1 - Origins

Summary

American television commercials of the 1940s and early 1950s were often simple and presentational. Spokespersons sometimes held up or demonstrated a given product, instructing the audience to purchase the same. Surviving kinescopes reveal that many of these commercials gave limited consideration to mise-en-scène, cinematography, and editing. Many were performed live, an approach that Sponsor magazine endorsed in 1948, believing them to have a lower “fatigue” factor on viewers than repetitions of a filmed commercial. Not unexpectedly, though, live commercials resulted at times in various snafus, as famously parodied on the television sitcom I Love Lucy in 1952, in which the inebriated title character (played by Lucille Ball) touts “Vitameatavegamin” to her broadcast audience.

William F. Baker and George Dessart have noted,

For nearly a decade there would be no way to produce a broadcast-quality recording. Commercials had to be made live. Unable to summon up the grandeur of the Rockies, the allure of Paris, or the kinesthetic of water sports, advertisers were forced to rely on the product and its spokesperson, one of the most notable being Betty Furness.

Many examples could be given, including the 1955 commercial for S.O.S. scouring pads. It consisted of one single shot lasting 148 seconds, during which 269 words were spoken and sung. Looking back on such ads, the Los Angeles Times described them as “absurd product demonstrations.”

In fairness, these comments were hasty generalizations. From the late 1940s, a number of directors shot television commercials on 35mm film; as early as 1947, for example, Filmack of Chicago produced a film commercial for Dodge. Such technology allowed directors to adopt the same possibilities as those employed by feature filmmakers, including the common usage of animation and/or various optical and special effects, ranging from wipe transitions to stop-motion. The trend towards film gained greater momentum as the 1950s progressed. Lincoln Diamant observed:

Once TV commercials became more creatively complicated, the filmed commercial took center stage. With a film camera, your studio was the world. Commercial scenarios were limited only by the copywriter's or art director's imagination.

… The 50s firmly established the era of the film commercial. Its keynote was not low cost, but simplicity, versatility, and control.