This film is part of Free

Clock-wise or a Good Start for the Day

Start the day the Andrews way with a strikingly crisp cartoon advertising a Toon tonic in Technicolor.

Advert 1949 2 mins

From the collection of:

Logo for North East Film Archive

Overview

A bold splash of Technicolor and a dose of salts to ward off the teenager in you. This slick cartoon pitch for the famous brand of Andrews Liver Salts, produced by the Bristol-based animation studio of Geoffrey & Mina Johnson after the war, appeals to the kids with bright colours, bold contours and generational humour.

This rediscovered 35mm nitrate print was returned to Tyneside from a cinema in Malaya, still under British colonial rule at the time. It is the earliest known foray into cinema advertising for the Newcastle-based Scott and Turner, who first registered their product in 1909, naming it after a local church in Newgate Street. Along with print campaigns and the Merry Andrews promotional card game, manufacturers Scott and Turner sponsored radio shows and moved into screen advertising from the late 1940s into the boom-time 50s to capitalise on their worldwide market.