KOOL Penguins

Directed by John Walworth

One of the oddest animated short advertising films ever made is the 1935 Kool Penguins cartoon, produced for Brown and Williamson, a subsidiary of the British American Tobacco Company. The film tells the story of refugee penguins leaving their home under threat of being skinned to go work in the Kool Cigarette factory in Louisville, Kentucky. They almost instantly adapt to their new factory jobs. On their way across the ocean to the U.S., they notice that New York is feeling down in the dumps under a very ‘happy’ sun. By the end of the cartoon, New York is a happy place to be once again, and to top off the evening’s events, the Statue of Liberty even gets a lesson in coolness.