Selling Selling To Salesmen: Film #150 - The Butcher, The Baker and the Ice Cream Maker (ca. 1950)
Viewed May 30, 2006
The Butcher, The Baker and the Ice Cream Maker is quite odd, even for a corporate film. It espouses the virtues of boxed ice cream. That’s right, it’s all about how great it is to have your ice cream available in boxes. Obviously, it was aimed at store owners, trying to get them to move away from fresh ice cream towards the pre-packaged type.
I honestly can’t say how successful it would have been at its goal, but it’s oddly entertaining in its own right. First, it’s wrapped around the phrase “The butcher, the baker and the candlestick maker”. Apparently, these three stalwart merhcants are also members of a singing group, but the candlestick maker is just too busy for the big show they have coming up. So, the butcher and the baker proceed to go around looking for a replacement. The person they ultimately find is the ice cream maker, who not only sells wonderful boxed ice cream items, but has the lovely baritone voice they need.
The transition from comic search for a singer to detailed analysis of the ice cream manufacturing and packaging process is quick, but surprisingly smooth. It feels like a natural part of the story, as if the butcher and baker truly need this information before offering the position in the group to the ice cream maker. It allows for a direct narrative of the two warming up to the ice cream maker and ultimately adding him to the group with a rousing musical ending.
As you may have noted, I’ve been watching a lot of these corporate films (available at archive.org) and The Butcher, The Baker and the Ice Cream Maker is one of the better ones. The music is well performed and the acting and animation is on par with animated films of the day. The manufacturing information is clearly presented and easy to follow (at least I understood it). Since this convergence of entertainment and information is the basic goals of these films, I have to say this one succeeds quite well.