Going Places (film #1 on An American Retrospective Through Animation (Moviecraft, 1994). Also in the Ephemeral section of Open Video Project. Also, film #603 on Prelinger Archive). [Category: Industrial]

Little Freddie Futzo, forced to stay indoors and help his mother make soap instead of go fishing, thinks up a better way to make better soap and step by step grows up to be the CEO of Fudso Industries, Inc., a thriving, profit-making corporation. This is shown to be better not just for Freddie, but for everybody, as the profit motive eventually creates utopia in Freddie's cartoon world. This film is a bit less annoying than some of the others on this tape. Some of the points it makes are valid––it just has a rose-colored view of capitalism, where industrial development is always an improvement over what existed before, where savvy consumers are impossible to cheat, where profitable businesses always share the wealth with their employees, and where the free market always quickly thwarts any monopolistic attempts. But then, what did you expect from a corporate-sponsored film? What's interesting is that the animated sequences occassionally contradict the corporate propaganda the narrator is spouting, such as when CEO Freddie (who originally just wanted to go fishing, remember) always gets his attempts to go fishing thwarted by company demands and eventually gets so stressed he becomes a chronic antacid user; or when a police officer––representing the "better police protection" Fudso Industries' property taxes pays for––thwarts a young apple thief, then eats the apple himself. It seems like the animators had a bit more realistic view of things!

Ratings: Camp/Humor Value: **. Weirdness: ***. Historical Interest: *****. Overall Rating: ***.