Destination Earth (1956) User Reviews

All kinds of mediocre

[Horst_In_Translation · 4/10 · 16 September 2015]

This is a 13-minute cartoon from roughly 60 years ago. The team of director, writers and voice actors has had very prolific careers, so they certainly posses the necessary experience. Unfortunately, this one here still did not turn out so well. The animation is okay at best, looks even older than the 1960s. The characters' interactions and the educational aspects of this film are neither funny nor really interesting in my opinion. Also, oil and free enterprise are no subjects for small children, so don't show them this cartoon unless you want them fall asleep. The 1950s were already a decade where cartoons declined overall. There are of course some exceptions of short animated films that were really good, but this one here is not among them. Not recommended.

A good time capsule to capture an era but a bad short!

[andman8 · 3/10 · 18 August 2006]

The American Propaganda machine has turned out yet another masterpiece. From the point of view of a martian we learn that oil is the greatest thing ever and American capitalism is the only way to achieve freedom. The leader of the martians is a Hitleresque martian with a 1984 influenced planet, from there the propaganda increases with nationalistic fervor. Also the main character is from the Gomer Pyle school of cliché so be prepared to either A. laugh your ass off or B. shake your head in disgust. By the end of the piece you feel properly indoctrinated but hey the whole short is free on archive.org so there's no money commitment to watch the thing. Bottom line see it once or read the wiki article.

Imagine how much trouble it took to make a film this dull!

[planktonrules · 2/10 · 13 November 2011]

Aesthetically speaking, this is a rather poorly animated film--much like a UPA short like Gerald McBoing-Boing or Mr. Magoo. The backgrounds are very simple and the characters are very simple. As for the story, it's all a lot of propaganda expounding on the wonders of petroleum--just the sort of preachy film kids hated back in the good old days.

It begins on Mars where there is a leader much like Big Brother from "1984". At a huge lecture where everyone is forced to attend, he has one of the planet's astronauts talk about his recent trip to Earth. The green guy talks about the joy of automobiles, oil and gas. Some of the stuff in the film is a bit cute...but most of it comes off as preachy and an obvious advertisement for the oil industry the longer the film progresses. It's incredibly weird when you see it today. Kids back in the 50s must have absolutely dreaded when their teachers showed them this sort of crap.

This Brings Back Memories

[bbrebozo · 7/10 · 6 October 2013]

I was in elementary school in the 1950's, and Destination Earth is exactly the type of corporate-sponsored propaganda that our teacher would pull out of the storage closet and show us, when she hadn't had time to prepare anything else for class, or perhaps just needed a break from us. In those days, we lived on a steady diet of optimism about the U.S.A., its science, technology and freedom, and we knew it would be just a matter of time before we wiped out the Communists. And you know what? I think that was a lot better than the "we're no better than any other country" mentality that seems to be slowly permeating our classrooms today. So I'm giving this cartoon 7 stars, despite the blatant industrially-subsidized public relations spin. Plus I thought it was pretty funny in places, and it told the complex story of how oil is made in a way that was nicely sugar-coated for kids.

Really Bad Propaganda

[Michael_Elliott · 14 November 2011]

Destination Earth (1956)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Poorly done animation film has a martian from Mars being sent to Earth by his leader to try and find out why life in the United States is so wonderful. It turns out the secret is petroleum. This is one of those propaganda shorts from the 50s that was made to show students in school and it's easy to see why there was so many juvenile delinquents like we saw in films like REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE. Yes, I think it's fair to say that a lot of the problems with teens came from being forced to watch trash like this. I'll admit that I love watching some of these "safety" or "message" films from back in the day but this one here is so deadly dull that its 13-minute running time seems to drag on longer than ROOTS. The entire film looks extremely cheap and poor with everything from the backgrounds to the actual characters looking rushed and poorly produced. The lead martian isn't a very entertaining character so going on his journey with him simply wasn't that much fun. The entire propaganda piece on petroleum is just downright boring and sadly it never gets bad enough to where you could laugh at it. I can't imagine anyone making this thing and actually thinking kids would be remotely interesting in anything they're being told. A real dud all around.

Cheap animation done right. Too bad about the propaganda though.

[pscamp01 · 7/10 · 20 April 2018]

I was inspired to write this review because I disagree with nearly every other review written here. I think the people complaining about the cheap animation are missing the point. Low budget animation can be enjoyable if enough wit and design are included in it, and in this regard Destination Earth compares favorably with the UPA cartoons of its era. True, the motion and action are simple and choppy, but the overall design is so inventive that every frame is a joy to look at. And I would argue that the story is more enjoyable than people are giving it credit for. The constraints on a story in a corporate backed educational film are considerable, but the animators managed to create an amusing framing story for the subject. And while it is never laugh out loud funny, it is quietly witty. Sure, any kid would be bored stiff by it, but most fans of old animation will find lots to enjoy.