Horse Sense

Story

A farmer takes his horse, harnessed to a wagon, to an animal show and wins the top prize. He receives a large goblet into which a bottle of Guinness beer is poured. This is drunk with relish. When the farmer wants to harness the horse again, it refuses to cooperate. Then it turns out that the beer provides enormous strength. In surprising fashion, the two return home.

Neat serial work

Anyone watching this film will see a neatly made puppet animation. Unmistakably a Joop Geesink's Dollywood production. All the ingredients are there: Carefully made, produced in the famous Technicolour, with a colourful set, striking characters and a proverbial wink at the end of the film. Yet many such productions have been all but forgotten.
Now, in the 21st century, they can be called independent, short works of art. In the mid-1950s period, however, it was a very different experience. For audiences, every puppet advertising film in cinemas (and late on television) was a short party to watch. For the makers at Dollywood, a production like this was a hefty workload. The studio had a huge quarterly output of new films. The makers had to work quickly, i.e. efficiently, to meet the huge production flow. Simultaneously, there was a fairly high standard of quality that the makers themselves set for the films.
Even then, the makers of this production were often anonymous. Unfortunately, not much can be found out about the people who specifically contributed to this film.
Click here for the other film ‘Weight and See’.

Pictured in the audience (centre and lower right) are the lead actors from ‘Franky Fit Does it Again’ - Horse Sense(1955)

Horse Sense (1955)

Trivia

Joop Geesink was able to sell an advertising theme, with which he had previously had success with another client, multiple times. A big advantage for Geesink was that he quickly delivered an idea he knew would be successful. Besides, at this time there was no internet or YouTube. Many advertisers did not know from each other how they offered their products. The distribution area was often only in cinemas. Therefore, it was no problem for creators to re-use previously produced puppets in another film. In this case, two main characters were used for a different beer brand. (Franky Fit Does It Again - 1955), The reason will have been the search for matching puppets, for which an interchangeable puppet head had previously been made, showing a puzzled expression.