february 7, 4706

It's Chinese New Year today, Happy Year of the Rat, the most industrious sign in the Chinese zodiac. In tribute, here's an inexplicably Chinese-themed industrial video, circa. 1946. It's a sales film for Fairbanks Studios, a Hollywood house famous for creating hilariously stagy and overdesigned post-war corporate videos. The cast of this one includes a copywriter "whose paycheck isn't very big because his copy has to be toned down before it reaches the printed page" and a film starlet demonstrating time-saving advances for the kitchen like (too bad this didn't catch on) a table that slides handily out of the wall, pre-set with dishes and silverware.

For more industrial-strength goodness, go Internet Archive where you can download Once Upon a Honeymoon, a musical made in 1956 to promote color telephones as a decorator accessory and Brink of Disaster which shows how 1960s activism threatens American moral, religious and ethical principles.

And don't forget to stop by Why Advertising Sucks, where Joker is passing out fortune cookies.