Just imagine - Tommy the Telephone (1947) [colourised]

A short public domain film from 1947 explaining how a rotary telephone works.Show more

Source and description:
https://archive.org/details/JustImag1947

Animated character "Tommy Telephone" produces a telephone by assembling 433 separate parts.

Shotlist
Tommy Telephone materializes out of a telephone company advertisement to produce a telephone by magic. He puts paper slips marked with names of raw materials into a hooper and grinds out 433 telephone parts.

Ken Smith sez: Did you know that a telephone (ca. 1947) has 433 parts? The frustrated on-screen narrator of this film must convey that fact to the audience, but he can't figure out how to do it until he's helped by an animated cartoon character named "Tommy Telephone" (the AT&T advertising spokescreature at that time). This nuttiness apparently wasn't enough for Jam Handy, so the entire second half of this film is devoted to a single-frame animation extravaganza of a telephone -- its parts anthropomorphised -- assembling itself to marching music! Fun!