“Apples and Oranges”

"Commercial filmmaking—aka 'sponsored films' or 'business films'—was a ripe industry at the time, offering creative opportunities, and potentially a financial livelihood, for both avant-garde filmmakers and adventurous graphic designers. These commissions gave artists more experimental leeway than conventional Hollywood feature films did, and in return, corporate clients gained the imprimatur of being patrons of the arts, along with vehicles with which to 'soft sell' their products. Desiring a creative foray with a new type of client, Bass used his considerable charm to persuade Lou Dorfsman, art director at CBS Television, to hire him. The resulting “sponsored film” translates a weighty research document into a compelling and playful narrative that pits apples (television commercials) against oranges (magazine ads) to demonstrate the superiority of broadcast advertising. The film, as described by Bass’s biographers Jennifer Bass and Pat Kirkham, 'combines animation with live action, contrasts black and white with vibrant colors, and lets the statistical data of graphs and flowcharts run riot in delightfully sophisticated arrays of numbers and type.' A cartoon private eye represents the 6,000 researchers who gathered the data— a conceit Bass said reflected his sense that such surveys were 'a socially approved kind of spying.' The color shown in these frames at best hints at the original color, which is now lost to time. Knowing that Bass tended to use rich, saturated hues, we can assume these images must have featured bright colors where dull, faded ones now appear."—Louise Sandhaus, Earthquakes, Mudslides, Fires & Riots: California and Graphic Design, 1936-1986, pp 164