that awful stuff.
I used to know a lot of 35 and 16mm film collectors, and I can’t believe this commercial doesn’t exist somewhere out there, and is on VHS for sale…admittedly it’s damned hard to find specific things(for example, Sinister Cinema might have a TV commercial compil. with a “Tang” advert listed without detailing which one-and of course you’d wind up with some mid-60s color l/a thing). Have you gone to the TV museum in B. Hills, by any chance? They might be a possibility. Certainly they’d have contemporaneous commercials from rare years, although i’m not sure how well indexed they might be–I think they do a good job. OT, but they have some great original Hirschfeld color/gouache TV Guide paintings there, on the walls. Good luck!
Comment by Jenny — January 5, 2006 @ 3:46 pm