It's Everybody's Business

It's Everybody's Business is an interesting relic from the 1950's when corporations would use cartoons and short live action movies to indoctrinate students in the joys of free enterprise and good corporate citizenship. The message of this particular short is about investing in businesses and how corporations have elevated the standard of living in America. The cartoon starts with a young immigrant in colonial times who starts a hat shop. His need for investors, tallying expenses and fighting off competitors are quickly illustrated before the cartoon jumps to the 1950s to apply those lessons to the modern age. The story (such as it is) and its message are not particularly compelling. However, animation buffs ought to get a kick out of it. Great design makes this cartoon a notch above a lot of the other educational cartoons from its time, and many non-educational ones as well.

MacDonald Carey narrates this cartoon explaining how capitalism works and how the freedoms of the United States operate to make everyone better off ca. 1954.

It's fairly standard conservative economics for the era, with no obvious flaws.... but of course, everything is cleaned up, just as it is when making any point. The remarkable thing about this twenty-minute movie is not what it says, but the apparent hand of Maurice Noble over every frame.

Noble was an innovator best known for his cyclopean and advanced architectural backgrounds, in the style known as "Googly". If you've ever seen DUCK DODGERS IN THE 24th AND A HALF CENTURY, you'll recognize it instantly.