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Seven of the one hundred and eighteen films in Jam Handy’s Direct Mass Selling series were Technicolor cartoons resembling the studio animation of the period.

“A Coach for Cinderella”, the first industrial film produced in Technicolor, was the best of Jam Handy’s animations and has been a favorite of animation collectors and historians for years.

Cinderella set a standard for quality to which other American advertising animation would aspire. Indeed, it is rumored that the scene in which birds wrap Cinderella’s gown around the wooden dummy was appropriated by Walt Disney for his own Cinderella. It seems only fair though, as Walt Disney did a version of Cinderella as early as 1922, with his company, Laugh-O-Gram Films, Inc:

Jam Handy films were always exceptional at showing how things work. The achievement here was to break down the parts and features of a Chevrolet automobile into units that could be understood in terms of plant and animal life: caterpillars roll into circles and become automobile tires; in the “visible V-6″ fireflies equal spark plugs and mice provide motive power. The other Technicolor cartoons that Jam Handy produced for Chevrolet (most of them have not been seen in over fifty years) were “A Ride for Cinderella”, “One Bad Knight”, “Peg-Leg Pedro”, “Nicky Nome Rides Again”, “The Princess and the Pauper”, and “Jumping Beans”. Hints in the trade papers suggest that the animation was supervised by Frank Goldman.

Ken Smith notes: This is one of the cartoons produced by Jam Handy for Chevrolet as theatrical shorts — probably the most beautiful industrial cartoons ever made. The story lines in these shorts are mostly reworkings of children’s fairy tales, but they’re are so artfully executed that you won’t mind. In this cartoon, Cinderella looks like a stylish late ’30s flapper and her “finest coach in the land” looks like a Chevrolet. “A Coach For Cinderella” was the first Technicolor sponsored film. Inspired, in part, by George Pal’s advertising films for Philips Petroleum.

-Floyd Bishop