(Roughly) Daily

Produced at the height of the Cold War [1956], and made at the behest of the American Petroleum Institute (still the biggest lobby for the U.S. oil and gas industry), this great little promotional film from John Sutherland Studios [producer of other such gems as “Rhapsody of Steel,” “A is for Atom,” and “Wise Use of Credit’; c.f. here] champions not only the wonders of oil as might be expected, but also free-market capitalism. The surprisingly humorous cartoon tells the story of how the suspiciously Stalin-like leader of Mars, named Ogg, sends a rather calamity-prone citizen to Earth to find a better power source for his poorly-running “state limousine”. The exploring Martian, of course, lands in the United States and soon discovers the many and myriad delights of petroleum, and that, in contrast to his home planet, competition between companies is rife. His take-home lesson (and one drilled into the viewer on numerous occasions) is that “competing for the customer’s dollar” is key to the success of the oil industry and, of course, the thriving country as a whole. Delivering the news to Ogg back on Mars, the leader replies defiantly that “competition is downright un-Martian”, but the ordinary Martians are not to be deterred and soon rise up to overthrow Ogg and set up a thriving oil industry (and capitalist culture) of their own — the short ending with the slogan “destination unlimited” writ proudly across the screen…

Via Public Domain Review, and the Internet Archive.

* Eric Hoffer

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As we fill ‘er up, we might recall that it was on this date in 1888 that Bertha Benz, wife of inventor Karl Benz made the first motor tour. Without her husband’s knowledge, she borrowed one of his cars and with their teenage sons travelled 180 km to visit relatives for 5 days. She drove her sons, Richard and Eugen, 14 and 15 years old, in Benz’s newly-constructed “Patent Motorwagen” automobile, from Mannheim to Pforzheim– a distance of more than 106 km (66 miles).  She thus became the first person to drive an automobile over more than just a very short distance… and in so doing, brought her husband’s handiwork worldwide attention, securing his company’s first sales.

The Benz Patent-Motorwagen Number 3 of 1886, used by Bertha Benz for the highly publicized first long distance road trip

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