SUPER-ADS LTD

(1929-1931)

SuperAds Ltd was formed in 1929 by Albert Goodman with John Alderson as Studio Manager, to provide animation for advertising films, and the staff consisted of Sid Griffiths & Brian White, Laurie Price, Ian Matheson, Christopher Millett, Dudley Buxton, Jorgen Myller, Charles Stobart (film editor) and Ronnie (Carl) Giles (teaboy, brush washer and trainee inbetweener).

Sid Griffiths had invented a projection device for showing animated advertising displays in shop windows, and was granted a patent in December 1925. A company was set up to manufacture the device, named the Advertiscope, and Albert Goodman, at the time an advertising film salesman, offered his services to them as Sales Manager. It may have been he who suggested they make a larger version for waiting rooms, cinema foyers and other venues where a longer reel of commercials could be shown – the window display version had to have a limited loop of 90 seconds duration to avoid attracting large crowds and causing an obstruction.

Griffiths had been making the long-running series of Jerry the Terrible Tyke cartoons that Pathé had included in their Pathé Pictorial reels, and was now in a position to offer advertisements "in the best cartoon style" to advertisers wishing to use the device, which showed films in a 5:1 banner format that favoured displaying text. Goodman decided to set up a studio that would both service the Advertiscope and produce conventional advertising cartoons for the cinema.

The offices for Super-Ads and Advertiscope Ltd were in Gloucester House, 19 Charing Cross Road, but according to Brian White he and Griffiths were housed on the third floor of Charing Cross House, 29a Charing Cross Road. This might have been studio space they had taken on their own behalf, but it seems more likely that this was where Super-Ads had its studio. Despite Brian White's claim that they worked alone, Danish animator Jorgen Myller has said that he learnt animation from Sid Griffiths, and that he directed the Tiptoe through the Tulips cartoon that Sid and Brian worked on, shown on stage as part of Jack Hylton and his band's show.

The idea of collecting talented animators into one unit to service both advertisers and other production companies, saving them the expence of maintaining in-house animation units, would seem to be a good one, but despite apparently having a reasonably good turnover, it would seem that Super-Ads did not have a sufficiently sound financial basis. The Advertiscope was not a success and Advertiscope Ltd folded. Super-Ads went into voluntary liquidation, closing its doors on Christmas Eve 1931. It was removed from the Register 18 December 1934.

I can find no films credited to Super-Ads – perhaps because they were made for other production companies, more likely because advertising films are more ephemeral than other shorts. In his memoirs Brian White does mention an advert for Pratts Petrol, the Tiptoe through the Tulips cartoon, and also a film, perhaps an advertisement, featuring the comic strip characters Pip, Squeak and Wilfred, who had featured in a series of 26 silent, cut-out animation films by Lancelot Speed back in 1921.

Filmography

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